Modern Buddy

Ericalm,

I maintain a phpBB setup for a research group I work with. I'm wondering if you could offer some information on any hacks and modules that you use to enhance the site.

One thing I have noticed is that topics with attachments don't always show that they have attachments. Why is that?

What features would you like to eventually add to the site?

I won't be offended if you take this conversation of the board or even remove it completely if you feel it will compromise security.

Yo, I may be able to assist as well.

I run a phpBB2 board ... I've done TONS of mods over the last year.

Are you running v2 or 3?

if you're still running v2 flavor, the BEST mod we've done is to replace the included CAPTCHA with an improved version. Once that was done, our spambot registrations dropped to ZERO.

second would be the attachments mod

and countless admin interface mods have been done...

if you're concerned about search engines, then there are good mods for removing session ID #'s for guests, dynamic site map generation, RSS feeds, etc.

PM if you have any specific Q's!

I actually didn't set up the forum; it was founded by Jess of ModernVespa, who already had that going in phpBB2. So I know very little about the back end. We still share hosting with MV, so I haven't really done much in the way of modifications. And changes I have made have just been tweaking templates using my limited knowledge.

As traffic on our site and MV is going up, we may have to separate soon. Good to know we have someone around with some phpBB knowledge.

StL_Stadtroller wrote:if you're still running v2 flavor, the BEST mod we've done is to replace the included CAPTCHA with an improved version. Once that was done, our spambot registrations dropped to ZERO.

The best mod I've found for phBB2 was phpBB3

But yeah, version 2's biggest problem became spambots. When it's so popular, it's just a bigger target. But v3's admin options, especially for user management are so much nicer. Though I did have a user management hack on v2 that really helped, but it broke after an upgrade.

I also have a couple vBulletin boards I run and would still take that over phpBB3, but vBulletin isn't free, so that's a big + for phpBB

But yeah, if you're still using v2, I would highly recommend upgrading to v3. Then after you see the new tools available, decide from there what you would like to add.

We're using version 3. Spam isn't a problem as we require an account to post. I also use the attachments module.

I was about to find another solution until version 3 came out. That solved all of my other problems.

Most of my heavy modding has been with xoops. One of my "customers" wanted a comprehensive file uploading and tracking solution. After a couple of tries with some other packages we settled on xoops since it's base package was pretty nice. Then I started just hacking the hell out of it.

Now I'm drooling over Drupal but am too lazy and strapped for time to port my mods over

Thanks for the info. It's always nice to hear what people are doing in reality and not some canned "see who uses our software" link.

Racenut wrote: The best mod I've found for phBB2 was phpBB3

uhg... I tried it out on another forum I was setting up, and really, really hated the admin back-end on it.
I found it really non-intuitive, and confusing especially coming from phpBB2

Plus the canned theme is really aweful to look at, IMO. So you'd have to immediately go find a theme to put on.

Anyway, I just didn't dig it.

StL_Stadtroller wrote:and really, really hated the admin back-end on it.
I found it really non-intuitive, and confusing especially coming from phpBB2

Agreed. Does not flow very well.

StL_Stadtroller wrote:Plus the canned theme is really aweful to look at, IMO. So you'd have to immediately go find a theme to put on.

I spent a TON of time integrating it into our site ... changing colors, creating all new icons, major headaches with width. And now nobody uses it.

English please!

StL_Stadtroller wrote:

Racenut wrote: The best mod I've found for phBB2 was phpBB3

uhg... I tried it out on another forum I was setting up, and really, really hated the admin back-end on it.
I found it really non-intuitive, and confusing especially coming from phpBB2

Plus the canned theme is really aweful to look at, IMO. So you'd have to immediately go find a theme to put on.

Anyway, I just didn't dig it.

Well yeah, because the admin interface on 3 actually has OPTIONS :p I hated the admin for version 2, you couldn't hardly do anything. Any of them take getting used to.

And yeah, the starter theme was lame, but it was lame on version 2 as well. I didn't have any trouble finding v3 themes to use.

But vBulletin still kills phpBB But if you thought the phpBB admin interface was hard to figure out, you wouldn't like vBulletin at all.