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miniBB / Complete User and Administration GuideVersion 2.0 RC2b Mar 18, 2005.Copyright (c) 2001-2005 miniBB.net Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
miniBB (an abbreviation of "minimalist bulletin board") is a flat-type (not threaded) bulletin board, discussion forums software, written in PHP and using mySQL or another PHP-compatible database as data backend. "Mini" doesn't mean "nothing". Specially developed for small and medium forum communities, which have less than 100 unique posts per day, miniBB also could be used in large projects. If you take a look at miniBB settings file, or this manual, you'll find a lot of options, both for users and administrator, which allow full and in-time control over the board. This guide refers to almost all miniBB features and possibilities. It is created both for user and administrator, and is included in miniBB package as "default" FAQ. You can use this manual as basic user FAQ for your page under GNU Free Documentation License described below. If you are using this guide as FAQ in your forums, remove all administration and developers guide, described in "Installation", "Customization", "Administrative options" and "Some notes for developers" sections. Usual users should read about this possibilities. Some options described in this manual requires basic HTML and PHP knowledge. If you are on beginner-user level, study it very carefully. Remember: nobody is able to let you understand, but somebody could give you chance in it. There are no special requirements about server type, OS, PHP or mySQL version. Every system that supports PHP/mySQL combination, should also support miniBB. We've got reports that miniBB was successfully up & running on Unix, Linux, Windows, Novell, MacOSX servers, with Apache or IIS installed. As about PHP or database version, we recommend to use ONLY FINAL and STABLE versions of these products. Before installing miniBB, be sure you have PHP installed on your server, and you have mySQL host, login and password information which you'll need to put into configuration file. miniBB is a GPL project (read more on Free Software Foundation about GPL License), and you can copy/distribute/modify all scripts under terms of GPL. You may edit every file you get (incl. templates, CSS, language pack, plugins, addons, scripts), of course, replace our logo, maybe edit the menu on the top, also as put your own keywords and description in main heading file, but YOU MAY NOT remove our original copyright link string from the template "main_footer.html" (even you may edit it's look or location) and offer miniBB as "your" product or part of website, if you are using free GPL License, according to the sections 1 and 2c of this License. For removing the link and/or any copyright information, you need to buy miniBB commercial license. Read more about technical support on our site. If you want to integrate miniBB into your own software, there are two ways of doing that: a) distributing your software for free with corresponding license, you should mention miniBB's authors copyright UNTOUCHED inside every script, and you can do that without any persmission from us, since GPL license covers that; b) distributing your software commercially, you should either to keep all miniBB copyright notices as in free software case, but if you want to remove all references to us, we need to sign special commercial agreement, which is discussed individually. InstallationFor correct working, miniBB needs to have the following file & folders structure: [IMG] [LANG] [TEMPLATES] bb_admin.php bb_codes.php bb_cookie.php bb_default_style.css bb_func_checkusr.php bb_func_confpwd.php bb_func_delmsg.php bb_func_deltopic.php bb_func_editmsg.php bb_func_editprf.php bb_func_forums.php bb_func_inslng.php bb_func_ldisc.php bb_func_locktop.php bb_func_login.php bb_func_man.php bb_func_movetpc.php bb_func_pthread.php bb_func_ptopic.php bb_func_regusr.php bb_func_search.php bb_func_sendpwd.php bb_func_stats.php bb_func_sticky.php bb_func_txt.php bb_func_unsub.php bb_func_usernfo.php bb_func_usrdat.php bb_func_vforum.php bb_func_viewip.php bb_func_vthread.php bb_func_vtopic.php bb_functions.php bb_plugins.php bb_specials.php COPYING index.php setup_mysql.php (or whatever you module is) setup_options.php Optionally, there can be also install files and modules for different databases. [IMG], [LANG], and [TEMPLATES] are system directories. It is forbidden to rename them. They mean:
Read more about this below. Other files means following:
Begin installation of miniBB is very simple. You need to create some database on your SQL server (f.e., "miniBB") with this command: create database miniBB; Then unpack your minibb zip package somewhere on your disk. Find the file called "setup_options.php". This is your main setup file. All engine is based on it. Open options file with some plain text editor on your computer. Edit your php files with a quality text editor! We recommend Metapad, or simply Notepad, because these editors are not storing additional newlines, spaces or breaks before
Set very correctly mysql user name, password, host and database. According to user privileges, it must be SUPER-USER, which can also create tables (if you will create them from the web via install from browser). So, stop now if you're done. We did enough for setup. Next step - you need to create structure of your database. Transfer all files via FTP or local network to some place on your server. Use quality FTP manager to do that! We recommend Total Commander; however, the main purpose is that you should store all files as their are originally, not broken or binary-converted. In the main directory, You will find _install.php file and, for mySQL for example, _install_mysql.sql file. "Sql" file is actually your dump. If you have capabilities to make database from SQL-shell, you can run it and insert all tables manually - but we do not recommend it, this is only for real professionals who are knowing what they do. Run from your browser the _install.php file, it will create all tables according to their names in setup_options.php and insert all necessary values. Usually, it takes 1-2 seconds. First screen will welcome you to enter setup. Click on "continue". If everything you typed in options file is correct, script will make all necessary tables described in .sql file. If not, pay attention to your config. After "OK", you can start building your community! Easy, isn't it? But first, DELETE the _install.php file, also as ALL .sql files from directory. We don't need them anymore. miniBB engine is using cookies for registered users and admin log in. PHP sessions could be used optionally, but we don't recommend it because of weak search engine mechanisms on sessions. Please refer to "logging" section