The Active Forums idea sounds like a good solution but I have one last question. The premise of the site is for people who love bikes to come in and upload photos and reviews of their favorite rides. They can also come in and upload photos and reviews of any adventure vacations they have taken. While I realized the importance of a good forum section I didnt realize the inadequecies of the DNN forum module when I thought of the site. So for people to upload a bike or trip they need to be logged in to the website. In order for them to utilize the Active Forums would they be able to utilize their existing ID and password and essentially stay logged in? I would hate for them to have to log in with a different ID and password to post on the forums. In fact if that would be the case I would just keep dealing with the DNN forum and possibly strip it down a bit.

Yes Activeforums is a proper DNN module and makes full use of portal security. There are better forums available elsewhere, but not for DNN. Activeforums is really the only choice.

Image uploading is completely unworkable with the core forum.. no resizing and file management. AF does this aspect very well, allowing you to set a limit on size and number of images.

There really is no choice about it I'm afraid... but at least there's a good option in the choice.

Rob

There would be three things to consider

1. Installing the module is IT work
   This depends on your hosting and portal management scenario.. it sounds like you didn't build your portal or set up the hosting etc. If you didnt' then ask the person who did how much it would cost to just install a module. To do this properly requires a proper backup and restore procedure and although it can be as simple as uploading the module via the DNN host account, I would never let anyone do so on the portals I maintain, simply because the risk of failure is fairly high and you have to be able tobackup and restore, set permissions, mess with files on the server, and do anything else that might possibly come up. Your IT guy has a legitimate purpose.. at least he should have. If you have full reigns of your entire system then you'll have to sort all those things out yourself before attempting this - do you want to be an IT guy or do you want to run a website . Expect an hour or two of work for the IT person to do the installation safely.
   You'll be wanting to use new modules in any case now and then, so sort this procedure out sooner rather than later.
2. Configuring the module is Admin work
   If you have DNN Admin access (can you see the Admin menu when signed in), or page editing access (can you place modules on pages), then you can look at the module user guide and configure it yourself. The Active Forums site has a forum as well and you can get any help there if needed. This is well within your abilities given that you've managed to find your way here to get help.
3. transferring posts from core forum to active forum
   There is a tool and a forum at the AF site for dealing with transfers. Have a look at that and see what is involved - it is best left to the IT person as it will require the same risk mitigation steps as installing the module in the first place. If you don't have a lot of posts, then I suggest just forgetting about the old forum when the new one is ready. It'll save some messing around.

Rob