Book Image

phpBB: A User Guide

Book Image

phpBB: A User Guide

Overview of this book

phpBB is a free, open source Internet community application, with outstanding discussion forums and membership management. Written in the PHP scripting language, and making use of the popular MySQL database, phpBB is a standard among web hosting companies throughout the world, and is one of the most widely-used bulletin board packages in the world. This book is an abridged version of "Building Online Forums with phpBB 2", (ISBN 1904811132), focusing on a complete set of topics to help you set up and run your own phpBB-powered online community. This book gives you the power to use phpBB to set up and run your own online discussion forums with ease. It takes you through the whole process of setting up your phpBB site, and helps you create, customize, and manage your own online community with phpBB. Written by experienced phpBB administrators and enthusiasts, the emphasis is on simple and practical guidance for you to get the most from phpBB. Packed with step-by-step examples, this book is your ideal guide to learning phpBB.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)

Why phpBB?


Why should you pick phpBB from all the options you have to choose from? Well, since you’re reading this book, chances are you’ve already made up your mind, so let me just give you a few hints about how to deal with this fellow webmaster friend of yours that’s running vBulletin, Phorum, or another type of system.

  • phpBB is free. And it seems like it’s going to stay this way. There have already been offers from companies to buy phpBB, but those were refused.

  • phpBB is one of the most popular forum software. All those webmasters out there cannot be wrong. Continued usage of phpBB to power their web communities is their best testimonial.

  • People know phpBB. Being so popular, it’s very likely that your visitors have seen and used it already. They don’t have to learn an entirely new system, and can start posting at once, feeling comfortable in a known environment.

  • phpBB is mature. It has been around for more than four years of active and heavy use, which in Internet terms is a pretty long period.

  • phpBB is feature rich and is open for custom feature additions. You can code your own custom features or you can use one or more of the numerous phpBB add-ons, also known as MODs or hacks, contributed by the community of phpBB users.

  • phpBB’s looks are customizable. You can easily change fonts and colors. You can even change the layout or use an existing layout contributed by other phpBB users.