• Registered: 2006-05-12
  • Posts: 28

Topic: Smileys utility

I just did a few searches and was surprised to see no hits on this.

I was recently thinking about putting together a little PHP utility, completely separate from PunBB, that can be used to add, edit and delete smileys.  I would be surprised if nothing like this had been developed already.  Working with smilies can be a bit of a pain.

What I was thinking of was a simple PHP script that would parse the two relevant lines from parser.php and allow an administrator to:

1) edit any smiley, either by changing the text string or uploading a replacement graphic;

2) delete any smiley; or

3) add additional smileys.

Obviously the utility would have to write the changes to parser.php.

You could make it fancy by having the utility access PunBB's database for user information so only, say, PunBB moderators or administrators can login and use the utility.  I would think writing a standalone utility would be a lot easier than modding PunBB for this.

Is there anything like this out there already?

  • From: Leuven, Belgium
  • Registered: 2005-06-14
  • Posts: 2,653

Re: Smileys utility

There's this: http://www.punres.org/viewtopic.php?id=1067
But it's old and quite buggy. I remember there being another one, but can't find it atm hmm

3 Reply by redneck (edited by redneck 2007-11-16 19:13)

  • Registered: 2006-05-12
  • Posts: 28

Re: Smileys utility

elbekko wrote:

There's this: http://www.punres.org/viewtopic.php?id=1067
But it's old and quite buggy. I remember there being another one, but can't find it atm hmm

That's interesting.

I am curious: why do you need to go to the database?  Why not simply edit parser.php?

The only reason I would want to go to the database is to look up the user and user groups table, for access rights.  Maybe the utility would also read PunBB cookies so an admin who is already logged into PunBB doesn't have to log in to the utility.

Again, I think it could be simplified by making it separate from PunBB.

BTW, spent many a drunken night in Leuven.

  • From: Leuven, Belgium
  • Registered: 2005-06-14
  • Posts: 2,653

Re: Smileys utility

Because changing a file can be a problem, it could become corrupt and then what? You're screwed.
Databases allow you to do much more, especially in regard to extensibility. And it's only one query on an existing connection anyway, which is used throughout the whole page.

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: Smileys utility

http://www.punres.org/download.php?id=623
That's 0.5.3
But yes, I agree with Bekko: I even use that mod for PunBB-Hosting (with a slight wrinkle: I wrote a caching system like we use for config, bans, ranks, etc) wink