ExBB - PHP forum on files
ExBB (Exclusive Bulletin Board) is a forum engine written in the PHP scripting language. Unlike most PHP forums, it does not require MySQL hosting, as it stores all the data in plain text files. Such an engine is perfect for use on free or low-cost paid hosting that supports PHP, but does not provide access to the MySQL database.
The default language in this forum is Russian. There are also Ukrainian and English localizations.
It is important that the ExBB engine is completely free. It is licensed under the GNU GPL.
The history of the ExBB forum began in the summer of 2003. Its first version was released on August 10th. Starting with version 1.9.1, which was released in May 2004, the author stopped working on the forum. The ExBB development baton was taken by the TvoyWeb team .
In July 2007 ExBB FM 1.0 Beta was released. It was distinguished from previous versions by the use of the concept of object-oriented programming. Over time, significant changes were made to the engine, making ExBB faster and safer.
Over time, TvoyWeb stopped developing new versions. Therefore, in February 2009, a new official project website was opened - ExBB.org. On February 10, a year and a half after the beta release, ExBB FM 1.0 RC1 was released.
On March 29, 2011, the ExBB FM 1.0 RC1.01 assembly was released. It is a release of ExBB FM 1.0 RC1, in which all critical updates have been added, as well as several mods.
In 2012, the site changed its address to ExBB.info. On May 1, the ExBB FM 1.0 Final assembly was released. It requires PHP version 5.3 to work.
To date, the latest version of the forum is ExBB 1.1. The release took place on July 27, 2016. This version was created based on the assembly of ExBB FM 1.0 Final. Its main feature is support for new versions of PHP, starting from 5.4 and ending with 7.0. If the version is PHP 5.3 or lower, then the forum cannot be installed.
On August 4, 2016, a preliminary release of ExBB 2.0.0 was held. This forum requires a PHP interpreter version of at least 5.5. The main differences of this version are UTF-8 encoding, a new forum data structure, as well as a new installer.
For the review, ExBB FM 1.0 RC1.01 was selected as the most stable and time-tested.
The forum is installed using a step-by-step installer, like most modern engines. During the installation, parameters such as the name and description of the forum are set, an administrator account is created.
After installation, you can begin to create categories and forums. In each forum, you can create subforums. For forums and sub-forums, you can assign moderators.
Externally, the forum is almost indistinguishable from Invision Power Board 1.3. Unless forum icons without the inscription "IPB". This is the basic style of the forum called InvisionExBB. In addition to it, on the ExBB website you can download more than 2 dozen skins from different authors.
ExBB has all the standard features typical of popular table forums: the ability to create topics and polls, attach files, view the “Who's on-line?” List, and has a personal messaging system. When editing a profile, users can select avatars from the list of standard ones or upload their own.
It is worth noting a large selection of emoticons, divided into categories: “Joy”, “Anger, resentment”, “Holidays”, “Badges and tablets”, “I am so!”, Etc. In total, about 200 IPB-style emoticons are included in the standard installation of the forum.
It is also possible to search the forum. The search engine is based on the RiSearch PHP engine.
The forum provides ample opportunities for moderation. So, in addition to the standard functions for editing and deleting messages, it is possible to attach messages to the topic. Such messages, regardless of their date of writing, will be at the top of the topic.
The moderator can divide the topic into parts or transfer messages from one topic to another. However, the first message of the topic cannot be moved, so a complete union of topics is impossible.
The forum is managed through the administration center. Outwardly, it resembles the phpBB admin panel.
The panel allows you to create and edit categories, forums and sub-forums, edit various settings, add and edit emoticons, and manage user accounts.
To ensure that users comply with the order on the forum, there are functions such as automatic replacement of obscene words, blocking participants by IP address.
It is possible to slightly expand the functionality of the forum, using the modifications presented on the ExBB website . For example, you can add chat, make a tag to insert spoilers in messages, etc.
As already mentioned, the forum stores all the data in text files. But these files are not quite ordinary. The method of writing to files is fundamentally different from the traditional one, using separators (this is how most forum engines store data - for example, UBB, YaBB, Ikonboard). ExBB turns arrays into strings using the standard PHP function serialize () and writes it to a file. The unserialize () function is used to convert the serialized string back to a PHP value .
Due to its simplicity, this method is convenient from the point of view of the developer of the engine. However, the decision of the ExBB creator to store the data in a serialized string is less convenient for the forum administrator, since it does not allow editing the saved data in a text editor. More precisely, it allows, but to make it an order of magnitude more difficult and requires more skill from the administrator.
