326

(12 replies, posted in Feature requests)

Wait for 1.3, and write an extension.

PunBB: Agora deflaten.

Probably the best one for the smallest amount of people around to understand ^^

On these, nothing more to add, elbekko covered it quite well.

One thing thought : don't over-mod your PunBB 1.2.x install, since 1.3 is coming along (might be weeks or month, but still) and it will be a major change (for the best, 1.3 has almost everything we might want on it, and still is light and fast).

329

(4 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

I haven't seen any real security issue in production in PunBB in over 2 years.

330

(6 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

If you need any text at all, better use utf-8.

331

(6 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

There's a "big" version coming up, in the next weeks or months: 1.3.

But you can install 1.2.14 right now without troubles, and upgrade later. If you have some basic technical skills, I would recommend setting it up directly for utf-8. It will induce some very, very minors glitches, but it will ease the move to 1.3 especially if you wouldn't use latin1.

332

(1 replies, posted in General discussion)

Seems like very old things and some pretty basic facts, nothing even close to being new here.

333

(6 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

1.3 is not ready yet to be beta tested. Don't worry, when the test is open, we will crash unto it like vultures on a mad cow.

If yo use PunBB's code, it has to be GPL too. That means, among other things, that if you distribute your application, you have to distribute the sources too, and right to edit and redistribute them.

335

(95 replies, posted in News)

If your host require 777 for it to work, then ok.

It's only not recommended when a lower setting would work, and you set up the highest one possible.

Basically, it depend if your host use suexec or not, PHP as a cgi or a module, things like that.

redchef wrote:

will the punBB software manage user accounts, etc? How about things like emailing and being subscribed to a topic? does that require an additional program?

That will be handled by the host setup. Usually (I don't know any host that doesn't deliver this, but hey, anything is possible) he'll provide PHP with a sendmail-like program.

Bottom lline: on 99.99% of the host, you won't have to do anything, PunBB will use whatever is there.

That's another reason why to use a host well known, and widely use by people around here. If they can do it, you can; and if something goes wrong, they can help or give pointers.

That's in fact quite simple.

First, you need a web hosting. That hosting need to provide you with a decent PHP support, a MySQL base. Depending on what you want to do, where you (and your readers) are, you certainly have numerous hosting options.

In the US, you can probably try Dreamhost (other will confirm/deny it here; I have thoroughly tested only one US host and I won't recommend it). In Western Europe, OVH. If you're not sure, start with the smallest, cheapest plan you can find on a reliable, reputable, host. If need be, you will be able to upgrade in the future.

With that web hosting, you'll probably need a domain name. That's the domain.com, or .net, or whatever. Choose the one you want, and buy it from a good, reputable registrar (they sell domain name) ; if possible choose a hosting company that is also a registrar. Simpler for you. In Western Europe, OVH again.. in the US, I don't know. If you buy both at the same company, they will offer you to link one to another, without technical configuration from your part. Some host provide you with free name, like yoursite.TheHostingCompany.com or something like that. If you're unsure of your webmaster future or experience, try that, it will save a little money and you can always change it later with a real domain name. Oh another thing, check that you will be the *sole real owner* of your domain name. If you want to leave your registrar or hosting company, you'll need this (and since you pay for it, it should be yours anyway).

Overall, cheap hosting plan and a regular (like .net, .org, etc.) domain name, that should be around 20? a year. If you don't have specific needs or a lot of readers, you won't need to pay more than that (well, up to 40? maybe, but in that price range anyhow); on the other hand, choose a recommended-by people knowing their stuff, as always don't believe the random guy on the web-hosting/registrar company, even if they are slightly more expensive. The cheapest of the cheapest is usually not a good idea (even with a "professionnal" home page and pictures of yummy brunettes with headphones, you'll end up hosted in a old pentium in a wet garage, monitored a couple of hours a week by a high school boy...).

