How To Install a PhpBB Mod on Your Bulletin Board System

If you've taken a moment or two to browse through the forums, otherwise known as bulletin boards, across the web, you'll notice that a vast majority of them use a system known as phpBB. phpBB is a free, open source bulletin board system that can be downloaded at no charge, with no spyware or adware attached, and uploaded to any personally owned hosting server and used "out of the box" for a quite functional message board. There are a vast number of other forum options: simple machine forums, vBulletin, and invision boards just to name a few, but it is commonly known that none is so used as phpBB.

One believed reason for this popularity is the immense number of "mods," or modifications, which are available to those that chose to use phpBB. If you go to the main phpBB website, you can see under the "mods" area that there are quite literally hundreds of "mods" available at all stages of development. As much as most people know of these "mods," many never attempt to use them because they just seem too difficult. Well I'm here to let everyone know that it is not as difficult as it looks! The tons of coding that you might see, the large size of some files, and odd code-speak like "php" and "sql" are intimidating to many, but as I've discovered myself it IS possible, if you know a few basic concepts, for almost anyone to install almost any mod. Now sit back, relax, and prepare to take notes and begin the simple, yet tedious, task of installing a phpBB mod!

The first thing you have to do is actual preparations for installing your mod. I'm going to use the "Simple Sub-forums 1.0.2" mod and assume that you have installed no other mods before this point. Go to your favorite freeware provider and download smartFTP or some other FTP software. Make sure that this software is open and has your website opened, specifically the folder where your phpBB forum is held. You're also going to need to open your cPanel as well. Once you have these open you'll want to open the install instructions (in this case it's in the 'contrib.' folder - the file 'simple_subforums_1.0.2') using WordPad. If it does not automatically open, you can right click on the file, go to 'open-with' and select WordPad. This will open the instructions.

Now that you have the instructions open do not panic! You're going to see a lot of information that is framed by a double pound border. Everything you see in the double number signs (##) is for information purposes. It will hold any warnings, details about the mods, where to get support, what files are being moved and/or edited, and more. Read through this information for general purposes and move on.

There are, in almost all phpBB mods, a standard used so that anybody can understand any mod's coding. All of the "you need to do this" will be surrounded by brackets and a full line... you'll also see a series of pound signs in the line. Most of these instructions are quite self-explanatory: Open means you open a file; Find means you search for that code in the file you just opened; 'After, Add' means you will add that code after the code you just found; 'Before, Add' means you add that code before the code you just found; Replace with means that you should replace the code you just found with the new code; 'In-Line Find' means you are looking for a smaller part of the code in whatever you just found; and 'In-Line Before, Add' or 'In-Line After, Add' means that you put it immediately before or after the 'In-Line find' code you just hunted down. One important thing to note is that you should make sure and double check again, that you've placed the code exactly as instructed. A parenth '(' in the wrong place can make everything error.

As you may have noticed there is one other instruction within this and many other mods. It is the 'SQL' instruction. A great deal of my own personal panic when I first started was that little instruction. One reason to make sure you read the "basic" introduction is that you will find out if there is an 'easy' SQL install available for that mod. In this case there is not an 'easy out' but do not fret, it's not that difficult at all. The first step is to go into your server's cPanel. If you do not know how to do this, please contact your hosting service and find out how to access your web controls. Assuming you do have that access, you'll need to look for the 'SQL Databases' within the control panel. Once you have opened this, go all the way down to the bottom to where you see the 'MyDatabasePHP' link. It might also simply say to click to access your mySQL controls. Once you are there look to the menu on the left and find your phpBB database. This is the database so named when you installed phpBB. It will likely say, in some way, 'phpBB' on the database name. Once you've done this and it has opened all of the information, click on the "SQL" tab at the top of the right hand page. This will open a new page with a box. Now, each line of instruction that you see on your mod instruction page (should say things like Alter, Update, etc) need to go into that box one by one. Each 'line' is separated by a semi-colon (;) so make sure you get the entire "line" in one copy. Once you've clicked on "Go" you'll see a string of code along with some confirmation it is complete.

After you've finished all of the instructions, made sure there is nothing that you've missed on the instructions, (some mods have "install" files that have to be activated, which will be listed in the instructions) then go to your boards and test the new mod!

Should you have trouble with any mod, make sure that you visit the support page as listed in the instructions; most of the time this is also where you've downloaded the mod itself. I hope that you have all the luck with your mod installation! My last advice is to make sure that you backup everything before you start! Be certain that you go to your admin panel and backup your database as well! This can be a tremendous saving grace should anything go wrong with a mod. Until the next time good luck on all of your future mods for phpBB!