One of the advantages of the forum is that it does not require hosting support for configuring the web server using .htaccess files . At the same time, the .php extension is used for data storage security, and at the beginning of each file, the code <? Die;?> Is written before the serialized line , interrupting the output of the contents to the browser.
For each forum, a separate folder of the form forum1 , forum2 , etc. is created. The folder contains all the topics contained in this forum: 1-thd.php , 2-thd.php , etc. In addition, an additional file is created for each survey: for example, 3-poll.php will be created for the 3-thd.php topic . If this topic contains attachments, then information about them will be recorded in the attaches-3.php file, and the attachments themselves are stored in the uploads folder . The list of topics in the forum is in the list.php file . The number of views of topics is recorded in a separate views.php file .
User accounts are stored in the members folder . For each participant, files of the type 1.php , 2.php , etc., are created , in which his profile data is written. It is worth noting that the user password is stored encrypted using the md5 () function . Thanks to this, even the administrator cannot find out what passwords users use on his forum.
A serious drawback of ExBB is the support by different versions of forums of only strictly defined versions of PHP. For example, ExBB FM 1.0 Final requires that hosting version PHP 5.3 be installed, ExBB 1.1 - from 5.4 to 7.0, and ExBB 2.0.0 - not lower than 5.5. The lack of support for old versions of PHP in new versions of the forum creates inconvenience for shared hosting clients who are not able to install the necessary version of PHP and, thus, are forced to use old versions of ExBB on their sites.
It is worth recognizing that ExBB cannot boast of great popularity. So, according to the “Rating of Runet, Wanet and Baynet forums,” it is not used by any Russian-language forum with more than 1 million messages, Ukrainian-language with more than 50 thousand messages, or Belarusian-language with more than 2 thousand messages.
Today's largest ExBB-based forums are:
The functionality of this engine, of course, is not comparable with the leading forum software - paid Invision, vBulletin, XenForo, and even free phpBB and SMF. But do not forget that these engines require MySQL hosting, and ExBB only support for PHP is enough.
There is still a rather functional forum on files, for which development of new versions is also continuing - this is YaBB (Yet another Bulletin Board). But unlike ExBB, it is not written in PHP, but in Perl.
Among the PHP forums on files, ExBB probably has no competitors. And this is his trick.
The default language in this forum is Russian. There are also Ukrainian and English localizations.
It is important that the ExBB engine is completely free. It is licensed under the GNU GPL.
Story
The history of the ExBB forum began in the summer of 2003. Its first version was released on August 10th. Starting with version 1.9.1, which was released in May 2004, the author stopped working on the forum. The ExBB development baton was taken by the TvoyWeb team .
In July 2007 ExBB FM 1.0 Beta was released. It was distinguished from previous versions by the use of the concept of object-oriented programming. Over time, significant changes were made to the engine, making ExBB faster and safer.
Over time, TvoyWeb stopped developing new versions. Therefore, in February 2009, a new official project website was opened - ExBB.org. On February 10, a year and a half after the beta release, ExBB FM 1.0 RC1 was released.
On March 29, 2011, the ExBB FM 1.0 RC1.01 assembly was released. It is a release of ExBB FM 1.0 RC1, in which all critical updates have been added, as well as several mods.
In 2012, the site changed its address to ExBB.info. On May 1, the ExBB FM 1.0 Final assembly was released. It requires PHP version 5.3 to work.
To date, the latest version of the forum is ExBB 1.1. The release took place on July 27, 2016. This version was created based on the assembly of ExBB FM 1.0 Final. Its main feature is support for new versions of PHP, starting from 5.4 and ending with 7.0. If the version is PHP 5.3 or lower, then the forum cannot be installed.
On August 4, 2016, a preliminary release of ExBB 2.0.0 was held. This forum requires a PHP interpreter version of at least 5.5. The main differences of this version are UTF-8 encoding, a new forum data structure, as well as a new installer.
Forum Overview
For the review, ExBB FM 1.0 RC1.01 was selected as the most stable and time-tested.
The forum is installed using a step-by-step installer, like most modern engines. During the installation, parameters such as the name and description of the forum are set, an administrator account is created.
After installation, you can begin to create categories and forums. In each forum, you can create subforums. For forums and sub-forums, you can assign moderators.
Externally, the forum is almost indistinguishable from Invision Power Board 1.3. Unless forum icons without the inscription "IPB". This is the basic style of the forum called InvisionExBB. In addition to it, on the ExBB website you can download more than 2 dozen skins from different authors.