for more info. So, turn on cookies in your browser for that stuff. Do a login to your admin page. Usually is "bb_admin.php", but since your are renamed this file (did you?..), only you know what is admin panel URL. So, go to that panel, and probably you will be prompted for your admin login and password. Enter them, and you must go into admin panel. If the trouble appears and you're not able to login, double check your cookie path, domain and name, probably change them and, on IIS servers, try to uncomment "$metaLocation" option (see below). There you will see a bunch of options for your miniBB forums. We will describe them later, but now we need to create some forums. So, click on "Add forum" link and... follow instructions on the screen! We guess, it will be very easy to create some forums. Our system HAS NO subcategories and possibility to sort forum titles by categories. Possibly because that is really not necessary for some site's medium forum. Let's look at many sites: usually they have 5-6 forum titles, and they are splitted by 2-3 categories. It's more a question of usability: user perceives the information, only if it is given by simple methods. Complicated categorization is not the best solution. Another side of this question is: "I have so many forums, so they look on the first page like a pack of garbage, that's why I need to categorize them." This is a question of forum policy - and we don't recommend you to create more than 10 thematical forums for 1 site. Usually, 5-6 is REALLY ENOUGH. More forums are scaring users, and incorrectly strong categorization is decreasing board's popularity. Bulletin Board is a place where users can fast and simply post questions and get answers, and it is very bad, if users don't know WHERE to post their message, because in this case they are simply turning out. So, before creating forums, REALLY THINK OUT their structure and minimize forums count as strong as possible. Also, we don't recommend to give forums "large names". Be as laconic as possible. First, it is more rememberable, second, large names do not fit in topics or threads listing pages. When you enter miniBB as administrator, you are also logged in as simple user. You can make posts under your name, edit other posts, make deletions etc. We'll talk about it later. Only one: by default, you should also see "admin panel" link beneath every page. And you can automatically reach your panel following this link. CustomizationAt this moment, your miniBB should be running already! Go to index.php and check this. But, there is a lot of other options that probably you want to change. Let's refer to setup_options.php again. Note for PHP newbies: //$a='b'; string actually means nothing, and this setting will not work in any case, because this statement is COMMENTED (two slashes before). Removing slashes means UNCOMMENT or ENABLE this setting. For changing setting, change its content between apostrophes (''). Numerical settings may also not contain apostrophes.
That's all, folks! We did the advanced miniBB setup. After that, your forums will work according to your needs and preferencec. But, you need to do something corresponding to your page's design, didn't you? So, let's go to the next level. Templates are used to separate HTML code from PHP. They are located in "templates" directory and are usual HTML files (or TXT files - if we talk about email templates). If you don't like our templates, you can change them or design yours. It is important to save all variables (they look like usual PHP "variable variables": {$...}) like shown. Template parser turns every of this variables in its VALUE, giving necessary results. We don't recommend editing templates with WYSIWYG editors. Try to work with "clear" code, since all PHP variables included in templates will not work in HTML separately. We hope, that it will be enough for you to use any kind of simple text editor with our templates: they are very clean and tide, "hand-made". We tried to make all templates compliant to W3C recommendations. We can't guarantee, that they will work as 100% W3C standart works, but they look the same in different browsers. If you decide to change templates, you need to refer to the miniBB logic in building them. We hope, all templates names are pretty clear to understand, what they mean. Also, try to leave ALL the variables inside the templates as they shown, else we are not responsible for anything. Most templates are used in different operations (that's why we call this "mini-BB ). F.e., user_dataform.html is used both for registering new user and editing user preferences, main_post_form.html is used on all posts, topics and editing pages. It is necessary to pay attention to email templates (begins with "email_" and ends with ".txt"). They have special format: first line of every template should contain SUBJECT<<...>> line, with some text instead of "...". As you understand, between "SUBJECT<<" and ">>" there is subject of email. Don't remove this line, else you emails will be garbled! In main_header.html, you will find page title as <title>$title</title>. Don't worry about your forums will containing the same title on each page. Title is changing dynamically according to the page, f.e., on topic page it becomes topic name, and on topic lists it becomes forum name. This is very smart feature for search indexers (like Google or AllTheWeb for example) to INDEX your forum, since these engines are working mostly with page titles. Also, that's why we recommend to think about "right" forum names: as more simple they will be, as better. In this case, also don't forget to include (or change) META-tags in header. There is possibility to make a custom template and call it from the script. For example, you need to create separate page before user registration (agreement): you can add any custom template, which is not included in miniBB. Design your template as usual (all script pre-defined variables also work), put it in "/templates" directory and call from the script like: index.php?action=tpl&tplName=custom_template where tplName is a name for your created template (in this case, "custom_template.html"). In that way you can also create stuff like "Most loved topics and answers" with the direct list of topics, any FAQs, manuals, description pages, agreements etc., etc., as like as the WHOLE site! ;) For international (non-english) users, we offer "language packs" feature. You can find them on our downloads page. If you have not found a pack for your language, you can fill it yourself and sent it to us. This way, you'll help many users from your country. Language packs can be found in "lang" directory. Usually, only "eng.php" pack is included for default english language on the board. Language pack name is changed in options file. Language pack simply contains PHP variables with their values. Note for editors: use ` instead of ' in the sentences, or use slashed apostrophe \'. Technically, it is better to use apostrophes (' ') instead of quotes (" "), because of the engine's speed increase. We hope, it is pretty simple to understand, what's going on inside of language pack, if you want to change it :). Despite, there are some notes more:
