Message board software options?

My company is looking for a web based message board that meets some pretty specific criteria. I've set up YaBB, but it didn't provide what they wanted. None of the message board software I've looked at provides what is being requested. My company said they are willing to purchase software if no open source is available. So, here's basically what they are looking for:

A message board system that will:

- automatically email users when any new topics are created.

-allow an admin to verify if a user has actually read topics/messages

-email a user again after 24 hours if they have not read a new topic

-has good search functionality

They basically want to be able to track who is reading company announcements and who is not. I told them that I'm not aware of any solutions that provide this, but I was asked to research it. I know its a long shot, but does anyone know of anything that will fit the bill for this?

I use vbulletin, and I have a plug-in that will let me see who has read a thread within the last however-long-I-set. Changing it is far beyond my ability, but it should be doable to adjust it so that the software babysits it and set up an auto-mail.
Maybe someone else here would know how?

This sounds promising. Can you give me the name of the plug-in? I'd love to check it out.

Have you looked at myBB? www.mybboard.net

It's quite a feature rich board for a free option.

Originally Posted by Harishankar Have you looked at myBB? www.mybboard.net It's quite a feature rich board for a free option.

I haven't, but I will take a look.

I lost my windows files (which explains why I have linux now!), but I believe this is the add-on that I have--- http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showt...+viewed+thread
This one looks like it might be adjustable for your needs, too--- http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showt...+viewed+thread
Sorry, I wish I could be more help, but maybe someone else either here or there could be.

Originally Posted by maggie29 I lost my windows files (which explains why I have linux now!), but I believe this is the add-on that I have--- http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showt...+viewed+thread This one looks like it might be adjustable for your needs, too--- http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showt...+viewed+thread Sorry, I wish I could be more help, but maybe someone else either here or there could be.

Those sound far closer to what we need than anything else I've come across. I'm definitely going to take a really good close look at them. Thank you.

phpBB is a very good forum software that offers much of what you need out of the box. Most of the other functionality is probably available through addons/modules. I reccomend taking a look: http://www.phpbb.com

Thanks scuzzman, I will do that.

I wouldn't recommend phpbb till Olympus is released. phpbb 2.0 is very outdated software.

It's regularly updated I thought. There just hasn't been a major version release in awhile.

Originally Posted by scuzzman It's regularly updated I thought. There just hasn't been a major version release in awhile.

There have been security updates (plenty of them), but no real feature upgrades and such. Also the codebase is quite old. PHP has evolved so much over the last few years and the techniques have changed.

If you take a look at PHPBB's coding, it uses some old techniques dating back to PHP 3 which are not really recommended.