Web hosting uk - 328 CHAPTER 11 MODIFYING PHPBB base, and
328 CHAPTER 11 MODIFYING PHPBB base, and of course, an administrator, more than massive data loss. The age-old adage applies: better safe than sorry! Avoiding Excessive Downtime When you modify your board, a little downtime is inevitable. Something may not work quite right, or you might have missed a line and caused something to go wrong. It happens to the best of us. While eliminating outages completely is probably impossible, you can do a few things to make your downtime short-lived and as little of an inconvenience as possible. Use a test installation, separate from your production forums. Having a test board is a great idea, especially if you are just getting started with modifying phpBB. You can freely test features you wish to add and thoroughly test your modifications, without disturbing the day-to-day operations of your production site. Plus, you can simply upload the modified test copy of the board to your production site once you know it is stable, which will put in all the necessary modifications. (If your modifications require that you perform some updates to your database, you will still need to do that in addition to uploading the test copy.) Since phpBB 2.0 permits you to install multiple copies in the same database, there is no reason not to have a test board, especially if you plan to do a lot of modification work. Schedule modification work for off-peak hours. If you have some time when your board is not heavily accessed, use that time to make changes to your board, if at all possible. That way, potential problems that can arise will have less of an impact on your operation. Let your members know what s happening. Finally, let your members know that you will be adding new features to the board during your scheduled time window, and make them aware of the possibility of outages or other issues during that time. This is especially critical if you must perform your modifications during times of higher activity. It s a nice, common courtesy, and can help in advertising some of the new features you may add. Acquiring Your Hacks After your preparatory routine, it s time to start looking around the Internet for the modifications you wish to add. Most, if not all, phpBB administrators look at a few select hack databases from which they download modifications and get support for them. These sites offer modifications and templates listed by category. You can often find many new features to add to your installation at one of these sites. Also, any hack database worth your time also has a support forum, where many of the authors and other experienced phpBB administrators can assist you with problems you may encounter along the way. Tip If you are browsing around the Web and see a phpBB board with a few nice modifications, but don t know what they might be called, feel free to ask the administrator. Most phpBB administrators will be happy to help you and point you in the right direction toward acquiring those modifications. It s a community for a reason!
We would like to recommend you tested and proved virtual web hosting services, which you will surely find to be of great quality.