<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <!-- Copyright (C) 2003-2012 UseBB Team http://www.usebb.net This file is part of UseBB. UseBB is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. UseBB is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with UseBB; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA --> <title>UseBB 1 Readme</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"/> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles.css" /> </head> <body> <div id="wrapper"> <h1>UseBB 1 <em>Readme</em></h1> <div id="content"> <p>Welcome to the UseBB 1 introduction document. This file gives some general information regarding UseBB, how to install/upgrade, etc.</p> <ul> <li><a href="#whats-usebb">What's UseBB?</a></li> <li><a href="#install-usebb"><strong>Install UseBB 1</strong></a></li> <li><a href="#upgrade-usebb">Upgrade an existing UseBB</a></li> <li><a href="#more-info">More information</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="whats-usebb">What's UseBB?</h2> <p>UseBB 1 is an <strong>Open Source</strong> forum package developed in PHP 4 and using the popular MySQL database back-end to store data. Unlike other popular forum systems, UseBB does not strive to have as many features as possible, but to be one of the <strong>easiest and most usable</strong> forum packages, limiting the basic feature set to only the essential. UseBB is <strong>pure forum software</strong>.</p> <p>UseBB is an ideal solution for small to medium-sized websites which require an easy to use forum package without the bloat, that produces <strong>standards compliant</strong> output, is secure and easily configurable.</p> <p>For a list of features, see the <a href="http://www.usebb.net/features/">feature list at UseBB.net</a>.</p> <h2 id="install-usebb">Install UseBB 1</h2> <p>Before you install UseBB 1, you have to make sure your host accords to the following system requirements.</p> <h3>Minimum requirements</h3> <ul> <li>HTTP server supporting PHP (or CGI)</li> <li>PHP version 4.3.0, including <code>session</code>, <code>PCRE</code> and <code>mysql</code> extensions</li> <li>MySQL version 3.23</li> </ul> <h3>Recommended set-up</h3> <ul> <li>GNU/Linux operating system</li> <li>Recent Apache HTTPD version, including <code>mod_rewrite</code></li> <li>Recent PHP 5 version, including <code>session</code>, <code>PCRE</code>, <code>mysql(i)</code>, <code>zlib</code> and <code>curl</code> extensions</li> <li>Recent MySQL version</li> </ul> <p>UseBB 1 supports PHP 5 upto the recent versions of 5.4, and was tested with MySQL versions up to MySQL 5.5.</p> <p>UseBB was also confirmed to work with some other HTTP servers, such as Microsoft IIS, lighttpd and ABYSS. However, there is no guarantee the latest version still does.</p> <p class="important"><strong>Important:</strong> If you use <strong>MySQL 4.1 or higher</strong>, it is highly recommended to use a <strong><code>latin1</code> collation</strong> instead of a Unicode one. Should your host use Unicode as default database collation, please change this for your database using phpMyAdmin or a similar administration tool or contact your host <em>before</em> installing UseBB 1. In most cases though, no action will be necessary.</p> <p>To install UseBB 1, you have two options.</p> <p class="important"><strong>Note:</strong> You must choose <strong>only one</strong> of the following installation methods. You don't have to follow both lists of steps. If you don't know what to choose, perform the automatic installation.</p> <h3>Automatic installation</h3> <p>The <strong>automatic installer</strong> is mostly the best and easiest method to install UseBB 1.</p> <ol> <li>Rename <code>config.php-dist</code> to <code>config.php</code>;</li> <li>Upload/move all the files to their final destination online;</li> <li><em>Optional:</em> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chmod">chmod</a> <code>config.php</code> so that it is writable by the webserver, this will able both the installer and UseBB's ACP to change settings;</li> <li>Open the <a href="../install/index.php">installation wizard</a> in your web browser (located at <code>install/</code> – the previous link only works when reading this file after uploading).</li> <li>Follow the instructions in the wizard.</li> </ol> <h3>Manual installation</h3> <p>Alternatively, you can install UseBB 1 manually.