|
PHPBB2: All It Can Be?
by: Matthew C. Keegan
Please allow me to start off and say that I am very happy
to run PHP software on my computer. Specifically, the bulletin
boards developed by PHPBB2 [an open source program] works
head and shoulders above the EZBoard system I gave up on several
months earlier. Still, it has its own special challenges that
only a regular user or administrator can appreciate. If you
are considering starting your own message board community
please read on for some homespun advice on how to make PHPBB2
work best for you.
On Memorial Day 2005 I had a rude awakening. Although a national
holiday here in the U.S. I was taking advantage of that day
to catch up on some much needed behind the scenes work. You
see, when you work for yourself a holiday just isn’t the same
thing. It ends up being a day where your phone isn’t likely
to ring all that much, thereby making it a better opportunity
to catch up on all the little niggling details of operating
a business, like paying bills and bookkeeping. Okay, I digress.
What happened on that special day was the total overthrow
of the EZBoard message board system. Hackers, so EZBoard claimed,
infiltrated their entire system and brought down the house.
Literally overnight thousands of boards were affected and
compromised. Now for the rub: forum managers, myself included,
had no power to back up their sites. Thus, what was lost was
likely lost for good or would take many weeks to restore from
pasted together backups. We depended on EZBoard for our back
ups and when their system failed we all suffered.
So then the decision was made for me. I downloaded PHPBB2
software a few days later and immediately went to work.
As open source programs go the PHPBB2 software was free and
the instructions were quite good. Fortunately for me the two
sites that I planned to set up, the Aviation Employment Board
and the Corporate Flight Attendant Community, already had
separate web pages hosted with a company that could support
a database. This particular MySQL database would essentially
power the site and house important stuff including all the
member information.
Fortunately those who have been working on building, maintaining,
and promoting PHPBB have a copious amount of detailed information
accessible right online and available for viewing and/or downloading.
Personally, the biggest help to me were the excellently made
Flash videos that helped walk me through the installation
process. Without them in place, I doubt I would have figured
it all out. Truly, in this case, a picture is worth a thousand
words each!
In addition to the software itself, PHPBB2 also offers a
separate file to help speed the process conversion process
from EZBoard to PHPBB2. This EZBoard converter takes messages
from the old board and transfers them to the new board. Unfortunately,
it was only partially successful which could have been due
to the hacked nature of the EZBoard site. Still, what I was
able to move over was helpful, but it did not include member
files as that bit of necessary information was under EZBoard’s
lock and key.
By the time I downloaded everything, followed all the instructions,
converted what I could from EZBoard, laid out the new site,
and made some additional design changes, approximately eight
hours had flown past. At the end of that time a useful and
functioning board was in place. The next day I contacted all
my current EZBoard members and told them about the switch
and put notices on the old site about the change. Most of
my members were very understanding as they realized that the
switch had to be made.
Without exception PHPBB2 has been a big improvement. Still,
it could use some refining and, happily, many of those refinements
are routinely accomplished within regular updates of the software
or via preselected “mods” that a forum manager can select.
Without belaboring the point here are some things that I
have observed about PHPBB2 that are helpful to know about
before going with the software:
Limited Support There is a lot of information right online
to read and there are forums moderated by volunteers. At the
same time the moderators are stretched very thin and sometimes
their responses border on the irritated. Of course, that could
have something to do with all the N00B questions, many of
which are answered somewhere on the site. My recommendation
is that you spend plenty of time reading before posting a
question. Study the forum for similar questions asked and
answers given.
Difficult Updates Get on the forum managers mailing list
to ensure that you receive notification of each update as
they are made. Some updates are simple while others are more
difficult. If you make any modifications to your site then
only a “patch” update is necessary while everyone else will
select “changed files only.” If you select “changed files
only” and you have some mods installed, you risk losing all
of your mods. Let’s just say that already has happened to
me once!
AOL Quirks Some members have difficulty signing up, especially
AOL account holders. It seems to be that the confirmation
code doesn’t always show up when members register [you don’t
need to have it enabled, but it does put a halt to rogue registrants]
and sometimes AOL users get booted when logged on. A little
thing called “sessions” monitors everyone’s visits by examining
their I.P. address for a match. Of course, AOL scrambles I.P.
addresses mid-session, a reason for much of the booting. The
fix involved from a PHPBB2 standpoint is not recommended as
it puts you at risk for security breaches. Quite frankly,
I have urged some members to leave AOL especially if they
can’t work around it on their end.
Back Ups The administration panel is simple to use, but back
ups don’t always work. Errors messages prevail; therefore
backing up through your web host is another option. Speaking
of the administration panel, you can select whether members
can email each other [not a good thing to have enabled], how
long their signature can be, enable automatic pruning of posts,
and lots more. Indeed, the features offered by PHPBB2 far
exceed the limitations that are inherent with EZBoard.
There are alternative forums to PHPBB2 and one popular one
is another PHP program called vBulletin. vBulletin utilizes
excellent forum software that takes off where PHPBB2 leaves
off. Many of the modifications that are not part of PHPBB2
are standard with vBulletin, therefore removing some of the
behind the scenes tasks that a webmaster must do with PHPBB2
in order to customize his site.
So, why not go with vBulletin? For many it is simply the
cost. With vBulletin, you can lease a license for $85 for
one year or buy a license for $160. Access to updates after
the first year costs another $30 per year while custom support
can run from $30 for one month up to $300 for one year. Thus,
if you have a small forum that makes little or no money, and
you need extra special assistance, than vBulletin can be a
big expense to carry. Other paid forums have similar expenses,
but there are some free ones out there. For the record, EZBoard
isn’t free, although the start up cost is very low. However,
your renewal fee is calculated on the amount of bandwidth
used in the most recent thirty day period and for some forum
managers that amount could easily be several hundreds to well
over one thousand dollars!
So then, why go with PHPBB2? Well, language packs to name
a big reason. Besides English forums, an additional 59 languages
are supported by this open source code! From Afrikaans to
Vietnamese, Arabic to Russian, and from French to German,
PHPBB2 is available in many native languages. For people of
very limited means this has become an excellent way to communicate
for no capital outlay. One gets the sense that PHPBB2 is very
proud of this fact and I must admit that I am too!
As I write this I am in the midst of updating my two sites
to the latest release. Because it is near the Christmas season
I am also looking at several themed templates for my flight
attendant site and have selected a “Merry Christmas” board
replete with drifting down snowflakes. This template, which
looks so professionally done, is free as well.
I plan on sticking with PHPBB2, quirks and all, by continuing
to support our growing community of forum managers worldwide.
Each of us, in our own way, has helped to shape this all important
piece of open source software. It certainly isn’t perfect,
but it definitely has been a lot of fun and has helped me
to increase my knowledge as well as to appreciate the whole
open source movement.
Hardware, Programming, Software
|
Advertise
Here 
