bulletin board....message thingy?

[susanlani]

Hi,
Please help.
Normally I'd do this research myself, but have an emergency situation and would like to do this as fast as possible.
I need a very simple bb to put on my site. It needs to have NO requirement for participants registration. I have a family member being deluged with phone calls because of being diagnosed with cancer. I'd like to provide a way for people to leave her/her family their messages to maybe give her some relief.
If anyone has had any experience with any of the programs available, would you let me know your recommendation?
Thanks much
Susan Lani

[GatorJustin]

Hi, Susan. You can have your bulletin board thingy up and running in about 15 minutes. I am going to explain the process here for installing phpBB via your sites cPanel since it is by far the most popular free bulletin board package available. If you wish to use another package, thats your choice.

• Login to cPanel
• Click on the Fantastico icon (the last icon on the page)
• Click on phpBB2 under the Discussion Boards section on the left
• Click "New Installation"
• Choose the domain to install on. If you have not created any add-on domains, you will only be able to install it on your main domain and it will be pre-selected.
• Enter a name for the installation directory. This can be anything you like, but most people use something such as "boards" or "forums" (without the quotes) - This is where people will access your bulletin board. For example, if you enter "forums" for your installation directory, then people will get to your bulletin board using www.yourdomain.com/forums
• Enter your Admin access data (username and password) - This will be the login information that you, as administrator use to login to your forum.
• Complete the 5 items under Base Configuration
• Click Install phpBB2
• Click Finish Installation

You're done!

If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask, or you may AIM me at HGJustin

Good luck.

-Justin

[GatorJustin]

I should mention that the above procedure is for installing the bulletin board software only. After the installation is complete, you will need to login to your new bulletin board and enter the admin area to configure it how you want. If you need assistance with this, just ask.

-Justin

[susanlani]

So far so good.....I'm in the admin part now.

Thanks so much Justin

[GatorJustin]

Well you had to go and make a liar out of me. I said it would take 15 minutes and here you are already installed in less than 10.

I'll be here if you need anything else.

-Justin

[susanlani]

Ok

Do I have to have forums as such?

Can I just have posts? without subjects etc?

I'd like the bbs to look like this......

Messages for Diane and Terry

first msg

second msg

etc

[susanlani]

and......
what are "groups?"
would that be a way for me to go?

[GatorJustin]

Well, you dont have to create multiple forums. You could just create a single forum such as "Messages" and within that forum would be a thread called "Messages for Diane and Terry" then each post within that thread would be a new message.

-Justin

[GatorJustin]

Groups are usergroups. They are a way for you to define custom permissions for a particular usergroup. For example, you could create a group called "Friends" and only people within that group would be able to view certain threads, etc.

-Justin

[susanlani]

eeeeeeeeeeeek
please have patience with me......just so I don't have to try a million things that can't be done.
1. does the phbb logo have to be there?
2. can I disable "new topic"? and just have "post reply"?

[GatorJustin]

You can remove the logo and the New Topic buttons, but that will require editing the templates. I can walk you through that as well, if you're comfortable editing HTML. If you just want to disable the ability to post new topics, this can be done in the forum permissions section of the admin panel. (but the buttons would still be there)

-Justin

[susanlani]

I've very comfortable with html.
If you'd just tell me the name of the file and where it is? (for the logo, I'll think on the other)

[GatorJustin]

To remove the phpBB logo:

Open file overall_header.tpl (1 edit)

Location: /forums/templates/subSilver/overall_header.tpl

Find at line 231:

PHP Code:

<td><a href="{U_INDEX}"><img src="templates/subSilver/images/logo_phpBB.gif" border="0" alt="{L_INDEX}" vspace="1" /></a></td> 


Replace it with:

PHP Code:

<td>&nbsp;</td> 


To remove the New Topic icons (part one):

Open File viewforum_body.tpl (2 edits)

Location: /forums/templates/subSilver/viewforum_body.tpl

Find at line 9:

PHP Code:

<td align="left" valign="middle" width="50"><a href="{U_POST_NEW_TOPIC}"><img src="{POST_IMG}" border="0" alt="{L_POST_NEW_TOPIC}" /></a></td> 


Replace it with:

PHP Code:

 <td>&nbsp;</td> 


Find at line 48:

PHP Code:

<td align="left" valign="middle" width="50"><a href="{U_POST_NEW_TOPIC}"><img src="{POST_IMG}" border="0" alt="{L_POST_NEW_TOPIC}" /></a></td> 


Replace it with:

PHP Code:

<td align="left" valign="middle" width="50">&nbsp;</td> 


To remove the New Topic icons (part two):

Open File viewtopic_body.tpl (2 edits)

Location: /forums/templates/subSilver/viewtopic_body.tpl

Find at line 12:

PHP Code:

<td align="left" valign="bottom" nowrap="nowrap"><span class="nav"><a href="{U_POST_NEW_TOPIC}"><img src="{POST_IMG}" border="0" alt="{L_POST_NEW_TOPIC}" align="middle" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="{U_POST_REPLY_TOPIC}"><img src="{REPLY_IMG}" border="0" alt="{L_POST_REPLY_TOPIC}" align="middle" /></a></span></td> 


Replace it with:

PHP Code:

<td align="left" valign="bottom" nowrap="nowrap"><span class="nav"><span class="nav"><a href="{U_POST_REPLY_TOPIC}"><img src="{REPLY_IMG}" border="0" alt="{L_POST_REPLY_TOPIC}" align="middle" /></a></span></td> 


Find at line 73:

PHP Code:

<td align="left" valign="middle" nowrap="nowrap"><span class="nav"><a href="{U_POST_NEW_TOPIC}"><img src="{POST_IMG}" border="0" alt="{L_POST_NEW_TOPIC}" align="middle" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="{U_POST_REPLY_TOPIC}"><img src="{REPLY_IMG}" border="0" alt="{L_POST_REPLY_TOPIC}" align="middle" /></a></span></td> 


Replace it with:

PHP Code:

<td align="left" valign="middle" nowrap="nowrap"><span class="nav"><a href="{U_POST_REPLY_TOPIC}"><img src="{REPLY_IMG}" border="0" alt="{L_POST_REPLY_TOPIC}" align="middle" /></a></span></td> 


Done!

[susanlani]

wow.....
worked like a charm so far.....

and if you'll bear with me
Can you tell me where the "post reply" button graphic is, as I'd like to replace it with a "post message" button. I'm assuming it's only in one place.
then I think I'll be done.

[susanlani]

found it
but I don't see a way to copy it to my computer with cpanel
would I have to use ftp?
nuts

[susanlani]

Hi,

I did the reply.gif
I might want to do more changes but I'm done for tonight.

Justin, thank you so much for all your help.
If you want to see.....it's
diane.kemmphoto.com/messages

Susan Lani

[GatorJustin]

Looks good! Let me know if you need help with anything else.


-Justin