Ease of Use
- Familiar InstallShield Installation Wizard
- Eloquent Intuitive Design
- Comprehensive Web Based Administration
- Designed from the ground-up for massive performance & scalability
- Customizable data caching (greatly reducing database trips)
- SQL Server parameterized stored procedures, Well designed tables, optimized indexes & fk constraints
- Strongly typed data objects & custom data collections (No heavy, slow System.Data.DataSet)
- Benchmarked paging algorithm supporting hundreds of thousands of pages & millions of records
- Email queuing system, emails are queued and polled in the background at set intervals
- Unique page compression feature (smaller pages, saves overall bandwidth)
- ASP.NET Viewstate is disabled for 99.9% of pages (smaller pages, less serialization)
- 100% compiled, managed .NET assemblies (No COM or other dependences)
- Unique SQL Server based state management (no dependency on the session or application objects)
- Well defined architecture (separate presentation, application & data layers)
- Takes advantage of data caching to minimize database requests
- Object Orientated Architecture
- Implements many best practices (singleton objects, data factory, facade objects, custom data collections)
- Over 40 standard server controls (TextBox, DataGrid, Repeater etc) have custom implementations
- Over 70 custom server controls (PanelBar, SimpleMenu, WYSIWYG, BreadCrumb, etc) can be reused
- Takes advantage of the InstantASP.Common base library and shared InstantASP authentication model
- Enhanced error handling, choose if you want to receive an email for errors or simply log exceptions
- URL Rewriting ensures forum addresses are search engine friendly and easier to remember & type
- Strict XHTML 1.1 W3C validated semantic markup
- CSS 2.1 W3C validated style sheets
- Web 2.0 fluid CSS based layout - no nested tables, screen reader friendly
- Confirms to W3C web accessability guidelines 1.0
- Tested with Internet Explorer 6+, FireFox 2+, Opera 9+
- There are known layout issues with IE8 beta & Safari 3.1 which are working to address
- Integrates with Microsoft® Visual Studio.NET 2003 (or above)
- Intuitive API with intellisense support within Microsoft® Visual Studio.NET
- Fully commented, clean structured code with class reference documentation
- Unique naming convention used for database stored procedures & tables.
- Follows many familiar Microsoft patterns and practices examples
- Full product source code provided with Developer Licenses
- Localize every aspect of the forum (UI, Email Templates, Dictionary)
- Drag & Drop Language Packs (automatically detected, no configuration required)
- Role based permissions provide control over which forums, topics & events are visible
- Unique overrideable "Permission Sets" provide comprehensive control over available features
- Protection on all user input from malicious code (injection attacks, cross-site scripting)
- Ban abusive, problem members or limit their permissions within the forum
- Ban problem IP addresses from any further new registrations or login attempts
- Unique Permission Sets feature offers unrivaled control over board permissions & features
- Over 120 configurable permission set options
- Permission sets can be associated to any member group or overridden when associated to a specific member
- Permission sets can be assigned to member groups within a forum, controlling what a group can access within a specific forum
- Portable skinning model
- Each skin can have a completely unique layout and visual appearance
- Drag and Drop Skins (automatically detected, no configuration required)
- Easily create & edit skins within the admin area
- Assign skins & wrappers globally or to specific forums
- Unique EmotIcon & MessageIcon collections can be associated with each skin
- Wrappers can be used to easily wrap header and footer HTML around any skin
- Takes advantage of the ASP.NET v1.1 MasterPages implementation
- Unlimited number of forums, sub-forums, groups, events, posts & polls
- Only forums associated with the visitors current member groups will be accessible
- RSS feeds available for all forums
- Redirect Forums for linking to external information
- Subscribe to forums and receive email notifications of new posts
- Track read forums and topics within the database
- Optional admin defined forum notes, for providing information within forums
- Each forum can be customized using a unique skin or wrapper
- Support for Closed forums (no new posts)
- Auto-complete username textbox making it very easy to send private messages
- Define default sort preferences and display options for each forum
- Optionally exclude forums from searches
- Recent and popular posts options within main navigation
- Easily sort forums or groups within the admin area
- Easily propagate member group, skin or wrapper changes to all child forums
- Each member group can have a unique permission set within any specific forum
- Flat and threaded topic views
- Rate topics within forums
- RSS feeds available for all topics within each forum
- Printer friendly versions of topics
- Support for nested quoted replies
- Posts can be reported to the forum admin or any available forum moderators
- Members can edit or delete existing posts based on admin defined permissions
- Subscribe to topics and receive email notifications of new replies
- Email topics to other forum members or external email addresses
- Message icons can be associated with posts
- Single or multiple choice polls
- Administrators or moderators can easily close polls
- Graphical view of poll results with total vote count
- Familiar Word® like, WYSIWYG editor or standard IFCode editor (based on browser or permission settings)
- Multi-lingual spell checker with ability to preview post before submitting
- Upload images from you hard-drive directly into posts using the WYSIWYG editor
- Multiple attachments supported per post, configurable attachment types and upload permissions
- Expand or collapse posting area when working with posts, have this remembered for next time
- Admin defined permissions control what members can post, ie IFCode, Images, HTML, JavaScript, EmotIcons & more...