</p> <ol> <li>Execute <code>install/schemas/mysql.sql</code> followed by <code>install/usebb.sql</code> on your database (using a database management tool such as <a href="http://www.phpmyadmin.net/">phpMyAdmin</a>);</li> <li>Rename <code>config.php-dist</code> to <code>config.php</code>;</li> <li>Edit <code>config.php</code> and adjust the database settings<sup>1</sup>;</li> <li>Upload/move all the files except for the <code>install</code> directory to their final destination online;</li> <li><em>Optional:</em> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chmod">chmod</a> <code>config.php</code> so that it is writable by the webserver, this will able UseBB's ACP to change settings;</li> <li>Register a first user, it will automatically be an administrator.</li> </ol> <p><sup>1</sup>Use type '<code>mysqli</code>' if you use PHP 5 and have the <code>mysqli</code> extension available.</p> <h3>After installation</h3> <p>When installation is done, you can log in and start configuring your forum. The link to the ACP (Admin Control Panel) is at the bottom of the page.</p> <p>If this is a public forum, it is advised to <a href="anti-spam.html">read the <strong>anti-spam</strong> instructions</a> and take appropriate measures. By default no anti-spam features are enabled.</p> <h2 id="upgrade-usebb">Upgrade an existing UseBB</h2> <p>If you run a forum powered by a previous UseBB 1.0 version, you can upgrade as following:</p> <ul> <li>Recommended: make a <strong>backup</strong> of the database before continuing.</li> <li> Perform changes (note this only works for updating the previous release): <ul> <li>Reupload all changed files. There is a separate package only containing new and changed files.</li> <li><strong>Or</strong> apply the patch found in the separate download file <code>usebb-<version>.diff</code>. The patch can be applied using <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/patch/">GNU patch</a> or a compatible tool.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Alternatively, you can also reupload all files (except <code>config.php</code>).</li> </ul> <p>Separate download files can be found at <a href="http://www.usebb.net/downloads/">www.usebb.net/downloads</a>.</p> <p>Upgrading from several (now really old) 0.x versions is not possible without making database changes. Ask for help at <a href="http://www.usebb.net/community/">the forums</a>.</p> <h2 id="more-info">More information</h2> <h3>Important notes</h3> <ul> <li>While there are <strong>Unicode</strong> patches applied to the source, Unicode remains officially unsupported in UseBB 1. Please use Unicode (UTF-8) based translations at your own risk.</li> <li>At this time, the next version of the UseBB forum software is under development. <strong>UseBB 2</strong> is written in PHP 5 and thus will not be usable on PHP 4. Our limited userbase has permitted us of making this migration towards PHP 5. However, bug fix releases for UseBB 1 will still be made for an unspecified amount of time (a number of months after the release of UseBB 2.0.0). If you wish to be able to upgrade to UseBB 2 in the future (which is highly recommended), please make sure your host is able to run <strong>PHP 5.3</strong> or newer. Many web hosts already do or might do by the time 2.0.0 is released.</li> </ul> <h3>Developer's remark</h3> <p>UseBB 1 and its beta versions 0.x were developed as a hobby project, partially to gain experience with PHP and web development. The first code was written in 2004.</p> <p>Even though UseBB 1 has proven to be very suitable for small communities and is still maintained, its implementation should not be seen as a good example of the usage of modern (web) development techniques. For example, UseBB 1 lacks good use of object oriented programming and contains a number of design flaws that should be avoided in other (web) applications.</p> <p>Future major UseBB versions will completely abandon the current v1 architecture. Consider UseBB 1 for what it is: a light and – most important – classic bulletin board system.</p> <h3>External links</h3> <p>If you would like more information about UseBB, check out the following locations.</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.usebb.net">UseBB.net</a> for general information, news, downloads, etc.</li> <li>The <a href="http://www.usebb.net/community/">community forums</a> for help, (development) discussion, etc.</li> <li>Recent development information, feature requests, etc can be found at our <a href="https://github.com/usebb">GitHub account</a>.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p id="copyright">© <a href="http://www.usebb.net">UseBB Project</a></p> </body> </html>