how 2 display threads

[Anon]

I want to write a program like Pforum, but I don't know how to diplay threads like this:

-this is a topic
|-this is reply
||-this is another reply
|-this is a reply
|-this is a reply
|-this is a reply
|-this is another reply

I know how to do this by html tags using <ul><li>, but how do i do it by displaying the icons next to the topics. Is it called tree list?

[mithril]

Not to be unhelpful or anything, but why re-invent the wheel? The Phorum software used by this board, the one at zend.com, etc. is available for free (GPL of course🙂 at www.phorum.org. Installation is relatively simple and forum setup and admin a breeze. There are also several other good forum programs written in PHP which I'm sure a quick search in this site's forum archives or on hotscripts.com will reveal (I can't remember their names off the top of my head). HTH.

geoff