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)

Hacking phpBB


Altering the look of your forum is only one aspect of customizations that you can perform with phpBB. For some interesting changes, you’ll most likely want to add some completely new features to your forum. You may also want to remove some features that you do not plan to use. To add new features, remove existing features, or otherwise alter the abilities of a phpBB forum, you will have to edit the code of the PHP script files that are the heart of phpBB. You may also need to edit or add new template files to the styles installed on a forum, as well. The process of making these kinds of changes is called modifying or hacking phpBB.

MODs and Hacks

There are many sets of instructions for altering phpBB’s features available at online phpBB communities. Such downloads may include step-by-step instructions for altering core phpBB files or the SQL database, adding new forum files, or any combination of those three categories. These downloads are commonly called MODs or Hacks. Hack...