• Registered: 2004-03-03
  • Posts: 12

Topic: So PunBB is now on my website

http://forums.journalintime.info/

This is a french forum. So the forums are for now a little empty but in few days I convert messages from my old forum (from http://www.journalintime.com/forum/ ) to PunBB. for this I have wrote a conversion script that will be released here if you like.

So, why PunBB? It's light, it's fast, it's cool.

I have done some mods on my PunBB:
- Checks the size of the avatar after copying it in img/avatars directory because my PHP have open_basedir restriction and PunBB wasn't able to open the temporary file.
- Modification of template to be much more compliant with my design attitude (xHTML/CSS2), and I hope that PunBB will have a strict xHTML version in near future, cause tables design isn't easy to customize.
- The footer has been changed.
- Adding a function in profile.php to set style with a GET call: profile.php?action=set_style&id=2&style=Lithium for example.

And I think in near future to implement to PunBB of having simple URLs like /Categorie/Forum/Post (in example for this post: /PunBB/ShowOff/SoPunBBIsNowOnMyWebsite). See also http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

So PunBB is good and cool but could be better if it was in xHTML smile

bohwaz's Website

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: So PunBB is now on my website

bohwaz wrote:

http://forums.journalintime.info/

This is a french forum. So the forums are for now a little empty but in few days I convert messages from my old forum (from http://www.journalintime.com/forum/ ) to PunBB. for this I have wrote a conversion script that will be released here if you like.

Very nice! Releasing the converter here sounds like an excellent idea. BTW, what forum software is that?

bohwaz wrote:

- Checks the size of the avatar after copying it in img/avatars directory because my PHP have open_basedir restriction and PunBB wasn't able to open the temporary file.

This has been reported earlier and is on the TODO list for PunBB 1.2.

bohwaz wrote:

- Modification of template to be much more compliant with my design attitude (xHTML/CSS2), and I hope that PunBB will have a strict xHTML version in near future, cause tables design isn't easy to customize.

Full migration from tables to a completely XHTML/CSS based design will probably not happen until PunBB 2 (or whatever version). However, PunBB will be XHTML transitional compliant in PunBB 1.2.

bohwaz wrote:

And I think in near future to implement to PunBB of having simple URLs like /Categorie/Forum/Post (in example for this post: /PunBB/ShowOff/SoPunBBIsNowOnMyWebsite). See also http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

That's actually not up to PunBB. It's only a matter of adding some rewrite rules to your apache configuration file.

bohwaz wrote:

So PunBB is good and cool but could be better if it was in xHTML :)

Yeah, I know. We're working on it :)

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

  • Registered: 2004-03-03
  • Posts: 12

Re: So PunBB is now on my website

Rickard wrote:

Very nice! Releasing the converter here sounds like an excellent idea. BTW, what forum software is that?

My own forum soft smile
http://www.tilt.eu.org/pretextes/forum.php3

So it's light and HTML 4 valid and has same functions of PunBB but not user registration and profile and is for little forums (only one forum, not categories). It's not so popular but it could be useful for others smile

Rickard wrote:

Full migration from tables to a completely XHTML/CSS based design will probably not happen until PunBB 2 (or whatever version). However, PunBB will be XHTML transitional compliant in PunBB 1.2.

So xHTML transitional is a good start smile Cool, PunBB is defintly good smile

Rickard wrote:

That's actually not up to PunBB. It's only a matter of adding some rewrite rules to your apache configuration file.

So that's not only rewrite rules 'cause we have to convert from topic title to topic ID to get the good topic. And if the post title change, the URL don't have to change to keep links up.

Thanks for your answer and sorry for my english smile

bohwaz's Website

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: So PunBB is now on my website

bohwaz wrote:

My own forum soft :)
http://www.tilt.eu.org/pretextes/forum.php3

So it's light and HTML 4 valid and has same functions of PunBB but not user registration and profile and is for little forums (only one forum, not categories). It's not so popular but it could be useful for others :)

Ah, cool.

bohwaz wrote:
Rickard wrote:

That's actually not up to PunBB. It's only a matter of adding some rewrite rules to your apache configuration file.

So that's not only rewrite rules 'cause we have to convert from topic title to topic ID to get the good topic. And if the post title change, the URL don't have to change to keep links up.

Aha, now I know what you mean. I really can't see the advantage of such a thing though. Then again, I never really understood what good the mod_rewrite thing did either.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

5 Reply by bohwaz (edited by bohwaz 2005-01-09 03:46)

  • Registered: 2004-03-03
  • Posts: 12

Re: So PunBB is now on my website

Installed PunBB 1.2 (precedent version was 1.1.1 er well not updated since long now).

New design from scratch. Some new features to PunBB for custom needs:
- Cool URLs don't change: forums URLs are like /forum-19, topics like /sujet-783, etc. Using Apache Rewrite Rules and modified PunBB to use new URLs (URLs are editable through config.php). Also for new posts (+nouveau is appended to URL instead of &action=new) and for pages (+page appended instead of &p=)
- Corrected function paginate for Cool URLs and to having old URLs still work
- Link on title
- Can add personal links to menu, using an array in config.php
- First hierarchy link name in viewforum and viewtopic changed to parent category name.

1.2 is definetely great smile

bohwaz's Website

  • Registered: 2005-01-08
  • Posts: 6

Re: So PunBB is now on my website

Aha, now I know what you mean. I really can't see the advantage of such a thing though. Then again, I never really understood what good the mod_rewrite thing did either.

Search engines won't spider pages with an "id" variable set in the query string (it ignores them because it assumes a session ID which apparently causes problems).

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: So PunBB is now on my website

KelliShaver: Just to prove you wrong, I googled for "punbb spider" (without the quotes) and the first result I got back was:http://punbb.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=29015

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

  • Registered: 2005-01-08
  • Posts: 6

Re: So PunBB is now on my website

Yep, "pid" is fine, "id" however, won't get crawled. So no, you  don't really need mod_rewrite get rid of all query strings in order to have SE friendly URL's (that's a myth), you just need to use a variable name other than "id." I think mod_rewrite is more advantageous when it comes to creating URL's that people can remember and understand, rather than ones that search engines can crawl, since it's really kind of rare that there will be one they can't.

I don't t hink it's necessary for a forum, really, but I suppose that if you had a large one that used "?id=whatever" all over the place, then it might make a difference in your PR (by giving you more indedexable pages) if you rewrite all of the URL's.

Sorry, was in a rush yesterday and didn't fully think about what I was writing. smile

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: So PunBB is now on my website

No. "id" works just fine as well. For example, a search for "punbb changelog" returns http://punbb.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=735

The problem with query strings is not related to the name of any of the variables, it's the composition of the string itself. Mainly the length and if it contains what looks like a session ID. E.g. 370a082f62b0e2ac570953a2e2c85e53.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

  • Connorhd
  • Connorhd
  • Former PunBB Developer
  • Offline
  • From: Leeds, UK
  • Registered: 2004-06-13
  • Posts: 4,195

Re: So PunBB is now on my website

what does cause a problem with search engines is a session id, this causes the pages to appear to be different every time they visit and give you a bad rank, we just had a big discussion on this so i know what i'm talking about

FluxBB.
Connorhd.co.uk.

Connorhd's Website

  • Registered: 2005-01-08
  • Posts: 6

Re: So PunBB is now on my website

Ohh, OK, so it's not the "id" variable, it's the actual value of that variable (when it's a query string) that causes problems. Sorry for the confusion. smile  I have either been reading poorly written articles or interpreting well written ones poorly.