phpBB • Creating Communities Worldwide

If you want to make a MOD and you just don’t know where to start, I think the best thing to do is to look at existing MODs to see how other MOD authors go about doing certain tasks. If looking at an existing .php file makes absolutely no sense, type a keyword of what you don’t understand into the search box on http://www.php.net - in many cases it will be a PHP function that will be well explained and documented.

For this blog post, I will address the four basics of PHP. Understanding these concepts will give you a kick start into the world of PHP and MODding.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently we got many bug reports about problems with the IE8 beta browsers. The problem is that we cannot accommodate beta browsers in our software - the next beta will break our adjustments. But why have we chosen to include some other IE8 features? The answer is simple: security
This post will give you insights into one of the more obscure security implications of file uploads.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you have not yet read the phpBB Wiki Announcement or have not followed the discussion topic. I would encourage you to do so and take a look at the new development wiki:

http://wiki.phpbb.com

What is a Wiki and what can I do with it?

A Wiki is a type of website that allows the users and visitors to add, remove, and edit the available content. — Anyone who is interested in working with the phpBB Codebase, from website administrators who want to integrate phpBB into their site, or create a quick-script, to bridge or application developers to bridge phpBB with their application, to MOD Authors. The wiki is for those who want to learn more about the phpBB Codebase or simply have a question about how to do something or how something works within phpBB.
The wiki is also a great way to learn about how to begin programming in PHP/phpBB and developing a MOD.

Read the rest of this entry »

CAPTCHAs - “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”s - are known as the foremost means to stop registrations by SPAM programs, so-called “Bots”. In phpBB, a visual confirmation CAPTCHA is used.

The key here is the “Completely Automated” part, meaning that the software - phpBB - creates the question and the correct answer without interaction by a user. This has the drawback that computers are usually able to find the answer as well, given time to adjust. This is an active field in research. In the end it is an arms race. A new CAPTCHA will usually buy a few months of peace, before the major Bot vendors adjust their products.

This article is about presenting some reasons behind our CAPTCHAs; it is not intended to be a case for or against CAPTCHAs in general or particular. It is not about other means to combat SPAM, but only about CAPTCHAs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many people think that SEO is basically using or implementing Human Readable URLs. However, this is not encompassing of “SEO” at all, it is one small part of SEO, and is generally grossly misunderstood. Many people believe that Human Readable URLs are the only way that Search Engines can correctly index a site, or that it is the best method for spiders to index the site. Or that Dynamic URLs somehow hurt your Search Engine Ranking or performance within Search Engines. But this is not the case. Human Readable URLs mainly benefit Search Engines as added Keywords within the page, this only reinforces the keywords already set by the page and topic title, which Search Engines already use for the index.
Search Engines have just as easy of a time indexing dynamic URLs as they will with Human Readable static URLs. The benefit is minimal.

SEO is Dead! Long Live SEO!
There are others who believe that because the web has progressed so much over the years and the advancements in Search technologies, that search engines no longer require any optimisations to properly index your site. Or that you can not improve your search engine rankings or results by performing any sort of search engine optimisation on your site.

This post is meant to address both sides of the argument by giving people a better understanding of what SEO is and it’s place within phpBB3. It also includes problems identified within phpBB3 itself with regards to Search Engine performance and solutions to address these issues.
Read the rest of this entry »

The MOD team always gets a lot of questions, feedback and more from MOD authors. This is mostly after a persons MOD was denied for a certain reason, we change something, or just about one of the policies we have.

We get a lot of questions from them if we do anything with the feedback, or if we actually listen to it, I want to explain here how we handle this kind of feedback.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many modification authors complain about the process involved in getting a modification into the MODs Database. It can be a long and tedious process. The Modification Team doesn’t try to make this process as difficult as possible just to annoy authors. There are many reasons why we validate MODs before accepting them into the MOD Database. Some include secure and bug free code, uniform zip files and guaranteed to be installable on a vanilla phpBB.

Read the rest of this entry »