Hi guys ive got this phpBB2 thingy, because a few close friends of mine want 2 set up this website with a forum for our ps2 clan.

Anywaayy.. The sites done and ive got the phpbb2 thing, but I have NO idea what to do with it.. I understand I wont b uploading anything till the site is actually hosted and running, but until then I might actually try to work out how to do it.

So..

• How customizable is PHPBB2?
• Will it cost ANYTHING to run, I really don't want to spend more on this site than a domain name and some space.
• What do I do with PHP and MySQL, gunna need the 'Mysql and PHP for dummies' version here guys..

Ok cool, i think thats it.

Cheers

phpBB is a forum board/software, just like BC forum however different name. If you want to try out phpBB before uploading to your webhost then you can try out xampp. It includes php/mysql/apache so on, it's all integrated so you don't have to install one by one. Just use the installer for xampp and let all settings be default. After you have installed xampp, download phpBB if you yet to have one in your computer. Extract phpBB to xampp root folder (default would be C:\Program files\xampp\htdocs). I forgotten about the default folder of phpBB, in this case, let's say phpBB.

Open your browser and type in the following url - http://localhost/phpbb - You should be bring to install page of phpBB. Key in the information needed and so on. After you have installed phpBB. You will need to rename/delete the install folder of phpBB (C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\phpBB\install). Then the rest of it should be easy. If you do not understand any part, just ask.

Now back to your question.

Since it's open source, it's fully customizable. Visit phpBB site for more information/addons...

Nope, expect for the stuff you mention.

If you're using phpBB and doing nothing else. Then probably, nothing much. Unless you want to learn the language itself.

Hope that it helps, let us know if you have any other question.

Completely free, as long as you agree with the lisence agreement, which is quite simple, nothing dodgy in there (i think, just gave it a quick glance just now).
As for how customizable:
You can change the look by replacing their images (for button, icons etc) with your own. You can edit the stylesheet (css, easy to pick up if you dont already know it) or create your own, getting all the class names/div ids that are used from their existing stylesheet.
You can obviously make the layout of the forums/categories or whatever, make your own groups for members, change access rights for different sections of the forum (the usual basically).
You can probably do more detailed things, i havent used it a lot, but no doubt you can change most things except for the structure of how it works (unless you want to edit a lot of the php yourself).

Now, setting it up is reasonably simple. You just need to install MySQL on your server, create a new database for the forum. Install php on your server.
Download phpBB2 and move it to the directory you want it to be found in on your site (eg: www.mydomain.com/phpBB2, name the outmost folder whatever you want, defaults to phpBB-2.0.22).
The instructions to install are all included. If you testing on your own computer, open your web browser to http://localhost/sitedirectory/phpBB2direc...all/install.php
this will give you a form that you fill in with details of your database name and password, then admin details for the forum.

And thats basically it, if you developing/testing it on your own computer and havent already got a server (IIS/Apache or whatever), MySQL and PHP setup then i can (or someone else with more knowledge) take you through how to get those running, but you dont actually need to learn any, its all done for you.
Theres probably a few things you should do that are mentioned in the phpBB2 install guide to secure you forum, changing access rights on the server of specific files and things like that, but im not an expert on that, i think most of its contained in the install guide.

EDIT: completely beaten by Nikas, ah well, must type faster next time

Oh well, extra information for him.

Thanks guys, great info and all my questions answered!

Ill give that xampp a crack

Cheers

Once you get the hang of it have a look at this site http://www.phpbbhacks.com/ it has just about every mod you can thing of for phpBB.

Thanks Chief!

just looked at it, looks pretty cool

If your new to phpBB it might take awhile for you to work out the file structure and how things work, it took me a little time to get to grips with it but once you do you can mod the hell out of it and make it look however you want.
A big tip...........make frequent backups from within the admin part of the forum and full server backups before adding new mods because if one of the mods go wrong you may have to reinstall the forum.

Installing the forum for the first time can be a pain in the *ss, either follow the above posts or go to phpbb.com and find their walkthrough. Everything else can be found through google searches.

I have a question again.

Can I make the usernames and the rank images and avatar etc. appear in the centre of that column?

Center of what column ?

Where the avatar and group/rank, post count appears. Under your username

Sorry for the late reply sp0nge.

I see what you want. But still not sure where you want those information to be on.

Dont worry about it ;)

i got it working by putting HTML into the rank's name and not closing the code.

like

<center>Admiral

then it just put evrythin in order lol

Ok. Glad that you solved it yourselves.

Except that by not closing a tag as it should be, it can lead to cross browser problems, and other coding glitches. Not closing a center tag in Firefix might work, but it won't necessarily work in IE (or the other way 'round, I can't remember)

well its working on IE 6 here. So yep other way around