I use Dreamweaver to maintain a website for a non-profit. (In other words I'm a volunteer, not an IT pro -- no paycheck, either) Took over a very basic existing site and and upgraded it and expanded it -- mostly self taught with just a basic knoweledge of HTML. I've been asked to explore adding a forum to the site. I'm asking these questions here and similar ones at the SMF site because MyBB and SMF seem to be the highest regarded freeware packages according to the googling I've done.
My thoughts are to add a navigation button on our site and link it to the forum software. Possible?
Since I use Dreamweaver, could I just add the install files into our websites root directory, link to it, and use Dreamweaver to upload everything?
Can I use Dreamweaver as my FTP program instead of FileZilla? If I can, what about all these CHMOD function things the installation wiki talks about. Can Dreamweaver do this like the wike says FileZilla can?
I'm a bit confused about the command panel. Is that a part of MyBB that is accessed somehow internally or is it an external app somewhere?
Thanks.
I'm not really sure what you're asking here
To link from your site to the forum, just add a link on the site...
I guess you can use Dreamweaver to upload the files if you really want to but I don't know if you can CHMOD them via Dreamweaver too, that's probably a better question for the Dreamweaver site... we don't know every feature of every program
I'm not sure what you're referring to by 'command panel', can you clarify...??
Thanks for the quick reply.
When I said command panel I guess I meant control panel. I came across the term as I searched this forum for Dreamweaver related posts. Someone was having trouble finding their database name and SQL something or other. I've done some more googling and see that it is something supplied by the host isp. Guess I'll talk to them, too.
Are the MyBB files uploaded to the root of the website files? In other words, will the MyBB files be part of (included in) the original website file structure? Or are they uploaded into a seperate structure (account/spot/folder??) of their own? I'm being repetitive because I'm not sure I'm making myself clear. Would the link from the website be to an internal file (MyBB installed inside the website root) or an external link -- files posted elseware on the host site?
I hope I haven't confused you more.
For databases and SQL you need phpMyAdmin, which is in your host's control panel.
You can put the files wherever you want. If your site is yoursite.com you could put it at yoursite.com/index.php (as long as there wouldn't be any file name conflicts), yoursite.com/forum/index.php, forum.yoursite.com/index.php, wherever, then you just add a link to wherever the forum index file is.
I've decided to go with MyBB but first I need to call our host and request MySQL be initiated for our account and get all the pertinent info required.
If I install a server program like wampserver on my local machine (I've been googling some more ... I learned about wampserver in a PHP tutorial I was reading
The tutorial recommended this to test scripts before uploading them) can I "upload" MyBB to it and pretend it's our website -- configure it, play with it, re-arrange things ... make my mistakes before it goes live on the internet?
Thanks for the quick responses. I'm pretty sure I'll be back asking more questions.
Yep, WAMP can be your little playground where you can mess about with it and do what you want. You can set it up exactly how you want it on WAMP, install themes, plugins etc, and then when you're happy with it and want to make it live, you'd need to change a few settings (which we can go through when you get to that stage) then upload the files, along with the database, and it'll be live exactly the same as it was on your machine.
Have initiated mySQL from our host and found out they use phpMyAdmin 2.11.9.4 and mySQL 4.0.25 on their server. When I logged into the account to see what the control panel looked like, there was a caution which said, "Your PHP MySQL library version 5.0.24 differs from your MySQL server version 4.0.25. This may cause unpredictable behavior."
I didn't know I had any SQL installed on my local machine. The current download of WAMP includes mySQL 5.1.36. I'm hesitant to download it because it has an even newer version of mySQL.
Does anyone know which version of WAMP would have mySQL 4.0.25? I would like to minimize problems. If I got everything working fine on a test basis and then went live only to have problems because of version differences it would drive me crazy.
You can download older versions of stuff here:
http://www.wampserver.com/en/add-ons.php
However you'd be better off upgrading everything to the highest version you can. Upgrade the lower versions to meet the higher versions, as opposed the downgrading the higher versions to meet the lower versions... downgrading newer versions of things to cater for other old software is taking one step forward and two steps back.