First let me say I'm very pleased with MyBB but I have very little experience with customizing it so far. I see colors are simple to change and profiles can have new fields added to them quite easily. I do not want to deal with CSS or templates at this point, however.
So, what should I avoid doing, so that when an update comes out I can immediately apply it without overwriting the work I've done. (Again I'll use the colors on the templates as an example of "safe and easy").
And how do you more experienced forum designers track what you have done so that you can repeat the customizations when upgrades overwrite it? (Is an easy-mod [phpbb] equivalent available?)
Anything you modify from the AdminCP won't affect upgrading. All of the style and template information is stored in the database, not in the files themselves. When an update comes out, you can just upload the changed files with no problem.
To keep track of any code changes in the files, I generally keep a copy of the changed file stored on my hard drive, with a note in it as to what changes have been made.
Plugins are relatively easy to use. Just upload the plugin to your inc/plugins/ directory, and activate from your Admin CP. And you can easily uninstall it by deactivating it, and deleting it from your inc/plugins/ folder.
And a little bit of further information:
- As was said, basically anything you can change in the Admin CP is safe to change. We ensure all data is correctly updated during the upgrade process.
- The only major exception to this is templates. However there is an upgrade process put in place which will allow you to revert your changed template to the original new version, or view the new version and your custom one side by side. There is a "Find Updated Templates" link which shows a list of templates with a higher version number than your modified ones - this allows you to determine which templates we've changed from version to version that you haven't modified yet.
- Plugins, as was said, are easy to add. They should come with their own activation and deactivation routines. However, be warned that when upgrading there may be some problems if we've decided to name a new database column the same as the plugins, or the same template, setting name etc. The safest option before you upgrade is to disable all of your plugins which hopefully reverts any database changes back as well.
As for tracking what you've done:
- Add comments in the code (See the PHP documentation for how to do this). This will allow you to create notes on what you've changed etc and will help when upgrading.
- Keep a set of personal notes for yourself on what you've modified.
- Using a difference analysis tool (such as KDiff) you can compare your modified copy of MyBB to an original version (same version as you have modified) and take note of any changes between the two in terms of code - you then insert your changes in to the new version.
We can offer you advice and hints a long the way as well, however the safest way to add new functionality to your board is through the plugin system as they rarely require actual code modifications.
Regards,
Chris