Forums provide a good way of encouraging visitor participation by offering a platform that allows visitors or users discuss issues and engage in conversations in form of messages that are posted.
Forums are completely different form chat rooms. Discussion boards or forums are presented in tree-like or hierarchical structure. Forums contain several subgroups with every subgroup having their own topics.
Every fresh discussion or topic began is referred to as a thread. Any individual is able to post comment or even engage in discussion in the thread.
Below are 5 simple yet helpful forum software developed in java that alters your site from being one dimensional to a fully fledged social site.
JForum
This is among the robust and powerful multithreaded forum software that doesn’t rely on database with a discussion board developed in java. jForum is simple to use because its administrative panel is user friendly making it an effective forum engine which gives you unrestricted forum solutions, email notification, categories, topics and personal messages that provide you immediate update regarding your topics then ranking them using the user rankings. This software has a clean design; as well, its implementation makes JForum simple to extend and customize.
jGossip
This easy forum software is developed on J2EE framework as well as Struts framework. jGossip offers the main forum features that you expect from a simple forum application such as page navigation, user administration, and email notification. This forum software is supported by the main browsers.
JsForum
This forum software is platform independent and relies fully on java since it is developed in servlets and JSP through MVC struts framework. Js Forum features include topics, forums, categories, message and reply, moderators, administrators, user groups, guests and users with everyone having a profile that has avatar, member title, and signature.
nemesis-forum
This discussion board relies on java. Nemesis-forum features include groups/users and permission management system, content filter, post and pre moderation of forum, support for multiple databases and inbuilt search engine.
MVN Forum
This simple to configure and use forum software is developed through open source framework with the bulletin board developed entirely on J2EE framework.
JavaBB
This forum software developed in java has a discussion board that is specifically designed to develop communities. JavaBB features include watch topic, flood control, forum category, customizable CSS layouts, announcements and Sticky posts, locked threads, BBcode, personal messaging system, member list and pagination system among others.