Once you pay for that, they will give you several technical data: your FTP login (used to upload files onto your web server) and password, your MySQL server, database and user name, and password. You'll need all of that.

Download from the main PunBB page the last version, and open the documentation about Install. Upload the content of the /upload directory on your webserver, by FTP. if you want your forums to be accessible at www.yourdomain.com, upload the whole thing at the root of your webserver (some hosting have a www/ or similar directory to put web files into). If you want your forum to be accessible at www.yourdomain.com/forums/, create a /forums directory in the root, and upload in that directory, and so on.

Then, just follow the documentation, it should go smoothly, if not we are here smile

Edit : for the technical requirement, I would strongly suggest a hosting company that provide with this (for PunBB) : PHP 4.3 or greater, MySQL 4.1 or greater, Apache, URL rewriting allowed. This will make the uses of the next version of PunBB (1.3) much easier/smoother/nicer, or even feasible at all.

338

(16 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

As confirmed, works in FF 2 and IE6, of course. To test in exotic ones, you might want to post this on a *nix PHP dev list, or a exotic (Amiga, handheld, etc.) dev ML to have people test it.

The http header supersede the html meta tag. However, being in the source of the html, help some people debug things, confirm it's unicode, etc. However, if that's trigger a bug (I'm interested by the way, I've never heard such a thing, and Wikipedia doesn't seems to have that issue) it most certainly can be lost.

339

(95 replies, posted in News)

pierito wrote:

you mean that for this repertory "cache" read/write is for "owner" and also for "public" and "group" !

It is strange. It is strange i have to change this repertory in 777, as he was in 755 and before my forum always work good.

It depend on the settings and configuration of your hosting. On most (if not all) host using Apache, suexec and PHP as a CGI, 777 is not necessary (sometimes even not recommended at all), 755 should do it.

340

(16 replies, posted in General discussion)

naitkris wrote:

indeed. PunBB though, once mod'd enough and customised, can suit 90% of people's needs i think. there will also always be people who just prefer everything working straight out of the box and no extra work needed

Or some (rare I give you that) times, this is not possible or convenient. It's quite hard to demonstrate to a client how PunBB is 2~3K? superior to IPB or vB for example wink

And being ultra fast and light on the server is quite good, but in some cases it's not relevant until way, way down the road. To take my current client's example, until I have to go to the MySQL cluster replication and hardware cluster for Apache frontend, I'm happy (and it needs quite a busy forum to bring down a full modern dedicated Apache server and a dedicated MySQL server; and at that point hire a dev to write extension to the fully tested PunBB 1.3 and write the needed extensions, and convert to it, that won't be an financial issue).

can you explain these two to me? advanced moderation - what is extra here over current PunBB moderating (and with Move Post mod)? also real multigroup support with granularity compared to PunBB w/ Multigroup mod?

Some example :

- split and merge threads, if possible with a good UI and automated follow-up
- warning moderation system
- semi auto or auto archive system
- undelete system (hide "deleted" threads or posts, but not really delete them)
- multigroup granularity: A is a moderator, belong to moderator group, so he has access to the ModeratorForum. But he is also a member of the RedHead group, so he also has access to the RedHeadForum.
- moderation log

And remember that for some project, you can't blindly rely on amateur mods. I won't install a complex mod on a PunBB install until I've tested it live for several weeks/months, or if it's written by someone I trust. And again, hiring a good dev to audit a mod, isn't cheap when you have to do so for 10 or so.

hcgtv wrote:

When I chose PunBB over anything else, and I've tried just about everything, it was for it's lightness.

Me, it was for having a strict DTD, with intelligent use of tables, and validating. Next to that, being light and fast, both on the server and on the user. And of course, being under GPL.

341

(4 replies, posted in Programming)

Thanks for the parsing order note, I can call it at the end, not an issue. Mostly, I wanted (if possible) to have one script that effects everything I want, without calling it each time (hence not bloating my html code). And thx for the code.

