Building Online Communities with phpBB 2
A practical guide to creating and maintaining online discussion forums with phpBB, the leading free open source PHP/MySQL-based bulletin board  
 

Packt Publishing


 

HOME > CHAPTER 4
Chapter 4: Customizing Your Forum
Now that you have installed phpBB and gained some experience with the Administration Control Panel, you are ready to begin altering some more advanced aspects of the forum's appearance and features. Changing these areas of phpBB will be essential for giving your forum a unique identity that stands out among online forums. The appearance of a forum is mainly controlled by phpBB's styling system, which manages the colors, images, and visual layout of the forum. Features can be added, removed, or altered by installing modification scripts downloaded from phpBB-related websites.

By the end of this chapter, you will have learned about:

  • The basics of a phpBB 2.0 style

  • Correct methods of editing phpBB files

  • How to add and remove styles

  • Common style installation problems

  • Ways to customize a style

  • The benefits of creating and altering styles

  • Methods of changing forum images

  • How to add new forum features

  • Chapter 4: Customizing Your Forum


    • Preview Chapter 4 HTML | PDF [236KB]
     
    • 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

     
    BOOK DETAILS
      Paperback, 360 pages
    Released: May 2005
    ISBN: 1904811132
    Authors: Stoyan
    Stefanov, Jeremy
    Rogers, Mike Lothar           		 
     

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Introduction
    1: Introduction to phpBB
    2: Installing and Configuring phpBB
    3: A Quick Tour of phpBB
    4: Customizing Your Forum Free Chapter
    5: Forum Administration
    6: Creating Your Own Template
    7: Creating a New MOD
    8: Programming phpBB
    Appendix A: Directory Structure
    Appendix B: phpBB Resources
    Appendix C: phpBB Code and Permission Cheatsheets
    Appendix D: phpBB Database Structure
    Index
     




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