Sub forums using PHPBB, Is it possible?

[subucni]

Hi there guys,

Have recently been setting up a forum for the World of Warcraft guild i'm in, using PHPBB. Considering it's the first time i've attempted it all has been going better than expected so far. I have navigated around installing a template, and moving and creating forums and categories.


However i'd like to put in some sub forums within forums just like how this software development forum is within the Hexus.Binaries forum, which is in turn in the Hexus.help category. I can't work out how to do this though, i can only seem to put forums inside categories and not other forums which could make the front page get a bit long.

Is it possible to do this at all using PHPBB, or is it a feature that i'm only going to get from paying someone like vBulletin for. Hopefully not.


Also, given that i've just started out is there any great/essential PHPBB forum mods/add ons i should be downloading and installing to make admin easier or add important functionality to the board?



Thanks a lot guys.

Bres

[Tarffie]

I imagine you still need to use a mod for subforums. Something like http://www.phpbb.com/mods/db/index.p...ontrib_id=1697 is what I used when I ran a phpBB board.

[Dorza]

I probably won't be helpful here towards your problem but if its a very small forum and only just started I would strongly suggest you at least have a look at Simple Machines Forums on a test server or something. Its better than PHPBB in my opinion, still free and adding and moving sub forums around is also very easy. Theres a whole host of other features listed on their site. I like it a lot, and its my first choice right now.

[subucni]

Hey guys, thanks for the info.

Cheers Dorza, certainly going to look into simple machines for future use.

As it is though, phpbb is already up and running and people have started using the forum so i tried getting my head around simple sub forums, and i've come up against a couple of problems but first i'll bring you upto speed of where i'm at.

After looking into simple sub forums i realised i needed to install the extreme styles mod, or at least replace the forums "template.php" with the one within the mod, which is what i did.

All fine upto now.

Next as simple subforums says it's EasyMod friendly, i installed that, which i managed to work out after a while.

All going good so far.

This is where i've just started running into problems, i've tried installing subforums using EasyMod, hoping that i wouldn't run into any problems with the extra template i have installed. All went well for the subsilver template, but for my wow_alliance template it's thrown up the following errors.



I think i know how to get around these error but was hoping someone could tell me if i'm right before i go ahead and do it. After opening up the "index_body.tpl" with notepad for both templates i spotted that the wow_alliance template is missing the height="50" section, so if i just correct that first it should work, yes?

Secondly the "overall_header.tpl" is missing the @import url entirely from the wow_alliance templates. So if i copy the section in the pic below can i just add that to the wow_alliance file? and if so, do it matter where in the file it goes?




I hope i've worked that out right.

Bres

[MD]

looks to me like the mod is hard coded for subsilver and its failing on anything that has your template name in the path?

If so you need to check the mod file to see if it details sub silver and import it again after changing the template url to your own design.

Matt.

[subucni]

Cheers Matt,

The install file does specify subsilver in the url's of the files to edit, however i can't see that being the problem because Easymod seems to be trying to install it into all my templates to me, otherwise it wouldn't have even been looking in the files it came up with the errors for would it?

Either way, i think i'm just going to back the forum up completely and run the install through easymod fully to see if it does change any of the files for both the subsilver template and the wow_alliance template. Then try and manually adjust the files it throws up errors with, and see what happens from there because i can always swap it back if all goes wrong.

[kapowaz]

Okay, let's take what you're trying to do aside from technology for a second and ask yourself: what is it you're really trying to accomplish? Subforums are a means to an end, not an end in themselves, so you've probably got some sort of need you want to meet. What is that need? Would installing complex software be the best way of accomplishing it, or could it be achieved in a 'human' way instead?

I've been administering a forum for a few years, and in that time we've switched from the (inordinately complex and woefully insecure) PhpBB2 to PunBB, but even the latter is too 'complex' for my liking. Simple Machines seems to suffer the same sort of featureitis (the 'Community' link on their own site takes me to a forum page so densely packed with information I'd not know where to start).

If you're managing a World of Warcraft guild, first of all; don't try and emulate Blizzard's forums. They have lots of forums on lots of different subjects because of the sheer volume of posts, and because it'd not be manageable any other way. If you've got one person asking a question about (say) Blacksmithing in a week, does that really necessitate having a dedicated forum for Blacksmithing? Does it even necessitate having a dedicated forum for Professions? Take a step back and think what you really need to be able to separate (i.e. what types of post wouldn't work very well if they were mixed together) and then separate down to those few things.

As far as technology goes, I'd recommend something like Vanilla over PhpBB, PunBB or SimpleMachineForum. Even better would be Beast, but that doesn't currently support private forums (although I imagine there are 3rd party mods that do), and it's written in Ruby on Rails, which might not be so easy for you to deploy if you don't have prior experience with it.