PhpBB

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{{Infobox Software | name = phpBB | logo = Image:Logo phpBB med.gif | screenshot = Image:PhpBB2-defaultinst.png | caption = A default installation of phpBB 2.0.x | developer = The phpBB Group | latest_release_version = 2.0.20 | latest_release_date = April 7, 2006 | platform = Web / PHP / SQL | genre = Forum software | license = GPL | website = www.phpbb.com }}Template:Lowercase phpBB is a popular free and open source forum system written in the PHP programming language; the name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of "PHP Bulletin Board".

Some of phpBB's strengths are:

  • A templated style system intended to allow easy customisation.
  • Support for internationalisation; 61 translations are available as of 2006. <ref>[1] phpBB translation pack downloads</ref> Supporters of phpBB may claim that phpBB has the most translations available of any web-based forum software.
  • Compatibility with multiple database management systems.
  • A large community of users providing free support and customisations.

Contents

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History

phpBB was started by James Atkinson as a simple UBB-like forum for his own website on June 17, 2000. Nathan Codding and John Abela (both now former team members) joined the development team after phpBB went into SourceForge CVS, and work on 1.0.0 began. A fully-functional, pre-release version of phpBB was ready by July 1, 2000.

phpBB 1.0.0 was released on December 9, 2000, with subsequent improvements to the 1.x codebase coming in two more major installments. The final release in the 1.x line was phpBB 1.4.4, released on November 6, 2001. During the lifetime of the 1.x series, Bart van Bragt, Paul S. Owen (former co-manager of the project), Johnathan Haase (now a former team member) and Frank Feingold joined the team.

phpBB 2.0.x was begun on February 17, 2001. It was developed entirely from scratch; the developer's ambitions for phpBB had outgrown the original codebase. Doug Kelly (now a former team member) joined the team shortly afterwards. After a year of development and extensive testing, phpBB 2.0.0, dubbed the "Super Furry" version, was released on April 4, 2002 (three days later than intended). <ref>phpBB forum post covering history from 2000–2002</ref>

In December 2004, a large number of Web sites were defaced by the Santy worm, which used vulnerabilities in outdated versions of phpBB to overwrite PHP and HTML pages.

The latest release in the 2.0.x line is 2.0.20 ("Golden Super Furry Linen"), on April 7, 2006. Releases in the 2.0.x line are restricted to bug and security fixes only. Currently, 2.0.x is the only line for which support is given.

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Future versions

With the new 2.0.x codebase in a stable state, the development team, now led by Meik Sievertsen, has begun building upon and altering the codebase to produce "Olympus"; when it reaches production quality, it will be released as 3.0.0. The improvements in "Olympus" to date are comparable with the improvements between 1.4.x and 2.0.x. It was originally planned to be released as 2.2.0; however, since 2.1.x eliminated virtually all compatibility with the 2.0.x line, the version number for release was changed to 3.0.0, in keeping with the Linux kernel version numbering scheme. <ref>phpBB 2.2 is no more ... meet Olympus from the phpBB community forums</ref>

It is not known for sure what features (in addition to those from the 2.0.x versions) will be available with 3.0.0; no new feature requests are being accepted, but development is ongoing. A summary of many features implemented as of May 2003 exists <ref>A summary of phpBB 3.0 (development) features included by May 2003</ref>, with another more concise summary <ref>A concise summary of phpBB 3.0 (development) features included in April 2003</ref> dating from April of 2003. It is possible that not all of these features will make it to the final version, and that others will be added. The addition of new developers to the phpBB team has increased <ref>phpBB CVS statistics</ref> the pace of development from a long lull.

On March 19, 2006, the development team opened a public bug tracker for the CVS version, saying that phpBB 3 is "nearing its initial beta release" <ref>[Olympus/phpBB3] Opening the Bug Tracker, phpBB official forums, last accessed on March 20, 2006.</ref>.

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Technology

Multiple database systems are supported via an abstraction layer. These are: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, Microsoft Access and, with modification <ref>HOWTO: phpBB with Oracle</ref>, Oracle. The phpBB database abstraction layer primarily handles API differences; peculiarities in SQL syntax are dealt with by the application on a per-query basis.

Abstraction is also applied to the way phpBB presents data to users. Layout is seperated from the application code, and defined with templates. Templates, which contain markup as well as variables and blocks, are compiled by phpBB into PHP code and executed. This can be an intensive process; phpBB is distributed with an optional system to cache the compiled templates. Templates typically do not contain text from a specific language. Localised text is contained in language "packs", which contain lists of strings to be substituted into templates as variables. These strings often contain format specifiers, enabling the order of application-supplied variables within each piece of text to be customised.

Recent versions of phpBB 2.0 require PHP version 4.0.3 or above. When initially released, phpBB 2.0 included support for both PHP 3 and PHP 4; subsequent releases have dropped PHP 3 support in favour of easier maintenance. Support is not given <ref>http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=211009 phpBB statement regarding PHP5</ref> for the use of phpBB in conjunction with PHP 5, although the phpBB developers have altered the code to function more properly in such environments.

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MODs

MOD, in the context of phpBB, is an abbreviation referring to code modifications created by the phpBB community. The term is capitalised to distinguish modifications from forum moderators. Modifications referred to in this manner are not authored by the phpBB developers, and do not enjoy the same level of support as unmodified official code. The phpBB team accept modifications from community sources for validation, and modifications which meet the standards of the phpBB "MOD team" are made available for download from the phpBB site. Other sites also provide modifications, both validated to their own standards and unvalidated.

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References

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External links

Official sites

Other sites

es:PhpBB fr:PhpBB ko:PhpBB it:PhpBB he:PhpBB lv:PhpBB lt:Phpbb nl:PhpBB ja:PhpBB no:PhpBB pl:PhpBB pt:PhpBB ru:PhpBB sv:PhpBB th:PhpBB zh:PhpBB

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