Installing phpBB Mods

Customizing Your phpBB With Mods

PhpBB is one of my favorite message board systems. Besides its ease of use and terrific $0 price, another thing that draws so many people to it is the wide availability of phpBB modifications. A modification, usually called a Mod, Addon (add-on), or Hack, adds new features to your existing bulletin board system. While most message boards can be modified, phpBB has an unusually high amount of user written mods available for download. This can save you the time of writing your own, or provide features to people who may not have the PHP skill to write their own.

Once you have installed phpBB, you can get started with the mods. While no two are identical the same basic principals apply to most mods.

1. Choose the addon you want to use, and download it

2. Once you have extracted the files, look for a .txt file (often called install.txt, readme.txt or the mods_name.txt. Open this file.

3. The top of this file usually contains information about the mod's author, version, requirements, history, etc. It will also give you a list of included files (if any) and a list of files that you need to edit (if any.)

4. If a mod needs to add something to the mySQL database, it will either:
   • Have a file you can run that modifies the database from your browser. This file is often called something like modname_install.php. You need to be logged in as an admin, and then navigate to the file and run it. The file should be deleted immediately after it is ran.
     
   • You will need to manually run the SQL they have written in the install file. This is less novice friendly, but isn't nearly as hard as you might think.

5. Upload the included files (if any) to the appropriate folders on your server. This is all laid out for you in the install file.

6. If you need to make file changes they all follow the same format:
   • OPEN tells you the name of the file you are working on. Everything below it is changes to the same file.
   • FIND tells you what you are looking for in the code. Use the search feature to find this code in the document (ctrl-F or apple-F.)
   • BEFORE, ADD -or- AFTER, ADD gives you a block of code you need to copy and paste either before or after the code you just searched for. Occasionally the instruction will tell you to search in line, or to replace a block of code. This will all be clearly marked in capital letters.
   • SAVE/CLOSE tells us to save the file and close it. Although this is usually at the bottom of the page, it is safe to save and close a file as soon as the instructions tell you to open the next file.

The most important thing to remember is to ALWAYS keep a backup of your files. While it is possible to mess things up, most problems can be resolved by simply up-loading the old backup files over the new changes you have made.

phpBB mods take varying amounts of time and skill to complete. Some mods only take seconds and require no PHP skill at all, you simply need to be able to read directions and copy-paste. Others are a bit more time intensive. While even the harder installs may require no PHP skill, it's always helpful to understand the code if you need to troubleshoot. I would suggest starting with a few smaller mods to get comfortable with the format before jumping into anything big. And once again... remember to backup!!