Building Online Communities with phpBB: A practical guide to creating and maintaining online discussion forums with phpBB, the leading free open source PHP/MySQL-based bulletin board

Cover Page
Foreword
Table of Contents
Introduction
	What This Book Covers
	What You Need for Using This Book
	Conventions
	Reader Feedback
	Customer Support
		Downloading the Example Code for the Book
		Errata
		Questions
Chapter 1: Introduction to phpBB
	Online Communities
	Building the Community—The Tools
	The Name
	The Environment
	Why phpBB?
	History
	Development
	Example phpBB Sites
		A Standard phpBB Layout
		Standard Sites with Different Templates
		Sites with Standard Style and Modified Features
		Modified phpBB Installations with Custom Templates
		GaiaOnline
	Summary
Chapter 2: Installing and Configuring phpBB
	Pre-Installation
		Requirements
		The Attack Plan
		Finishing Pre-Install Touch—The Database
		phpBB Pre-Installation Checklist
	Installation
		Troubleshooting the Installation
	Post-Installation Tasks
	Security Tips
	Finding Help
	Summary
Chapter 3: A Quick Tour of phpBB
	Visitor Experience
		Overview
		Registration
			Step 1
			Step 2
			Step 3
		Logging In
		Editing Your Profile
		Posting
			Anatomy of a Posting
			Replying
			Starting a New Topic
			Formatting a Posting
			Editing a Posting
			Deleting a Posting
		Searching
		Sending and Receiving Private Messages (PM)
		Voting in Polls
		Staying Current with the Topics
		Viewing Information about Other Users
			Memberlist
			Usergroups
			Who Is Online
	Moderator Experience
		Managing Postings
			Editing and Deleting
			Editing the First Posting in a Topic
			Viewing Poster's IP Address
		Managing Topics
			Deleting, Locking, and Unlocking Topics
			Moving Topics
			Splitting Topics
			Doing It All Together—The Moderator Control Panel
	Administrator Experience
		Administration Panel Overview
		Forum Admin
			Forum Management
			Who Can Do What—Setting Up Forum Permissions
			Pruning
		Systems Administration Using General Admin Options
			Configuration
			Database Backup and Restore
			Mass E-Mail
			Smilies
			Filtering Words Using Word Censors
		Introduction to User Management
			Editing User Profiles
			Deleting Users
			Permissions
			Banning Users
			Disallowing Users
	Summary
Chapter 4: Customizing Your Forum
	phpBB Styles
	Structure of a Style
		Style Elements
		Style Storage
	Editing phpBB Files
	Installing a New Style
		Creating a Copy Style
		Installing One Element at a Time
		Troubleshooting
			Style Does Not Appear in Administration
			Configuration File Cannot Be Opened
		Removing an Installed Style
	Create or Customize
	Customizing Through the Stylesheet
		Editing the Stylesheet in the Admin Panel
			Editing Other Theme Components
			Allowed Values
			Commonly Used and Altered Elements
		Changing CSS Styles to Change the Look of Your Site
			Using External Stylesheets
	Customizing through Images
		Installing New Images to Change the Look of Your Site
	Hacking phpBB
		MODs and Hacks
		phpBB Modification
		Installing a Modification
			Installing a Downloaded Modification
			The Copy Action
			The SQL Action and Editing the Database
			The Open Action
			The Find Action
			The Addition Actions
			The In-Line Actions
			The Last Action
			The Trouble with Templates
			Uninstalling Modifications
		Example Modifications
		Moving Elements
		Adding New Elements to Your Forum
			Adding New Languages
	Summary
Chapter 5: Forum Administration
	Making Your Board Multi-Lingual
	Avatars: Enabling and Configuring
	Managing Smilies
		Smilies' Properties
		Smilies Administration Panel
		Editing or Deleting a Smilie
		Adding New Smilies
		Adding Smilies with a .pak File
		Creating a .pak File
		Assigning Ranks
	Understanding Forum Permissions
		Permission Types and Permission Levels
			Simple and Advanced Mode of Setting Permissions
	Understanding User Permissions
	Usergroups and Group Permissions
		Group Permissions
	Second Look into Database Backups and Restore
		Using phpMyAdmin
		Using MySQL Command-Line Tools
	The Board's Human Side: Flamewars and Banning
Chapter 6: Creating Your Own Template
	Sketching the Layout
	TPL Stands for Template
	Making Your Template Folder
	Editors for .tpl Documents
	Ready, Set, Go!