Other variables are in assorting order. While working on miniBB, we have added them in "order of appearance". Just one more thing: if you will see a string like "Language variables miniBB vX.X", it means that, variables following this string are added or changed for corresponding version. If we add more features, we will also add variables, and for better finding they will be added in another section. Language packs describe ALL language used in board, incl. admin panel. Administrator can disable multilanguage feature. For this:
This prevents users to change language. Even if they type direct www language link, they will be re-adressed to the main page. Important: language pack's filename can have only of 3 letters (examples: eng.php, alb.php, rus.php). If you have multilanguage forum, it would be a good idea to create many manuals on each language. By default, only manual_eng.html is included. If there is no manual for user's language, empty page will be displayed. CSS (cascading style sheet named bb_default_style.css) is designed to fit all font colors, table borders and sizes on the page in one file. It is included only once in main_header.html. It is W3C compliant. You can edit it as you wish, to fit your forums design to your page's design. In our download section, you will find some free examples of another styles/skins. Even if you don't know CSS, it is very easy to change mostly a couple of colors in HEX, fonts and sizes in pixels/points. Some example CSS skins downloadable from our site can also contain icon packages and image backgrounds and it's easy to add your own background to any CSS skin. You can find skin parameter description in CSS file itself - all main parts of it have small notes explaining the meaning of subsequent font/color/border and other parameters. Administrative optionsYou can go to the admin panel "by hand", typing in your browser admin panel's filename which you have entered in options file. But usually, you only need to login as admin into forums, and you'll see admin panel link at the bottom of each page. Admin panel is very small and very simple. Here is the list of options:
"Hidden" admin forums optionsForums categories. Since miniBB is designed for small/medium communities, we have not planned to make splitting forums list by additional category. If you have 4-5 forums, there is no need to create categories, because in this case, your forums will look badly organised. However, there is a possibility to create categories for forums. Open your bb_specials.php, and add the variables $forumGroups and $forumGroupsDesc like that: $forumGroups=array(7,3,5); $forumGroupsDesc=array( 'General forums', 'Visitor forums', 'Other forums' );Explanation: we will don't touch the structure of forums in database. You can set the order and titles of forums via admin panel. BUT: we need to add "group" before some forum (just try to imagine that, it's not math :). Let's say, we have these forums (example of minibb.net, ID of forums shown on the left - PLEASE NOTE, these are _IDs_ of forums, NOT the _order numbers_ of forums!!!): 7 Archive 1 General 2 Support 3 Bugs 4 Suggestions 6 qwertyThen, we want to "add group" for forums Archive, General and Support (it will be "General Forums"), Bugs and Suggestions ("Visitor Forums"), qwerty ("Other forums"). $forumGroups array contains forum IDs, BEFORE which will be placed a group description (taken from template above). $forumGroupsDesc array contains consecutively descriptions of these groups. So, on the first page we will have: General forums 7 Archive 1 General 2 Support Visitor forums 3 Bugs 4 Suggestions Other forums 6 qwertyThe same will happen in "dropdown" menus, when you view posts or topics. Private forums. Only site owner can define private forums and users which are allowed to post and view them. Edit bb_specials.php file, find variable $clForums=array(); and add $clForumsUsers[]=array();. clForums array defines closed forums ID(s), and clForumsUsers[] elements defines users which are allowed to post in this forum. Oh, sounds too difficult, here is an example: $clForums=array(1,3,6); $clForumsUsers[1]=array(2,5); $clForumsUsers[3]=array(10,11); $clForumsUsers[6]=array(12,22); That means: forums with IDs 1,3,6 are private. Users with IDs 2 and 5 are allowed to post and view forum under ID 1, users with IDs 10 and 11 are allowed to post and view forum under ID 3, users with IDs 12 and 22 are allowed to post and view forum under ID 6. It seems a little bit difficult, but usually site has only one private forum and 5-10 allowed users, thus not everyone needs this feature - that's why we have not implemented graphical interface for it. If you don't want to have private forums, leave these arrays blank (but don't remove them!). Note: topic titles from private forums don't appear on statistics, last discussions, user info and search pages, and first forums page, too. Anyway, is allowed user or admin is logged, they will appear everywhere. Note 2: it is not necessary define admin ID (1), because admin can enter any private forum and has full access to it. Archive forums. Site owner can create so called "archive" forums. Edit bb_specials.php with array variable $roForums in it. Like in private forums (see above), add read-only comma-separated forums IDs into this array. In read-only forums, nobody except admin can make or edit posts. Post-only forums. Site owner can create so called "post-only" forums. That means, users can do anything except for creating new topics in these forums. It is very useful, if you combine your forums with guestbook or news flash, for example. Edit bb_specials.php with array variable $poForums in it. Like in private forums (see above), add read-only comma-separated forums IDs into this array. In post-only forums, no one except admin can make or edit topics. Example: $poForums=array(1); That means, forum with ID 1 is "post-only". If you have "post-only" forum as guestbook, for example, or just want to redirect user to some thread exactly when he is clicking on forum's title to view topics, you can define it in bb_specials.php as $redthread array. Example from our forums: $redthread=array(8=>355); means when user visits some forum with ID 8, he will redirected to the topic with ID 355, so the full URL will be like action=vthread&forum=8&topic=355. This is optional feature, it is not necessary to include this array if you don't need it. User rankings. miniBB doesn't