MyBB Community Forums

I apologize in advance if this isn't the right forum- I looked over the list and my post probably could have gone in one of several forums. If this post belongs in a different forum, please move it.

I'm a long-time forum owner and have used quite a few different forum scripts along the way (Anyboard, DCForum+, VBulletin, Phorum, phpBB, Agora, IP Board, etc etc etc), and so on. For the last few years I've sort of standardized on SMF because it's free and has a good list of mod packages. It's also reasonably easy to modify/hack/extend.

There appears to be a whole lot of mega-drama going on with the SMF development staff these days and its future is uncertain, so I'm looking around to see what might be a good forum system to migrate to. myBB looks pretty good overall, so I thought I'd ask some questions here.

(Because of the drama at SMF, I've used a different user name here than I do on the SMF forums. They appear to be getting kinda ban-happy over there, by some reports.)

1) How easy is it to create a plugin for myBB? I ask because I've created a couple of plugins for SMF and would be glad to convert them to myBB plugins, assuming I can do so. I understand myBB uses "hooks" as opposed to code edits, but I've no idea how that works. Can someone give me a brief idea of what the "hook" stuff is all about?

2) Probably a dumb or unanswerable question, but how easy is it to modify the myBB code, either for functionality or look and feel, i.e. themes? Changing some stuff in SMF is easy, some of it's a nightmare. I'm hoping myBB falls into the "easy" category.

3) Plugins...no doubt about it, SMF has a bunch, and it's probably the biggest thing keeping me from switching. What's the development time for plugins, generally? I know this depends on the complexity, but for a mod that's not too complex, what would be a guess as to how long it might take to code? That is, how long have some of the currently available plugins taken to create? I'd be willing to do some plugins if it's feasible.

Thanks for answering my questions! I don't want to turn this into a book, so I'll stop here and see what people say.

1. Plugins can be quite hard to switch from smf to mybb, but the coding of them, as long as you have a good knowledge of php, can be easy as long as you know what you are doing.

2. Coding is easy to modify but, to tell the truth, so many things come with mybb that in the end, you really don't have to change much, if so, so little that it really doesn't even count.

3. The nice thing about mybb is that so much is built into the system itself and so much added in on every new update. There are many plugins and you can always request one if there is not. however, i find myself with all the plugins i need and no need for anymore. That is the great thing about mybb, it is great even without plugins, where as smf and phpbb need more modding to make it perfect.

Plugins are quite easy to create once you learn all the hooks and tricks. Sometimes you have to do things in seemingly roundabout ways, but in truth it allows for far more flexibility.

Do some more research and be ready to convert by January. I'm wrestling with a serious bug regarding importing of attachments with our Merge System (How you will convert SMF to MyBB)

(2010-12-08, 02:04 AM)MattG Wrote: [ -> ]1. Plugins can be quite hard to switch from smf to mybb, but the coding of them, as long as you have a good knowledge of php, can be easy as long as you know what you are doing.

Most of my plugin stuff is written specifically to be very non-intrusive, basically adding one line in some file somewhere to "intercept" some data and then do something with it.

(2010-12-08, 02:04 AM)MattG Wrote: [ -> ]3.That is the great thing about mybb, it is great even without plugins, where as smf and phpbb need more modding to make it perfect.

I typically do a lot of little edits to do things that aren't stock features...like not allowing profile fields to be saved until a user has made 'x' number of posts. Or disallowing external links (but not internal ones) until they've made 'x' number of posts. Lots of little tweaks, basically.

What about themes? How difficult is it to create a new theme from scratch, or modify an existing one?

Or, in the case of a mod...for example, a must-have mod for some of my boards is a good syntax highlighter. Currently SMF has a mod that uses the geSHi highlighter (the mod isn't officially supported anymore, but still works). I use it and it's hands-down the best highlighter I've ever seen.

What syntax highlighter does myBB use, and if you had to guess, how hard would it be to create a mod that uses geSHi?