- Optional SQL Server Full-Text Search (both FreeTextTable & ContainsTable are supported)
- Boolean or natural language searches with inflectional (drive = drove) and relevance ranking
- Keyword highlighting, Highly optimized TSQL & full-text search queries
- Ability for admin to define ignored search terms and maximum search string length
- Limit the number of possible search results for each member group or a specific member
- Search flood control for each member group or a specific member
- Display search results as topics or posts
- Single Day, Ranged and Recurring Events
- Monthly and Weekly calendar views
- Define colors for events on the calendar to easily identify important events
- Ability to control show or hide events for certain member groups
- Optionally birthdays displayed on calendar
- RSS feed of all latest events posted to the Calendar
- Comprehensive dedicated control panel for each member
- Assign members a primary group and multiple secondary groups (controlling which content is visible)
- Assign a dedicated permission set to any member to override any other permission set
- Define permission sets for member groups or a specific member (controlling which features are available)
- Members activity displayed throughout forum (optional anonymous login feature for members)
- Easily configure which member group new members or member awaiting activation should be placed into
- Ability to define custom member level tags and / or images for each member group or a specific member
- Easily activate any members awaiting approval within the admin area
- Members can customize board language, skin, time zone, daylight saving time & many other options
- Personal Avatar, Signature & Profile Photograph
- Fully searchable, sort-able members list with ability to restrict access
- Who's On list displays anonymous and registered visitors with current board activity
- Private messaging with attachments between members
- RSS feed for each private message folder showing latest posts
- Send private messages to multiple recipients
- Organize and store private messages within custom folders
- Buddy and ignore list for private messages
- Private message storage limit defined within permission sets
- Ability to limit access to private message features or option to completely disable
- Easily configure registration mode (Automated, Confirmation Email or Admin Approval)
- Configure default member groups for new members or member awaiting activation
- Optional COPPA support during registration
- Optional Terms & Conditions during registration
- Username or email-address can be specified as primary login detail
- Implements ASP.NET forms authentication with encrypted authentication ticket
- Well designed, documented reusable authentication model
- Support for moderated or un-moderated forums
- Assign members as moderators to specific forums
- Comprehensive control over features available to moderators within each forum
- Inline post approval for moderators (see how a post relates within the thread)
- Inline Ajax based topic editing within forum indexes, no need for post backs
- Easily bulk Move posts from one forum to another
- Easily bulk open / close topics within a forum
- Easily bulk pin / unpin topics within a forum
- Easily bulk delete topics & posts within a forum
- Moderators can optionally close Polls
- Easily enforce or bypass moderation for any member group or specific member
- Edits are optionally tracked & logged
- Optional email confirmations during moderation process
- Comprehensive control over every aspect of the forum (over 600 admin options)
- Manage Forums, Categories, Members, Groups, Application Settings, Skins, Attachments & much more
- Bulk email or private message forum members, refine mailing list with various search filters
- Edit over 20 optimization options to further enhance performance for very active boards
- Scheduled Tasks allow custom server-side code to run at scheduled intervals (automatically prune messages etc)
- Easily recount topics, posts, forum, members or private messages if you manually import or change any data
- Ability to execute TSQL statements against the database or shrink the transaction log & indexes if required
- Preview & delete emails sent from the board waiting within the email queue
- General diagnostics information & database table statistics
- Simple to understand, low cost licensing
- 90 days guaranteed ticket based support via our My.InstantASP customer portal
- Unlimited online support
- Comprehensive installation & product documentation