use ranking system (user ranks like 'Administrator', 'Member' are displayed only, and if it is anonymous user, nothing is displayed). But it is possible to define special user rankings, for "special" members (for example, most-active-poster-of-all-time). Open bb_specials.php for that, find $userRanks array, and edit it. It is based on PHP syntax, so let's give an example with no more talk: $userRanks=array(1=>'Boss', 17=>'Team member', 9=>'Team member'); That means, user's rank with ID 1 is Boss (of course! :), and users with IDs 17 and 9 are "Team members". These rankings will be displayed under nickname in every post. In this way, you also can define so called "avatars" (just use your imagination, how to do that). Registered-users-only forums. These forums mean, that only registered (and logged correspondly) users can make new topics, new posts and edit their messages here. Variable $regUsrForums=array(); in bb_specials.php means array of forums IDs which are protected. Example: $regUsrForums=array(1,2); That means, forums with ID 1,2 are only for registered users. In a case of registered-user-only forums, the post-topic or post-thread box with login information WILL APPEAR even if user is not logged in. User will be able to enter his login/pass to make a post. Anonymous or incorrectly logged users will be informed with "Access denied" message. In many cases, they can loose the information they typed, so please warn users of your board someway, that they must register before making any post! Moderators definition. Moderators are people who can help admin in managing forums (read more in moderators section. Variable $mods=array(); in bb_specials.php defines the the array of forum/user IDs which have moderators possibilities. Example: $mods=array( 1=>array(9,996), 2=>array(9) ); means that user with ID = 9 is the moderator for forums with IDs 1 and 2, and user 996 is moderator for forum 1. Moderators have access only to specified forum. Displaying list of moderators is available on the first forums page. In default version, it is hidden. If you want to display this list, in HTML template main_forums_cell.html add variable {$moderatorsList} (for example, directly after {$forum_desc}). It will display usernames of moderators for current forum. If there is no moderator specified, nothing will be displayed. Excluding last discussions. If you want to exclude some forum from "Last discussions" list, you can set it in the bb_specials array $lastOut. For example: $lastOut=array(6); excludes forum with ID 6 from "Last discussions" list on the first page. It's not necessary to add this new value if you don't need this. Sorting specific thread in DESC order. You can specify the ID of the thread (topic), which messages can be sorted in DESC order. By default, every thread is sorted in ASC order. Specially useful for questbooks. For this, set new array in your bb_specials.php file: $themeDesc=array(355,11); will set DESC order for topics with ID 355 and 11. Note that this option will not affect page listing in last discussions and topics list. When some topic is splitted by pages, last replies will be available when you click on topic's title. If you have such kind of sorted thread (like guestbook), it is better to exclude it from last discussions and set the exact redirect (see "Post-only forums"). When you set this kind of topic, near its title, users will see an icon from /img/topic_reverse.gif. Deleting messages. Only admin is allowed to delete user messages. Admin needs to be logged into the system. For deleting any message, go to the topic/thread list and click on "Delete" on the top of the message. JavaScript alert should appear; click "Ok", and the post will be deleted. After delete, message is not available for recovering. NOTE: you can not delete FIRST message of the topic. That's because the first message in thread list is TOPIC TEXT in reality. If you want to delete first message, it means you want to delete the WHOLE TOPIC. For this, see "Deleting topics". Deleting topics. Only admin (or moderator) is allowed to delete user topics. Login, go to the bottom of topic page. You will find something like "Delete topic". Click on it. JavaScript alert should appear; click "Ok", and topic will be deleted, with all associated posts, too. Click on "Cancel", and you'll keep the old things. After delete, topic is not available for recovering. "Cleaning up the board" solution. When your board runs for a big time, you'll probably want to remove some old necessary topics. miniBB has a smart solution build-in, how to do it easy (beginning from version 2.0 RC2). Login as admin and in your Preferences, set default sorting to "New topics", then go to some forum, which you want to clean-up, and go to the last page of topics within this forum. Another words, begin the cleaning from the oldest topics to the newest topics. Go inside some topic, review it, and if you find it unnecessary, delete it as described above. After that, you will be redirected to the page where topic was previously found; near next topic that you need to check, you will find a little mark '»'. This will help you to not lose the last topic you stayed on. Editing messages. Board administrator can edit any message from the forum at any time, plus, if it is "new topic text", he can edit also topic title. Moderator can edit any message within allowed forum at any time, and also change topic's title. For editing the message, click on "Edit" link on the top of each message in posts list (it appears when allowed person is logged in). When editing message, admin or moderator can choose, either this message could be edited by user after, or not. Beginning from version 2.0 RC2, by default, all messages become opened for further editing; however, checking the box marked as " Message author can edit topic's title only, if administrator has set necessary option (see above). Moving topics. Only administrator can move topics from one forum to another. Moving topics is a specific operation, we don't recommend to do it often (since many users will not understand what's going on). Do it only if topics thematics is not the same as the one of a forum. After decision, login as admin, go to the bottom of the topic page, click on "Move topic" and move topic correspondly to the forum you want. You can move topic only to the "another" forum, else there is no sense for this action (don't move topic to the same forum). When moving topics, only forum info is updated, nor datetime or anything. If topic is moved from one closed forum to another, and subscribers are NOT in this forum, their subscriptions will be DELETED. Locking topics. This is very smart "censorship" operation, which prohibits users from making new posts in special topics. For locking topic, log in as admin, go to the bottom of each