Building Online Communities with phpBB 2 (Paperback)

~ (Author), Jeremy Rogers (Author), Mike Lothar (Author)
Key Phrases: script work starts, ver directory, gallery avatars, The Dude, Administration Control Panel, Begin Code Addition (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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

• Simple, practical steps to build and customize your own phpBB-powered online community
• Learn from experienced phpBB administrators and enthusiasts to get the most from phpBB
• Full coverage of powerful features including customization, administration and developing your own modifications

In Detail 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. phpBB short-circuits the need for you to be a web development master in order to create and manage massive online communities.
phpBB handles sites of all sizes, the largest known phpBB-powered site on the Internet handles over 1.5 million members and has 191 million posts to the forums!

The book begins with the initial installation and configuration of phpBB on your system, with troubleshooting tips to help you through. You will then go on a tour of phpBB and its features, stepping you through the basic tasks, growing your understanding and familiarizing you with the power of phpBB.

Everybody wants their community to look special, and customizing your forum is the next stop in the book. Beginning with a detailed rundown of styles and themes, you will then see how to customize your forum by first modifying existing styles, adding new elements, and even creating a new style from scratch.

The book then goes onto cover further administration of your community, creating hacks or "modifications" for phpBB, custom PHP programming with phpBB, and reference appendices with more phpBB resources, the phpBB file and directory structure, guides to the BBCode and permission systems, and the phpBB database structure round off this book.

What you will learn from this book? This book will give you the skills to setup your own phpBB-powered discussion forum and online community. You will learn how to create, customize, and manage your own phpBB-powered community.

• Install and configure phpBB
• Learn the basics of working with phpBB forums
• Manage topics, postings, smilies and users
• Understand phpBB themes and styles
• Customize the look of your phpBB site
• Master forum permissions to protect your community
• Create a phpBB theme from scratch
• Creating a phpBB modification
• Packaging and making your modification available to others
• Custom programming of phpBB

Approach

This book takes a practical, hands-on approach to phpBB. Packed with sections stepping you through tasks, this book is the ideal guide to learning phpBB. Reference appendices make this a really comprehensive source.

Who this book is written for?

This book is written by phpBB enthusiasts for new and intermediate users. It's ideal if you are just starting with online communities and want a powerful and free tool, or if you've already started with phpBB and want to take it further. Anyone with a basic knowledge of HTML and a willingness to learn about phpBB will benefit from this book.

From the Publisher

This book will give you the skills to set up your own phpBB-powered discussion forum and conline community:

- install and configure phpBB - manage topics, postings, smilies and users - understand themes and styles - customize your site - master forum permissions - create a your own phpBB themes - extend phpBB by creating your own mods - package and make your mods available to the community - custom programming for phpBB

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (May 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904811132
• ISBN-13: 978-1904811138
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #486,295 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book for beginers and experts., July 6, 2005

By	geocator - See all my reviews

So I went ahead and got this book, just because I am a phpBB fiend. To be honest I was not expecting much out of it. I figured there is not much about phpBB you can write about. However I was pleasantly surprised. This book is a great resource for both the beginner and more advanced users. I learned a couple cool tricks that I did not know before.

For the beginner, it is a great step by step instruction on getting up and running, even explaining how to install MODs and templates. Many of the questions asked in the support forum at phpbb.com are answered in the book, there would be far fewer support posts if people read this book first.

For the more advanced user it is a great reference book. It contains everything you need to know for making a new template. It has a lot of great reference charts like what files do what, and the database structure. It also has a pretty good chapter on custom programing complete with references to many of the variables and functions phpBB makes available.

The only complaint I have is the price. But I feel all computer books are overpriced.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A valuable resource to those building on line communities, December 7, 2005

By	Nik Kapsomenakis "Internet Strategist" (Athens, Greece) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Building on line Communities with phpBB2" is one of the few technical books on its kind that keeps up with what it promises. That is to offer "practical guidance for someone to get the most from phpBB".

The book provides practical examples and hands on advice on issues like installation and configuration, administration, development of themes and styles, creation of MOD's and more.

Beginners with basic technical knowledge will benefit the most since they will be able to start deploying their on line community after the first couple of chapters.

As a teacher and consultant to several businesses and organizations i have found this book to be a valuable resource to anyone aiming to build and grow an on line community

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a beginners book, January 14, 2006

By	LeoinSA (San Antonio) - See all my reviews

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The authors assume the reader has a fairly sophisticated level of general computer knowledge. If you are not comfortable roaming around the directory structure of your computer then this isn't for you.

After that caveat, the authors want you to also download and configure other [free] software that is not directly related to phpbb, but aids in the installation and management of phpbb. If there are problems with this software it is left to you to solve them using any available resources - usually FAQ's and other help files from whence the free software came.

As for the ease of use - The authors needed a good technical author and editor. There are assumptions made that you should know some piece of information that is either left out or glossed over in this text. In my experience, good, complete step-by-step procedures are always spelled out in detail in a beginners book. Not so here.

The index seems to be woefully lacking in detail. Major topics are covered, but you still have to search through individual pages on those topics to find esoteric specifics.

The above criticism notwithstanding, within two hours of the book's delivery I was able to troubleshoot and repair a nagging problem on the board I am setting up.

So the technical information is there, just do not expect this to be a beginners text. It ain't "phpBB for Dummies!"