342

(16 replies, posted in General discussion)

naitkris wrote:

indeed, phpBB is very good, but of the main bloated forum applications out there - phpBB, vBulletin, MyBB, etc. i'd rank MyBB top spot with phpBB in close second. vBulletin is over-rated and the most bloated of them all - it seems preferred by many as it is commercial and people perhaps think that this means it is the best hands down - which is not true. if you need lots of support and someone to hold your hand then vBulletin is king. it is not faster or more robust than other forums either - it just is the "Coca Cola" brand of the forum world - everyone knows it and it costs more, but at least you look "cool", right?
from my limited experience with running forums, nothing beats PunBB for speed, valid standards, easy to install, easy to mod, and easy to integrate and tweak to any site out there. the last point is particularly important - the bigger forum applications mentioned above are much harder than PunBB to integrate to a site and usually this means that the forum is the site which is a pity for many sites were the forum is meant as an extension of the site rather than the focus.

To a point, yes. But I have a client right now for example that needs (really needs, not because they told me so, but because I told them so) several features like advanced moderation, real multigroup support with granularity, infinite subforums, to quote some of the key ones. When you have to fill that need, PunBB is out the door quite fast, and I haven't seen something quite good on the other FLOSS forum software. That leave the two big ones. And it's cheaper too, since custom PHP job to mod PunBB for a few weeks (since 1.3 is zeroing in) isn't cheap, at all.

There isn't the right tool for every job out there, but for some scenarios, the mammoths are the least worse of them all.

343

(16 replies, posted in General discussion)

With the past of PhpBB, I wouldn't give much hope or faith on them. I use PunBB everywhere myself, unless there's some key features missing and then I go for the heavy weight IPB or VB?but that's only for a couple commercial clients, and hopefully by the end of the year PunBB 1.3 and its extensions would be out and proven stable and scalable enough to be used everywhere.

344

(40 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

Strange to give up punres, PunRessources was good enough.

Well, Kristoffer will let us know wink

345

(13 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

PunBB 1.2.x is valid XHTML 1.0 Strict. But validation isn't everything, it's just a syntax checker, there's semantic and good practices to do beside basic validation. As far as I can tell (I haven't checked it deeply in the accessibility area), PunBB isn't doing bad on both account, and certainly way better than any other board out there.

346

(4 replies, posted in Programming)

Not exactly what I was looking for, but I will look into it, thanks.

Hosting means servers, human management, internet pipes, electricity, cooling, space, and so on. Someone has to pay for it, if it's not you you will probably in the end pay for it one way or another.

If it's only for PunBB, check out: http://www.punbb-hosting.com/

348

(51 replies, posted in News)

shirish wrote:

That's exactly why I was saying what I was saying, as per the tickets u showed me its only 26 items which are remaining. Of course how complex they are is anybody's guess, what I was saying is there might be features which are in progress (not fully implemented) so one does get an approximation both for developers as well as users as how things are moving smile Just my 2 coins smile

That could require almost more work than actually coding the feature itself smile

349

(51 replies, posted in News)

Well, that's doesn't include our (as in "public") tickets for the things the dev team didn't think of (some of them will probably be discared, but still). The actual list may be bigger.

350

(4 replies, posted in Programming)

Is there a javascript coder around here? I'm looking for a little twingie, and I can't get a clean good tutorial to work sad

This what I want to do: in the page header, I call to a javascript function. This function needs to: first collapse the XHTML elements (identified by their's XHTML's class, specified in the script), then insert an image or text buttonish link that will toggle (on/off) the collapse.

So I would have a :

<h3>some header</h3>
<ul class="plom">
<li>blabla</li>
<li>blabla</li>
</ul>
<p>some text</p>

So the whole unordered list is collapse with an UA with javascript enabled, and a button is inserted to toggle the collapse. If an UA has no javascript, nothing happen, the xhtml code stays clean.

I'm sure it's quite simple but...

Anyone got an idea?