page. You will find kinda "lock topic" link. When you press it, topic will be locked. On an old place instead of "lock topic" you should see "unlock topic" link. Click on it, and topic will be unlocked. Both topic's author (if he is a registered user) and admin can lock/unlock topics. Even if admin has locked this topic, registered author can unlock it - if the corresponding value not set in your options (see above). "Stickying" topics. "Sticky topic" means the topic, which will be shown on the top of the topics list every time. This is useful for some announcements or really hot discussions, which you want to present first. Sticky topics appear ONLY in topics list. Last discussions page stays untouched! Last discussions is actually fresh meat, there is no necessarity to show sticky posts every day, in the time when new stuff is going. Sticky topics are available for setting both for admin and moderators. For stickying topic, go to the bottom of the thread and find the "Make sticky" link. Just click on it. When the topic is already sticky, you will find the "Make unsticky" link. Sticky topics also can be locked. If you lock sticky topic, and then unlock it again, the sticky status will be kept, and vice versa. Viewing subscriptions. Entering topic, logged admin can view which users are subscribed to this topic ("Subscriptions" link). Entering view panel, admin can also delete unwanted subscriptions, checking boxes near user's email. Note: if there are no subscriptions, link will not appear. Actually, admins preferences doesn't change anything special. As usual user, Admin can go to that panel and edit something, but all forums-working datas (Admin email, login and password) are taken from options file. In the admin panel, you will find operation called "Restore Admin data in database", clicking on it, you will automatically copy (or insert) your options data to corresponding Admin field in database. Then you can choose another email and other stuff (ICQ, for example) that will be shown on the "about user" page. So, your email shown in the above mentioned user info page can be independent on the email in the setup options file. If you are using "Direct email" plugin, you can set another email for emailing admin, so you can have 2 different emails for system messages and direct user emailing. ModeratorsIn miniBB concepts, moderators are people who can:
Moderators have no admin's privileges and have no access to the administration panel. Moderators privileges are splitted by forums. Each moderator can be defined only by administrator in bb_specials.php file (see above). Each moderator has special description near his nickname (defined in $l_moderator variable in language). If moderator has special rank, his rank will be displayed instead of it. Forums-wide user optionsThere is "liberal" users hierarchy in miniBB. Topics can be made both by anonymous users and registered users. Let's see what happens.
User info is displayed on the separate page. On the threads page, you'll find only user's nick and, if this user is registered, a "member" beneath. Clicking on it, you'll get all possible info about user, which either is specified/allowed or not (see below). NOTE: by clicking on user's nickname, you "quote" his nickname in the reply form! Users must have cookies enabled in the browser. Cookie passwords are saved in encrypted format. User login form is located on every topics or threads page, as well as on the first page. On the topic or thread pages, you are able just to log-in without posting any text. You need to type your login and password correctly. Depending on forums setup, user login can expire in different time. Usually it expires within 1-2 hours, but administator can also make more longer expire (especially on international forums). Cookies renew mechanism also allows users to stay logged during longer periods of time - until the browser is closed. Anyway, we recommend to do logout before you are leaving forums. Anonymous users also receive cookie that goes from one page to another. Enjoy comfort! Registered users can change their board's interface language in their profile, choosing from dropdown list. However, administrator of multilanguage board also can set some links for anonymous users, so they will be able to view the board on desired language. For this, you need to put the link containing variable "setlang" and the value corresponding to the language file name. Example: http://.......index.php?setlang=rus will display board in Russian; however this setting will not affect logged-in user. Language change is working only in forums interface. Email notifications are sent to user on default forums language. For registering, just click on "Registration" menu and fill in the form. Necessary fields are:
Depending on what option current forum has, you can be registered just after filling the form, and can login to forums straight forward after it. Otherwise, if administrator has set avoiding of open registration, you'll need to check for the password your email first. When open registrations are forbidden, your password will be generated by the system, that's why you need to enter the correct email-address. New topic form is placed at the bottom of each topics listing page. You need to type topic's title ("New topic") and body ("Message"). At least, "New topic" field must be filled in. If you write in it and don't write in "Message", message will be automatically equal to topic's title. New post form is located at the bottom of each threads page. Note: if the anti-spam protection is enabled (usually it is), you can make posts and topics only once-per-defined-time. Usually, this time is 1-2 minutes - and it means, you can make posts not often than 1 per 1-2 minutes as well. Note 2: before making a post, make sure you have corresponding ENCODING for this. F.e., if you have to make post on non-english language, let's say, chinese, be sure your browser encoding is set to it. To do it:
