Suggestions about a custom forum

[Fadion]

Hi guys. I haven't been for a while in this great community.

 

I'm starting to develop a PHP-based forum software that I'm planning to release as Open Source locally (in my country, Albania). I've got a few developers in the team to help me on the core and features. But I wanted to ask for a few suggestions on some specific features. I have a few ideas on them, but you may have better options.

 

1. Forums and topics marked as "read" or "unread" are a nice feature that gives you in a glimpse what has happened. The problem is that I have no good idea on how to implement it. My first thought was to store an array in a cookie with the threads read in the last 10 days (so it doesn't become overloaded) and check those dates with the updated posts. Any idea that could work better?

 

2. I've never handled an "update feature". The idea is to offer an update installation when I will release the software and maintain it. Any idea how to design such a feature?

 

3. Any suggestion on searching (FULL TEXT SEARCH) and caching (DB and Template)?

 

Hope it's not too much a request and you guys can give a few suggestions.