		Adding the Banner Image
		Adding a Menu
	CSS
	Modifying the Forum Index in index_body.tpl
	Modifying the Forum Body in viewforum_body.tpl
		Fixing the Size of the Jump Menu
	And the Story Continues
		agreement.tpl
			bbcode.tpl
			confirm_body.tpl
			error_body.tpl
			faq_body.tpl
			forumIE.css
			groupcp_info_body.tpl
			groupcp_pending_info.tpl
			groupcp_user_body.tpl
			index.htm
			index_body.tpl
			jumpbox.tpl
			login_body.tpl
			memberlist_body.tpl
			message_body.tpl
			modcp_body.tpl
			modcp_move.tpl
			modcp_split.tpl
			modcp_viewip.tpl
			subSilver.tpl
			subSilver.css
			overall_footer.tpl
			overall_header.tpl
			posting_body.tpl
			posting_poll_body.tpl
			posting_preview.tpl
			posting_smilies.tpl
			posting_topic_review.tpl
			privmsgs_body.tpl
			privmsgs_popup.tpl
			privmsgs_preview.tpl
			privmsgs_read_body.tpl
			profile_add_body.tpl
			profile_avatar_gallery.tpl
			profile_send_email.tpl
			profile_send_pass.tpl
			profile_view_body.tpl
			search_body.tpl
			search_results_posts.tpl
			search_results_topics.tpl
			search_username.tpl
			simple_footer.tpl
			simple_header.tpl
			theme_info.cfg
			viewforum_body.tpl
			viewonline_body.tpl
			viewtopic_body.tpl
			viewtopic_poll_ballot.tpl
			viewtopic_poll_result.tpl
		The Admin Folder
	Icons and Images
	Final Touches
	Summary
Chapter 7: Creating a New MOD
	Introduction to MODs and Hacks
	Before You Begin
		Building Your Skillset
		The Right Tools for the Job
	Creating a Simple MOD: A New BBCode Tag
		Step 1—Determine Your Goal
		Step 2—Plan Your Database Changes
		Step 3—Choose Your Files
		Step 4—File Editing and Creation
			Pros and Cons of the Strike BBCode Methods
		Step 5—Break It and Fix It
	Make Your MOD Accessible to the World
		Packaging Your MOD
			Using the MOD Template Header
			Creating the List of Actions
			Using Other Actions
			Adding the MOD Template Footer
			The Completed Instruction File
			Creating a ZIP File
		Submitting Your Modification
	Summary
Chapter 8: Programming phpBB
	Hello phpBB World!
	Working with the Database
		Database Abstraction
		Database Abstraction Working
		Using the phpBB Database Abstraction Layer
			Option 1
			Option 2
			Option 3
	Using phpBB Messages
	Using phpBB's Multi-Language System
	Using phpBB Templates
		A Simple Example
		Using Loops in phpBB Templates
		Using Conditions in phpBB Templates
	User Authentication
		Using the Authentication Function
		Checking for Poll-Creation Privileges
	Tips and Tricks
		Miscellaneous Functions
			Getting Board Statistics
			Retrieving User Information
			Encoding and Decoding IP Addresses
			Displaying Dates
			Getting a List of Censored Words
			Preserving the Session in the Hyperlinks
			IN_PHPBB
		Postings-Related Functions
			Create Links Automatically
			Processing Smilies
			Displaying a Posting Body
		Coding Guidelines
	Recent Postings MOD
		The Challenge
		The Template
		The Code
	Summary
Appendix A: Directory Structure
	Required Directories
		The Root Directory
			extension.inc
			common.php
			config.php
		Administration Files
		Database Abstraction Layer Files
			Included Files
		Installation Files
		Language Packs
		Template Storage
	Optional Directories
		Cached Pages
		phpBB Documentation
		Images
	Other Directories of Note
		Contributed Extras
		Modification Files
Appendix B: phpBB Resources
	phpBB.com—Documentation and Support
	MODs and Styles
	Programming
	Other Sites of Interest
Appendix C: phpBB Code and Permission Cheatsheets
	BBCode Cheatsheet
		Formatting
		Lists
		Quotes and Code Snippets
		Inserting Images and Links
	Permissions Cheatsheet
		Permission Types
		Permission Levels
		Simple Mode Permissions
Appendix D: phpBB Database Structure
	phpbb_auth_access
	phpbb_banlist
	phpbb_categories
	phpbb_config
	phpbb_confirm
	phpbb_disallow
	phpbb_forum_prune
	phpbb_forums
	phpbb_groups
	phpbb_posts
	phpbb_posts_text
	phpbb_privmsgs
	phpbb_privmsgs_text
	phpbb_ranks
	phpbb_search_results
	phpbb_search_wordlist
	phpbb_search_wordmatch
	phpbb_sessions
	phpbb_smilies
	phpbb_themes
	phpbb_themes_name
	phpbb_topics
	phpbb_topics_watch
	phpbb_user_group
	phpbb_users
	phpbb_vote_desc
	phpbb_vote_results
	phpbb_vote_voters
	phpbb_words
Index