Note 3: text breaks (newlines+carriage returns) are automatically converted to "physical" breaks. Note 4: don't use a lot of apostrophes, quotes and specific tags in your messages. Actually, they are converted to "real" HTML-tags like "'" (apostrophe), "&" (& sign) etc. As you see, HTML special char takes at least 4 times more space than usual symbol. So, if topic's title limitation is set, let's say, to 70 symbols by administrator, your sentence can contain maximum 17 special symbols. Practical example: your topic is "Quick brown fox jumps over lazy dog's ears & nose" (49 symbols). Actual title is converted to: "Quick brown fox jumps over lazy dog's ears & nose" (58 symbols). If the limitation would be 50 symbols, the sentence would be cutted to "Quick brown fox jumps over lazy dog's ears" (minus "nose" minus 5 special-symbols). Email notifications can be enabled or disabled by forums admin. Usually, on large forums they are disabled. If enabled, every user who makes a post, can subscribe to them. Alternatively, there us also a way to make notifications available without posting some text. Notifications are sent to user's email when someone replies to the topic after this user. Users can subscribe to notifications even if they are not topic authors. Users can also unsubscribe from notifications. For that, got to the desired topic and find "Unsubscribe" link instead of notifications checkbox, and just click on it. Note: notifications are sent on default board's language, even if user has choosed another available language. If you are using links like http://www.minibb.net (beginning with "http://", "https://", "ftp://", "www" or "mailto:"), they are automatically converted to "real" links. But, when checking "Disable" box, links ARE NOT automatically highlighted, both as BB-codes (see below). In miniBB, there is no possibility to include HTML in topics or posts. They can contain only "BB-codes" - special HTML-code replacements, that "emulate" HTML code. Since HTML is not supported in our board, most popular BB-codes are good alternative when posting new message or topic. Currently, miniBB supports following codes:
Note that the case of BB codes doesn't matter. You can type "[URL]" or "[uRL]" or whatever. Only opening and closing tags ([urL]...[/uRL]) are important, also tags CAN NOT CONTAIN SPACES! There is no necessary to know exactly what do you need to type for corresponding tag. Each template message form contains JavaScript buttons that helps you to insert these tags into your post. Both anonymous and registered users can use BB-codes, but also you can DISABLE BB-code in your post, checking "Disable" flag. Usually this is not necessary, because BB-codes allow posts be more organized and good-looking messages. But if you need to post something using not BB-code, but actual info containing BB-code, it is useful. For avoiding BB-codes, you can also put spaces inside them. It is possible to combine tags with each other, f.e., to make "bold+italic" or "bold link". But be careful again with opening and closing tags correspondly. Example: 'This General Public License [b]does not permit[/b] incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License. Return to [url=http://www.fsf.org/home.html]GNU's home page[/url]. FSF & GNU inquiries & questions to [email=gnu@gnu.org]gnu@gnu.org[/email]. Other ways to [b][url=http://www.fsf.org/home.html#ContactInfo]contact the FSF[/url][/b]. Comments on these web pages to [email=webmasters@www.gnu.org]webmasters@gnu.org[/email], send other questions to [email=gnu@gnu.org]GNU[/email]. [b][u]Copyright notice above[/u][/b]. [i]Free Software Foundation, Inc[/i]., [i][u]59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA[/u][/i]' produces: 'This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License. Return to GNUs home page. FSF & GNU inquiries & questions to gnu@gnu.org. Other ways to contact the FSF. Comments on these web pages to webmasters@gnu.org, send other questions to GNU. Copyright notice above. Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA' If you need to post 100% "tagged" URL, it is better to do it with tags, since automatic replacements can't work in some cases. F.e., the following example will not work: [b]http://www.minibb.net[/b]. It is only "bolded", but not "highlighted". For bolding url links, use [url] tag. Note: you can use tags also for multi-line text. Example: [b]Text1 Text2[/b] (text contains two paragraphs) produces: Text1 Text2 ADVANCED: Admin can use "color tags" for various text colors in messages:
This option is not available for simple users, because of its restrictions and format. Do you want your forum to look like a rainbow? We guess, not. Please, use this code very carefully and only when it is really necessary. As admin, you can use ONLY correct hex-code of color, containig combination of 6 capitalized letters A-F + digits 0-9. "#" sign at the beginning is necessary. Values like "red", "yellow" won't work. Example: [font#FF0000]Attention![/font] produces red-colored "Attention!". These examples will not work:
By default, there is no "hot button" for this option in the templates. Users also can use any HTML decimal codes in their messages. This is done mostly for international forums, when user's encoding is set to different language, in which he posts a message. You can use any code beginning from "&#" and ending with ";". For example, it is useful for displaying both BB-codes with their interpretators. This: [b]Use bold[/b]: [b]Use bold[/b] will produce: Use bold [b]Use bold[/b] Note that decimal codes are not replaced back, when you edit your message. They are displaying like they are. Topic posters can quote other messages. There is no "quote" BB-code included, as on some bulletin boards. Instead of it, you can use "italic" style to separate quotes. For better comfort, there is a "quote" link near every post made. For making a quote, you need to select some text and press this link. Selected text will be automatically inserted into reply box at the bottom of the page. This feature is based on JavaScript code and works only in Netscape 4.9, Netscape 6.x and Internet Explorer 5.x-6.x. Topic authors can lock their topics, if they think it is correct. In order to do it, topic author needs to be logged in. At the bottom of the topic's page he must see small "lock topic" link. Clicking on it, topic becomes closed. Nobody except topic author or administrator can lock the topic. If topic was locked by admin, topic author can unlock it ONLY if it is defined in forum options (in most cases it's not). Registered users (and only registered) can edit THEIR messages, but only if they are cookie-logged and only if the time of the message is not expired. For this, just click on "Edit" near each post (if it is your message, you'll see the link, else not). When editing message, "automatic highlights" are replaced with "real" BB-codes, so there is no need to delete them once again. Also, "real" HTML tags are replaced back to codes. Via editing, user can add new BB-codes, links etc. - like in any new post or topic. User can edit only his POST, not topic's title, even if he is the author of the topic. After message is edited by user, info about that is displayed near each post. There is no way to delete your message (and if not allowed, to edit topic's title), if you are topic's author. Only admin can do this. In some cases, after administrator has edited user's message, for user, it is no way to edit it once again. For editing user preferences, you need to log in and go to the "preferences" appearing in menu. You can type new data for your account, except login, that can not be changed. If you don't want to change your password leave the password field and go next to the fields you want to edit, you don't need to write your password once more, 'cause are already logged. Then done just press submission button below. This action works exactly like registration: you need to type grammatically correct data. Thus, you can not change your email to the one of someone who already registered (incl. admin's email ;) ). Updating preferences, you don't need to enter password, if you don't want to change it. Just leave these fields blank. Two exceptions:
