WPBBS Installation
wpBBS is a lightweight bulletin board system for WordPress. It has been designed to use your WordPress database of registered users so if users have registered with your blog, the board will use the same login/pass. This has been tested ok with WordPress 2.7.1.
Built with Koolmoves 7.0.2 and targeting Flashplayer 10 for best results, this board allows you to have a small footprint forum system with zero refresh of pages and allows users to post using html editors (RTE), write signatures, upload avatars and much more.
To install wpBBS in your WordPress blog:
1. Backup your existing WordPress database!!!!
2. Download the wpBBS zip file and unzip it.
3. The “wpBBS” folder inside the package is the folder you will upload to your server. Open this folder so we can edit a few files.
4. Open the “setup.php” file. At the top you will see fields that you have to enter information in. This forum system uses the same database that you installed your WordPress blog into. You need that database name, the host address, your database username and database password.
5. Below that it will ask for the FULL path on your server where you will install the wpBBS folder to. DONT FORGET THE TRAILING SLASH (/)
6. Below that you will see the entries to create forums titles. The setup script comes with three examples but you can add as many as you want. Each forum section asks for the forum title, forum description, post new rank, post reply rank and displayorder. All WordPress users are by default user level 1. Admin is user level 10. wpBBS supports user levels and users can only see forums they have the rank to view. Later, when we release the Administration panel for wpBBS, this ability will really be showcased but for now new users should make all forums they want wordpress users to see level1 and any forum they only want to see themselves any level higher than 1.
If you add more forums to the setup.php file, you must also add matching INSERT queries to match the three examples provided (shown below)
7. Open the wpBBS.fun file in the source code subfolder in the wpBBS zip file with Koolmoves 7. The wpBBS.fun source code uses the TweenMax classes from Greensock. You will need to download and install the TweenMax package and install it into your class path in Koolmoves (bin/as3/classes folder) to recompile the source code before using it. You will see the import statements inside the wpBBS.fun file (near the top) that call up the Tweenmax classes.
In our example we have installed the TweenMax classes in our Koolmoves/bin/as3/classes subfolder. The Tweenmax folder is named “gs” (same as in the downloaded TweenMax package).The ONLY THING YOU NEED TO EDIT IN THE wpBBS.fun FILE IS THE FULL SERVER PATH TO YOUR wpBBS BOARD! This should be exactly the same (with trailing slash) as the entry you made in the setup.php file
Once you have edited that line, save the fun file and Export the movie. Place the exported movie in your wpBBS folder that was created when you unpacked the ZIP file.
8. Once you have your database connection edited, all your forums added, saved the setup.php file and have compiled the wpBBS fun file with Koolmoves and placed it in that folder….upload the entire wpBBS folder to your server (should match the path you used for the $serverPath variable). Once the folder is uploaded, make sure the directory is writeable (chmod…see your host for details) because the setup.php file will create your mysql connection file for you and need to be able to write. Once everything is ready, navigate to the wpBBS folder in your browser to run the setup.php file:
9. If everything went well and the database fields you edited in the setup.php file (addy, password,database name and database username) were correct and it found your WordPress database, you should see this in your browser after you run the setup.php file:
Like it says, delete the setup.php file from your server!!! The wpBBS tables were installed and we are ready to add the wpBBS forum to your WordPress blog. Before you do, test the installation by direct hitting your wpBBS.swf file in your browser
You should see your wpBBS board ask you to login:
USE THE SAME LOGIN PASS YOU USE FOR YOUR WORDPRESS BLOG! It should log you in and you should see all the forums you created by editing your setup.php file during installation (note this picture shows the example forums provided with the default setup.php script…these would actually be whatever foirum names you made)
10. Ok, now that you have confirmed your wpBBS board is installed, It’s time to add to your WordPress blog as a page.
wpBBS is 580 pixels wide and 525 pixels high. If the width exceeds the width of your viewable space in your WordPress theme, you can fire it as a popup window. This installation assumes your viewable space can handle the board width (like ours at the KM-CODEX does) and focuses on adding it as a page in your blog. Since wpBBS has it’s own logic to integrate with your WordPress blog database and is a Flash object, we get a little leeway as far as how to integrate it with our WordPress blog. Unlike php based plugins or widgets, you can embed this Flash movie in your blog in any of the many ways WordPress supports Flash objects. There are a lot of plugins which allow you to embed Flash objects in WordPress but we recommend the Kimili Flash Embed Plugin (same as we use in the KM-CODEX) for best results.
Once you have installed the Kimili Flash Embed Plugin and activated it, you will have a new icon in your WordPress editor toolset (arrow is pointing to it in pic):
Create a new WordPress page called “wpBBS” and use the Kimili Flash Embed tool to embed your wpBBS blog into the page. We recommend using the full path to the wpBBS.swf file to ensure the board loads correctly and can find it’s php back ends. We also recommend forcing FlashPlayer 9 (or better) in the Kimili Plugin:
11. Add any other text below the embedded wpBBS board you wish for the new WordPress page and SAVE it. In your WordPress blog you should have a new page button called “wpBBS”. Your registered WordPress users should be able to login to the board using the same login/pass they use to comment or login to your WordPress blog. Once a user has logged into wpBBS once, they will be remembered by the board on return visits and it will autolog them in.
**Note**
This is the first release of wpBBS and should you have any problems, feel free to visit the wpBBS forum at the KM-CODEX to ask questions or post bug reports. We will be adding an Administration panel (run from desktop) so users can administer their forums in the next few weeks and until then users can Admin their boards using phpMyAdmin (or similar) . Have fun and we hope to see YOU on OUR wpBBS forum!