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(2010-12-08, 02:16 AM)Dylan M. Wrote: [ -> ]Plugins are quite easy to create once you learn all the hooks and tricks. Sometimes you have to do things in seemingly roundabout ways, but in truth it allows for far more flexibility.

Would it be possible to give me a brief overview of what the "hook" concept entails?

It is quite easy to create a theme as long as you have an understanding of html, some php, and css. Once you have that, it is quite easy. You can use the default theme and then just work from there.

The MyBB hooks system should feel fairly familiar if SMF works by simply "intercepting" some code as you say. The hooks are built-in already in most places folks need and these allow one or more plugin to run a particular function within the plugin file to intercept data, alter data, use data elsewhere, trigger something, deny something etc.

Check out the Wiki plugin section - http://wiki.mybb.com/index.php/Plugins and grab a popular plugins from the Mods site - http://mods.mybb.com/ and check out the code in them.

The 'minor tweaks" you mentioned are either already built into MyBB or someone has already created those plugins, either free or subscription based.

Regarding the look and feel, MyBB is nice that it separates themes and templates and languages. You can edit them independently or customize and group the themes and templates. Then create a new theme and assign it a template set.

Very customizable with built-in CSS, template, theme and language editors in the ACP.

(2010-12-08, 02:58 AM)pavemen Wrote: [ -> ]The MyBB hooks system should feel fairly familiar if SMF works by simply "intercepting" some code as you say.

No, that's what I mean- they don't do that. Most of the mods involve edits to some of the core files, and that (sometimes) leads to collisions. Install mod "A", then install mod "B", then go to install mod "C" and it hammers "A or "B"...or it won't install at all. That's why the "hook" idea sounds interesting to me.

(2010-12-08, 02:58 AM)pavemen Wrote: [ -> ]Check out the Wiki plugin section - http://wiki.mybb.com/index.php/Plugins and grab a popular plugins from the Mods site - http://mods.mybb.com/ and check out the code in them.

I'll have to have a look and see what I can puzzle out.

What's the state of SMF-to-myBB converters?

(2010-12-08, 03:12 AM)Cruise Elroy Wrote: [ -> ]No, that's what I mean- they don't do that. Most of the mods involve edits to some of the core files, and that (sometimes) leads to collisions. Install mod "A", then install mod "B", then go to install mod "C" and it hammers "A or "B"...or it won't install at all. That's why the "hook" idea sounds interesting to me.

I was just referencing your post about intercepting data and having to add one line of code to do that. the hooks are already that "one line of code" built-in for you to use.

also, plugins operate on a priority basis so you can make different plugins that run on the same hooks have priority over one another. great feature to have in the case you do have a 'collision'. its happens once and a while with the various plugins, but the priority option usually takes care of it

(2010-12-08, 03:12 AM)Cruise Elroy Wrote: [ -> ]I'll have to have a look and see what I can puzzle out.

What's the state of SMF-to-myBB converters?

there is the above posts, there may be a bug with attachments, but its being worked on apparently

Yes, there is a bug with attachments, but everything else seems to be importing perfectly with the current trunk code. I swear I must be missing something totally obvious, so obvious I just need to be slapped with it, in regards to the attachments problem.

(2010-12-08, 02:28 AM)Cruise Elroy Wrote: [ -> ]Or, in the case of a mod...for example, a must-have mod for some of my boards is a good syntax highlighter. Currently SMF has a mod that uses the geSHi highlighter (the mod isn't officially supported anymore, but still works). I use it and it's hands-down the best highlighter I've ever seen.
What syntax highlighter does myBB use, and if you had to guess, how hard would it be to create a mod that uses geSHi?

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You could try this from Zinga Burga. It doesn't use geSHi but is similar. http://mybbhacks.zingaburga.com/showthread.php?tid=271

Features:
Tabs are displayed correctly (not converted to spaces)
Adds a Select button for easy code selection
Supported languages:
C
C++
Java
Visual Basic
PHP (custom)
XML/HTML
Javascript
Assembler
SQL
Batch
INI