ExBB has all the standard features typical of popular table forums: the ability to create topics and polls, attach files, view the “Who's on-line?” List, and has a personal messaging system. When editing a profile, users can select avatars from the list of standard ones or upload their own.
It is worth noting a large selection of emoticons, divided into categories: “Joy”, “Anger, resentment”, “Holidays”, “Badges and tablets”, “I am so!”, Etc. In total, about 200 IPB-style emoticons are included in the standard installation of the forum.
It is also possible to search the forum. The search engine is based on the RiSearch PHP engine.
The forum provides ample opportunities for moderation. So, in addition to the standard functions for editing and deleting messages, it is possible to attach messages to the topic. Such messages, regardless of their date of writing, will be at the top of the topic.
The moderator can divide the topic into parts or transfer messages from one topic to another. However, the first message of the topic cannot be moved, so a complete union of topics is impossible.
The forum is managed through the administration center. Outwardly, it resembles the phpBB admin panel.
The panel allows you to create and edit categories, forums and sub-forums, edit various settings, add and edit emoticons, and manage user accounts.
To ensure that users comply with the order on the forum, there are functions such as automatic replacement of obscene words, blocking participants by IP address.
It is possible to slightly expand the functionality of the forum, using the modifications presented on the ExBB website . For example, you can add chat, make a tag to insert spoilers in messages, etc.
Technical features
As already mentioned, the forum stores all the data in text files. But these files are not quite ordinary. The method of writing to files is fundamentally different from the traditional one, using separators (this is how most forum engines store data - for example, UBB, YaBB, Ikonboard). ExBB turns arrays into strings using the standard PHP function serialize () and writes it to a file. The unserialize () function is used to convert the serialized string back to a PHP value .
Due to its simplicity, this method is convenient from the point of view of the developer of the engine. However, the decision of the ExBB creator to store the data in a serialized string is less convenient for the forum administrator, since it does not allow editing the saved data in a text editor. More precisely, it allows, but to make it an order of magnitude more difficult and requires more skill from the administrator.
One of the advantages of the forum is that it does not require hosting support for configuring the web server using .htaccess files . At the same time, the .php extension is used for data storage security, and at the beginning of each file, the code <? Die;?> Is written before the serialized line , interrupting the output of the contents to the browser.
For each forum, a separate folder of the form forum1 , forum2 , etc. is created. The folder contains all the topics contained in this forum: 1-thd.php , 2-thd.php , etc. In addition, an additional file is created for each survey: for example, 3-poll.php will be created for the 3-thd.php topic . If this topic contains attachments, then information about them will be recorded in the attaches-3.php file, and the attachments themselves are stored in the uploads folder . The list of topics in the forum is in the list.php file . The number of views of topics is recorded in a separate views.php file .
User accounts are stored in the members folder . For each participant, files of the type 1.php , 2.php , etc., are created , in which his profile data is written. It is worth noting that the user password is stored encrypted using the md5 () function . Thanks to this, even the administrator cannot find out what passwords users use on his forum.
A serious drawback of ExBB is the support by different versions of forums of only strictly defined versions of PHP. For example, ExBB FM 1.0 Final requires that hosting version PHP 5.3 be installed, ExBB 1.1 - from 5.4 to 7.0, and ExBB 2.0.0 - not lower than 5.5. The lack of support for old versions of PHP in new versions of the forum creates inconvenience for shared hosting clients who are not able to install the necessary version of PHP and, thus, are forced to use old versions of ExBB on their sites.
Prevalence
It is worth recognizing that ExBB cannot boast of great popularity. So, according to the “Rating of Runet, Wanet and Baynet forums,” it is not used by any Russian-language forum with more than 1 million messages, Ukrainian-language with more than 50 thousand messages, or Belarusian-language with more than 2 thousand messages.
Today's largest ExBB-based forums are:
- Military-historical forum (368 thousand posts);
- Forums of the portal PHP.SU (278 thousand messages);
- TvoyWeb (59 thousand messages);
- Jeep Garage.ru Forum (56 thousand posts);
- Murmansk Arktiksiti Forum (41 thousand posts);
- ExBB Community (31 thousand messages).
Conclusion
The functionality of this engine, of course, is not comparable with the leading forum software - paid Invision, vBulletin, XenForo, and even free phpBB and SMF. But do not forget that these engines require MySQL hosting, and ExBB only support for PHP is enough.
There is still a rather functional forum on files, for which development of new versions is also continuing - this is YaBB (Yet another Bulletin Board). But unlike ExBB, it is not written in PHP, but in Perl.
Among the PHP forums on files, ExBB probably has no competitors. And this is his trick.