Login, go to the preferences, type new password 2 times in "password" fields. Your password will be updated to the new one. Note: after changing password your old password will not be valid, and you will need to re-login on the login page. If you will edit more settings, you'll get the message "not allowed" or something similar. miniBB passwords are encrypted using MD5 algorithm. You can decode MD5-hash only with special hacker tools, using forces or dictionaries; it is impossible to decode it in "easy way". As longer password you have, as it more difficult to encode it. If you have forgotten your password, PHP-script can't restore it anymore, but instead, it generates new random password. Follow these steps to receive new password:
You can quickly search forums for keywords. Search panel is placed under the "Search" link in menu. You can search text in topics and posts, in topics only, in poster names, in specified forums, by all words, any words or the whole phrase. Search results are sorted by post time in descending order (new posts are shown first). Also remember that search phrase length can`t be more than 100 symbols. Also minimum length of any word is 3 in "Any words" type of search and at least one word must be more than 2 symbols in any other type of search. This was made to protect your server in case, if somebody will try to attack it with lots of simple search queries, like, for example, searching letter "a" in all posts and topics, which will lead a large number of search results to be returned by database server, thus it can become overloaded. There is also more complicated search. You can choose "match whole words" option which actually means you will search only WHOLE words (if you type "nick", the sentences containing "nick" will be found, but not such words as "nickname" or "snickers"). Also, you can search within defined period of days, when posts were made. If you want to expand your search, it is always better to set this to big amount, f.e., of 365 (1 year) days. Note that searching for username is NOT affected by this "search-within-days" option. Search within specified forums is also available. You can either search in all forums or choose a forum you want to search in. In the "statistics" menu, you can get all available information about forums. This is the most "not needed" part of a forum. In statistics, you will find:
You can define period of days which will be used in calculating stats (this setting affects only most popular topics and most viewed topics, username stats are NOT affected). Some notes for developersPlease, don't read this section if you are unfamiliar with PHP, mySQL and programming at all, more so - DON'T try described below. We are not giving additional support on these topics. They all are working like described; if something is not working on your side, miniBB is not the reason here. Default version of miniBB is supported only by mySQL database. Anyway, we have developed special SQL-functions module which contains basic SQL-functions, which could be extended by another databases, supported by PHP. We plan to work on it in near future, but every developer who can help us in making another DB module is welcome. You'll get all necessary credits. Making a DB module is average simple. Since SQL functions are mostly the same (at least, by logic), in many cases you just need to make another database connection which is supported by PHP, and design database request if necessary. SQL requests mostly are parsed into array pointers, which can be accessed, f.e., via mysql_fetch_row() function. Probably, most databases can support this operation. In other words: just look, how mySQL parser works, and include other commands. Note: don't change names of variables, like $result or $sus, because some are called from the outside script. Below are described miniBB general/universal functions available in setup_mysql.php and prepared for programmers who want to extend plugins via this SQL-module separately. string makeLim (int page,int numRows,int viewMax) Returns SQL-string like "limit 10,20" prepared for inserting in SQL-request. If page=0, returns only single like "limit 10" string. numRows is the amount of total database request rows received via request. vieMax is the maximum amount of rows should be displayed (set in setup_options.php). string getClForums (array closedForums, string more, string prefix, string field, string syntax, string condition) Returns SQL-string like "where id=1 or id=2 or id=3" prepared for inserting additionally in SQL-request. "closedForums" must be a simple array of values which request will be compared to. "more" could be 'where' or simply ''. "prefix" inserts a point "." after table name. "field" is field name which values are compared to. "syntax" is alternatively 'and' or 'or'. "condition" is '=' or '!='. Example: if $closedForums=array(6,7) $xtr=getClForums($closedForums,'where','','forum_id','and','!='); returns: where forum_id!=6 and forum_id!=7 resource db_simpleSelect (boolean sus, [string table, [string fields, [string uniF, [string uniC, [string uniV, [string orderby, [string limit, [string uniF2, [string uniC2, [string uniV2]]]]]]]]]) Returns resource identifier on successfull SQL-request or FALSE on failure. "sus" determines either we need to make a first request (if 0) or just go through request rows (1). "table" is table name, "fields" are request fields separated by comma. "uniF", "uniC", "uniV" describes correspondly unique values which is used in additional request like "where id=1", if set. "orderby" specifies field name which is used in ordering result, and "limit" adds 'limit' statement (could be set via makeLim() function). "uniF2", "uniC2", "uniV2" are another set of additional unique fields. Example: db_simpleSelect(0, 'minibb_topics', 'topic_id, topic_title','topic_id','>','10', 'topic_id DESC', 20, 'topic_id', '!=', 25') return resource ID for the following request: select topic_id, topic_title from minibb_topics where topic_id>10 and topic_id!