Building Forums with vBulletin Creating and Maintaining Online Discussion Forums Adrian Kingsley-Hughes Kathie Kingsley-Hughes BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI Building Forums with vBulletin Creating and Maintaining Online Discussion Forums Copyright © 2006 Packt Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information. First published: March 2006 Production Reference: 1200306 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. 32 Lincoln Road Olton Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK. ISBN 1-904811-67-1 www.packtpub.com Cover Design by www.visionwt.com Credits Authors Development Editor Adrian Kingsley-Hughes David Barnes Kathie Kingsley-Hughes Indexer Reviewer Ashutosh Pande Mizanur Rahman Proofreader Technical Editor Chris Smith Martin Brooks Production Coordinator Editorial Manager Manjiri Nadkarni Dipali Chittar Cover Designer Helen Wood About the Authors Adrian and Kathie Kingsley-Hughes have over a decade of experience in web development and programming, having firsthand experience of most of the popular community-building and blogging platforms currently available. They both work for a UK company specializing in internet development, workflow streamlining, and security. They have authored and co-authored a number of books in the web development, programming, and PC area and have written dozens of coaching manuals that are in use by Fortune 500 companies. A big thanks to the people at Jelsoft Enterprises Limited for all their help during the writing of this book. Also, a huge thanks to the amazing vBulletin community—there are a lot of talented people out there putting their valuable time and effort into creating templates, modifications, and hacks. Table of Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: Introduction to the vBulletin Board 5 What is vBulletin? 5 Why Have a Discussion Board? 5 Benefits of a Discussion Board 6 Why vBulletin? 6 History 7 Development 7 The vBulletin Advantage 7 Versatile 8 Performance 8 Customizable 8 Easy to Maintain 9 Other Features 9 vBulletin Licensing Options 10 Leased License 10 Owned License 10 Choosing a License 10 Example vBulletin Sites 11 Summary 12 Chapter 2: Installing and Configuring vBulletin 13 Requirements 13 Disk Space 14 Bandwidth 14 System Resources 15 Shared Hosting 15 Semi-Dedicated Hosting 16 Dedicated Hosting 16 Other Options 17 Installing vBulletin 17 Tools 17 Downloading the Installation Files 18 Table of Contents File Extraction 19 Upload Preparation 19 Creating the Database 20 Command-Line Database Creation 21 cPanel Database Creation 21 File Editing 23 Uploading the vBulletin Files 23 Running the vBulletin Installation Script 24 Troubleshooting 32 Database Access Issues 32 Images/Styling Not Showing 32 PHP Errors 32 The vBulletin Control Panel 33 Importing Data into vBulletin 36 Downloading the ImpEx Script 36 Compatibility 36 Preparing for Upload 38 Editing the Configuration File 38 Upload the ImpEx Script 39 Running the ImpEx Script 39 Default Usergroups 40 Securing vBulletin 41 Help & Support 41 Summary 42 Chapter 3: A Tour of vBulletin 43 The vBulletin User Experience 43 How to Get to the Board? 44 What the End Users See 44 Site Logo 46 Forum Title, Login Box, and Navbar 46 Welcome Banner 46 Main Body of the Forum 46 What's Going On 47 Footer 47 Touring the Main Forum—Unregistered Users 47 No "New Threads" for Unregistered Users 49 Registering on a vBulletin Board 49 Touring the Forum—Members 51 New Threads 51 Replying 53 ii Table of Contents Editing a Message 54 Private Messages 55 BB Code 55 User Tools 57 Display Modes 58 Navbar Changes for Members 60 The vBulletin Administrator Experience 62 Forum and Thread Tools 62 The AdminCP 65 Control Panel Home 66 Latest Version Information 66 vBulletin Options 67 Forum Management 74 Editing and Adding Forums 75 Editing Existing Forums 76 Moderation Options 77 Forum Styling 78 Access Control Options 78 Forum Posting Options 79 Enable/Disable Features 79 Branding 80 Changing the Logo 81 Undoing the Change 82 Summary 83 Chapter 4: Customizing Your vBulletin Board 85 Types of Customization 86 CSS Modifications 86 Changing the Table Title Text 86 Viewing Changes 90 Undoing the Changes 91 Phrase Modifications 91 Searching for Phrases 92 Making Changes 95 Viewing the Changes 98 Undoing Changes 98 Template Modifications 99 Accessing Templates 99 Exploring a Template 102 Template Structure 103 iii Table of Contents Adding a FORUMHOME Sidebar 104 PHP Code Modifications 108 PayPal Modification 108 File Modification 108 Hacks 109 Pros and Cons of Hacking a vBulletin Board 109 Finding a Hack 110 Installing a Hack 110 Backing Up a Hack 111 Commercial Hacks 111 Summary 112 Chapter 5: Administering Your Forum 113 Setting Up a Forum 113 Creating the Forum 114 Forum Permissions 116 Viewing Permissions 119 Opening the Forum 120 Super Administrators 120 Creating a Super Administrator 121 Other Changes to the config.php File 123 Admin Log Viewing Permission 124 Admin Log Pruning Permission 125 Query Running Permission 125 Undeletable and Unalterable Users 126 Maintaining the Database 126 Backing Up the Database 127 Repairing and Optimizing the Database 128 Some Maintenance Issues 129 Smilies 131 Editing a Smilie 132 Adding a New Smilie 133 Uploading a Smilie 134 Creating Your Own Smilies 134 Avatars 134 Adding Avatars 135 Storing Avatars 136 Summary 137 iv