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MIPHPBB3 is a JomSocial application that displays the latest posts in a PHPBB3 forum for the current profile. It can also be configured to show the latest posts irrespective of the current profile, so it is suitable for loading as a module using JSApp.
(Image 1: Application View)
The application output is pretty straightfoward. Once you have configured your options, the latest posts are output in the JomSocial application frame.
Installing MIPHPBB3
You install MIPHPBB3 as you would any other JomSocial Application, through the Extensions->Install/Uninstall manager in Joomla's back-end. All JomSocial applications are Joomla plugins of type "community," and are configured via the Plugin Manager on the back-end.
(Image 2: The Plugin Manager View on the Back-End)
You will see in image 2 (the Joomla Plugin Manager) that there are a good number of configuration options to control the usage and output.
Forum Database Settings Section
Show All will determine if the application should show posts from all users. If this is set to no, this application will draw posts from the current JomSocial profile. Since this option determines what is shown in the application, it is first in the parameter list. You will almost always have this set to no.
The rest of the Forum Database Settings control how the application acquires its data. Previous PHPBB applications for JomSocial were dependent on bridges or configuration files to specify this information. When a new bridge was released or a bridge changed its operation, the application might stop working or not work at all. To avoid this problem, MIPHPBB3 simply asks you for the database information for your PHPBB3 installation and gets the data directly.
phpBB prefix specifies the prefix for tables in your database for your PHPBB3 installation. This will almost always be phpbb_, but if you have a different prefix, be sure to enter it correctly.
Forum DB specifies where your PHPBB database exists. Choosing Joomla DB means that your PHPBB3 tables live in the same database as your Joomla installation. If you choose this option, the Host, Database Name, Database User, and Database Password will be unused, as the standard Joomla database routines will be utilized. If you specify the Specific DB option, however, you will need to specify the above options.
Host is the name of your database host. This will be supplied by your web hosting company. This option is just like the one you had to give when installing your Joomla installation (and may be identical, in fact). The Database Name is the name of your database containing your PHPBB3 tables, and the Database User and Database Password should be self-evident.
Scan Type determines what kind of scan should be performed for posts. Latest Posts simply means the latest posts by the current user, with the most recent post first. This will return multiple posts from the same topic if the user has made multiple posts in that topic. Thread Ends will restrict the scan to only show those posts that are the last one in a thread (in other words, the current ending of that thread). Some people prefer this method as it only shows those posts that are awaiting a response from the next person in the thread.
Forum URLs Settings Section
The Forum base URL value should be the base URL to your PHPBB3 installation. In the example, above, you'll see that my site uses /community/ as its base. The majority of non-bridged sites tend to use /forum/. Depending on your installation and/or bridge, you will need to determine what your base is. Note that this value should end with a slash as it is used to construct the proper URL to your forum and its posts.
The viewforum format and viewtopic format values are used to create the proper URLs to your forums and topics. Depending on your installation and/or bridge, these values will be different in order to create the proper URL. The examples given are for direct access to a PHPBB3 installation. The variable $forum_id contains the ID of the proper forum for the viewforum format field. The variable $post_id contains the ID of the proper post for the viewtopic format field. These will be correct whether your PHPBB3 installation is bridged or not as forum IDs and post IDs do not change.
The Forum link target is an optional value. If specified, it will add a target= tag to the anchor constructed for links to forums. A typical value here might be _blank in order to cause clicks to forums to open in a new browser window or tab.
Forums Settings Section
The Display Count value specifies how many topics to show. Typical values are 5 or 10, but you can set this to whatever makes sense for your display or community.
If you specify a comma-separated list of forum IDs in the Exclude Forums field, those forums specified will be excluded from displaying any posts. This is useful if you have forums with extremely high traffic that might cause all displayed posts to come from those forums. Additionally, if you have private forums from which you don't want any posts to show, putting those forums in this field will cause them to be bypassed. On my site, for example, I have a forum for site administrators. I don't want any posts there to be visible, so I exclude that forum by having its ID in this list.
Module View Settings Section
This section controls the layout and display of posts. Show Avatars is self-explanatory. Some people might want this option off, since the avatar will typically be all of the same person and might not be very attractive or necessary. Others like to have them shown anyway.
UL Items controls wither or not each post should be a list item in an unordered list (that is, wrapped in a "li" element within a "ul" list). This helps with CSS styling if you choose to do your own CSS styling.
The Max titles length limits the number of characters for a thread title. Show posts count provides three options to display (or not display) the number of posts in a thread. The Date format is a PHP date() formatting string to allow you to change the way the date is displayed (if you choose to display the date at all). If left blank, date displays will default to DATE_FORMAT_LC2. The Timezone option controls whether any time offsets should be applied.
Finally, the Topic output format controls how the actual post summary should be formatted. You may include HTML in this field as well as a number of variables that hold data acquired from the PHPBB3 database. These variables are listed in the tooltip for this field and are self-explanatory as well as being named after the fields in the PHPBB3 database itself.
Using MIPHPBB3 As A Module with JSApp
If you have the JSApp module (a module that allows you to place any JomSocial application in a module position), you can use the MIPHPBB3 application to show the latest posts on your entire site. In this case, we configure the JSApp module instance to use miphpbb3 as the application name and we set two parameter overrides. The first override is for show_all and we set it to 1. This tells MIPHPBB3 that it should show all posts and not just the current JomSocial user. The second override is for scan_type and we set it to thread_ends so that it only shows those posts that are last in a thread. This prevents a very active thread from having all entries. You might also want to override other parameters like max_title_length to give more room for titles as well as show_posts_count to increase (or decrease) the number of posts to show.
(Image 3: Application used as Module with JSApp)
NOTE: This is a 1.0, of course. If you purchase this and run into any problems, let me know! I'll hunt them down and treat them like the annoying things they are (read: I'll fix 'em!).