=25 order by topic_id DESC limit 20 int insertArray (array insertArray, string tabh) Returns SQL error-number after executing the request like "insert into users (id, name) values (1, 'Paul')". "insertArray" must be prepared simple array of variable names which MUST correspond to their values. In the given example, it should be array('id','name'), and in that case, in the script itself, there must be variable $id and $name, and their values correspondly must be 1 and 'Paul'. "tabh" is table name where values must be inserted ('users' in the given example). int updateArray (array updateArray, string tabh, string uniq, string uniqVal) Returns affected rows amount after executing an update request. In many cases similar to insertArray(). "updateArray" must be the same type array, and "tabh" is table name. "uniq" is unique field's name, and "uniqVal" is it's value. Example: if we have $updateArray=array('id','name'), and variable names, $tabh are the same as in the insertArray() example, and $uniq='user_id' and $uniqVal='2', SQL-command will be the following: update users set id=1, name='Paul' where user_id=2 int db_delete (string table, [string uniF, [string uniC, [string uniV, [string uniF2, [string uniC2, string[uniV2]]]]]]) Executes DELETE request in SQL-query, return amount of affected rows. Field names mean the same as in db_simpleSelect. int db_forumReplies (int forumID, string tablePosts, string tableForums) Updates and returns forum replies amount in 'posts_count' field. Call this function after deleting reply, topic, user, or moving topic, or inserting new reply. int db_forumTopics (int forumID, string tableTopics, string tableForums) Updates and returns forum topics amount in 'topics_count' field. Call this function after deleting topic, user, or moving topic, or inserting new topic. int db_topicPosts (int topicID, string tableTopics, string tablePosts) Updates and returns topic replies amount in 'posts_count' field. Call this function after deleting topic, user, deleting reply, moving reply. Another functions in SQL-module are specific. They either don't fit to described universal functions or are too complex for designing something special for them. You can make your own specific functions, identificating them with prefix "db_" ath the beginning. Including in your own PHP script If you are the creator of your own PHP site, you probably have the same header and footer for the whole site, or just want to use another functions that fit into your project and miniBB together. As usual, they are .php files, and are included in, for example, index.php. Since miniBB owns the same index.php in its structure by default, you can change the name of miniBB's index to something else (see above). Including forums from your own script requires a knowledge of PHP and things what are happening inside of miniBB. If you simply include your board using include(); you will get errors like "Headers already sent" or similar. This could happen when user loggs in to the forums, and cookies are set (of course, they can not be set, because some of your HTML stuff goes before include(); ). In this case, miniBB is a stick on two ends. The most efficient solution is to include your board this way:
<?php
$displayForum=1;
if((isset($_POST['mode']) and $_POST['mode']=='login')
or (isset($_GET['mode']) and $_GET['mode']=='logout')
or (isset($_POST['action']) and ($_POST['action']=='pthread'
or $_POST['action']=='ptopic' or $_POST['action']=='editmsg2'))) $displayForum=0;
/* On all conditions above, forums will do a re-location to another page,
so for avoiding header errors, we don't include any output here */
if($displayForum==1){
include ('./inc/header.php');
include ('./forum/forum.php');
include ('./inc/footer.php');
}
else {
include ('./forum/forum.php');
}
?>
This little code actually shows, that if you have some action which will sent HTTP-headers (via PHP's header(); ), it is better to not include your header before. This could happen when user logs in or out. There also can be another redirections, described in the manual, but not included by default. In any case, you need to insert some condition to check what miniBB is doing right now. If you have Apache server with mod_rewrite module turned on, you probably already know what benefits it could give to you. We will not give advices here, how you could enable this feature in Apache; you'll find tons of documentation in Internet. How could you use mod_rewrite with miniBB? Actually, it could be used only for one purpose - so your miniBB's URLs look not like ./index.php?action=vtopic&forum=4 for example, or ./index.php?action=vthread&forum=1&topic=75, but: 4_0.html or 1_75_0.html. These links will be more likely interpreted with search crawlers like Google, for example, and probably you'll get your forums pages indexed more faster and more higher, than usual .php pages. miniBB will build some of internal links of this type automatically (for example, when building splitting pages, or on user's info page), and for this, you need to enable (uncomment and set to TRUE) $mod_rewrite option in setup_options.php. However, some of the links containing in templates, will not be built on the fly, and you need to edit some templates by hand. Notice that only links to threads and forums listings will be changed. There is no special need in changing links to Registration, Statistics and other pages. Search indexers need just your content. Beginning from version 2.0 RC2, links inside templates are changed automatically depending on your $mod_rewrite setting. As you might imagine, links are build under the following scheme:
Hope you see the logics in it? Vice versa, if you want to roll mod_rewrite changes back, replace new links to old links. Now, when your miniBB is prepared, and you are sure that mod_rewrite module is working correctly on your site, you need to create .htaccess file and place it in forums directory. It should look like this: RewriteEngine On RewriteRule ^([0-9]+)_([0-9]+)_([-0-9]+)\.html$ ./index.php?action=vthread&forum=$1&topic=$2&page=$3 RewriteRule ^([0-9]+)_([-0-9]+)\.html$ ./index.php?action=vtopic&forum=$1&page=$2 RewriteRule ^user([0-9]+)\.html$ ./index.php?action=userinfo&user=$1 where index.php is your forums file. Be sure you have no .HTML files under the same scheme in the forums directory! Else they will not be displayed. In PHP scripts, no tabs were used by us. All functions and operations are separated by newlines only. Most of the comments were removed in final miniBB release, however, there are some very necessary comments left, that will help you understand what's going on. Also, in many string variables cases we have used apostrophes ('') instead of quotes (""), because that increases the speed of the scripts dramatically. GNU Free Documentation LicenseVersion 1.1, March 2000 Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. 0. PREAMBLE The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other written document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. 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