Customizing 3.0.10

semideus · Post by **semideus** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 1:45 am

I'm curious, if you had to create a new forum or start over, what would be your quick checklist for pre-installation / installation / customization? What open source mods, themes, or tweaks would you do for your site / planned site?

Essentially, I'm kind of new to the administrating side of phpbb so experimenting with ideas and trying to learn how not to break things

Elias · Post by **Elias** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 8:40 am

I would say it all depends on what you really are trying to do.

You can have something very successful with no modifications made to your phpBB..

Post by **stevemaury** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 4:49 pm

All the time we see people who start right off by installing all kinds of MODs without even knowing whether the members they do not yet have, need them. And they install custom styles, which the author may or may not update. They then end up with a maintenance nightmare.

If your board has content of interest to people, the bells and whistles won't matter, and if it doesn't, they won't matter either.

There are some types of content that can benefit from some MODs (like a gallery in a photography board), but in general, you are better off to start vanilla, IMO.

semideus · Post by **semideus** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 3:43 am

It was more of an ambiguous question to see what some of you other guys have done, like to do, or what worked for your site. pretty abstract, but essentially I screwed up a mod install (user error) and it got me thinking since I have to start over (luckily in its beginning phases) I'd take a look at some other things plus I don't know what the next version of phpbb holds.

I definitely agree with your whole post steve. There's one mod that would save a lot of work with customization of posts (don't ask me how i messed up advanced bbcode box mod install but I did), but definitely was mostly bells & whistles. I can do the important stuff with custom bbcodes I think.

Definitely going vanilla for this install since it's going to be my long term project but probably going to play around with a demo of phpbb with mods since I like modding in general but definitely out of my league atm I think.

As for what I'm trying to do, just have a social bulletin board full of random and helpful stuff we're interested in with some of my friends and to in turn use it for phpbb experience. But I have to customize everything so learning what all I can do to give it a more unique look and feel.

Definitely appreciate the discussion and feedback.

FB92 · Post by **FB92** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:22 pm

Well it all depends on the forum. I've run numerous forums in the past and have always included the MOD Full Quick Reply Editor, though for my new project I am not including it. It's all a matter of taste and genre pretty much. Add what you think will be useful and you can always remove the features that aren't being used by the community.

Cpt. Blackbeard · Post by **Cpt. Blackbeard** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 12:13 am

Only Mod I suggest if you plan to add several is the Mods Database to help keep track of what Mods you have installed, all others are up to your tastes.