Berlin, Monday 14th July 2008
WoltLab Burning Board 3 is the modern, secure and user friendly solution for your discussion board! Our software uses most modern internet technologies and is built upon up-to-date web standards. For this reason you will notice, that the installation procedure, which is quite different from other or older forum systems, behaves similar to an installer for "real-life" applications on a typical PC system. You don't need any programming or database knowledge, the installer handles everything nearly automatically.
Be sure to read this installation guide carefully before installing, to clear ambiguities and avoid difficulties with the installation process. Also pay attention to the system requirements!
Unzip the downloaded Zip archive, upload the three files from "upload" subdirectory to your web space, open the file install.php in your browser and follow the instructions …
Due to the nature of our applications, this installation guide also aplies for you, since Burning Board Lite 2 uses the same fundamentals as does Burning Board 3. Therefore you will be able to refer to this guide to install without difficulties. Note that the parts following the installation process may not be relevant to you, because of the reduced functionality of Burning Board Lite 2 …
Requirements for installing WoltLab Burning Board 3:
Note: It's not possible to run WoltLab Burning Board 3 using PHP below version 5.0!
Before starting the installation, you may spend some time thinking and planning the object of your project, as well as figuring out the structure of your forum and maybe which parts should be public and which not. Make sure that your web space fulfils the system requirements. Decide which folder of your web space your forum should be installed to. What should the forum URL be like, will you use a sub domain? Will you have to transfer any data from your old forum? Which plug-ins or other extensions do you need and are they already existing?
Find out about plugins for Burning Board and how to customize it at the WoltLab Community at: http://community.woltlab.com/
wbb3.zip) to your hard drive, unzip it either with a special application (e.g. WinZip or StuffIt Expander) or simply with the unzipping function built in your operating system. Most modern operating systems, like Windows Vista or Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux, can handle Zip archives out of the box without any helper application needed.upload/test.phpupload/install.phpupload/WCFSetup.tar.gzLicense agreement.txtLies mich.txtLizenzbestimmungen.txtRead me.txtWCFSetup.tar.gz is also an archive. Never unzip that archive!tar.gz archive will be automatically extracted and read by the installation script.test.php) in your browser and see the results. E.g. http://www.my-testserver.com/test.php (replace www.my-testserver.com with the name of your server). If your server doesn't meet the system requirements, you may contact your provider to ask for some solution, or switch the provider in the worst case.Please note that the progress of the installation script can vary from time to time – do not cancel this process too soon! This behaviour is completely normal. The duration of the installation depends on many factors such as your Internet bandwidth, the server speed and load as well as the chosen packages.
Start the installation by loading the installer file (install.php) in your browser. E.g. http://www.my-testserver.com/install.php (replace www.my-testserver.com with the name of your own server).
wcf, which can be changed to your needs. Please note that this does not equal to the installation folder of WoltLab Burning Board 3. That folder will be asked for later.www.my-testserver.com/), just leave the file path as it is.If you wish to update your older Burning Board 3 version, then follow these steps:
Download the appropriate update-package from your WoltLab members area at the WoltLab-website to your local harddrive. In your ACP, go to the package Burning Board 3 and choose Update package. Then upload the update-package and start the package update.
com.woltlab.wbb.tar.gz and download it to your local hard drive. Never unzip update-archives!An update from an older version of Burning Board is quite similar to a data import from a different forum system (see below). If you wish to import data from your current older Burning Board version into a newly installed Burning Board 3, then follow these steps:
Install WoltLab Burning Board 3 into a separate folder on the same server first. A data import from an older installation on a remote server requires special knowledge and will not be covered here. Then install the appropriate Importer plug-in from WoltLab for your old forum system within your WoltLab Burning Board 3 ACP.
Use the previously installed appropriate Importer plug-in to import the data from your older Burning Board version.
You'll find it in the WoltLab Burning Board 3 ACP under: System -> Maintenance -> Data importer.
Just follow the instructions. Please keep in mind, that the duration of the import process depends on many factors, like quantity of forums, posts and attachments in your old forum system, but also many other factors. Do not abort the procedure too early!
After you have finished the data import, you should update the counters. This procedure updates the post counter, the ranking system, the user list and many other parts of the software. To do so, use the ACP function found under: System -> Maintenance -> Update counters. An option to updated all counters at once is not available, because of the high server load it could generate.
You may import external data from many other forum systems at any time, with one of the WoltLab Importer plug-ins. At this time, the importers support the following forum systems:
If you are currently using a different forum system and you want to import its data into a newly installed Burning Board 3 simply do the following:
Install WoltLab Burning Board 3 into a separate folder on the same server first. A data import from an older installation on a remote server requires special knowledge and will not be covered here. Then install the appropriate Importer plug-in from WoltLab for your old forum system within your WoltLab Burning Board 3 ACP.
Use the previously installed appropriate Importer plug-in to import the data from your existing board software.
You'll find it in the WoltLab Burning Board 3 ACP under: System -> Maintenance -> Data importer.
Just follow the instructions. Please keep in mind, that the duration of the import process depends on many factors, like quantity of forums, posts and attachments in your old forum system, but also many other factors. Do not abort the procedure too early!
After you have finished the data import, you should update the counters. This procedure updates the post counter, the ranking system, the user list and many other parts of the software. To do so, use the ACP function found under: System -> Maintenance -> Update counters. An option to updated all counters at once is not available, because of the high server load it could generate.
After you have finished the installation successfully, you will find yourself in the Administration Control Panel (ACP) of Burning Board 3. You can now start to set up the system according to your needs. If you have done a fresh installation, you can start off setting up the e-mail address, naming the forum or creating the forum structure (categories and forums). You'll find a short list of important options below. To better find your way to the needed section, also try the handy site map, which can be found in the ACP page header.
Forum name, URLs, Cookies, Sessions, etc.
System -> Options -> General
Needed for system emails, like user registration confirmation mails
System -> Options -> Emails
Content -> Forums -> Add new forum
User -> Users -> Add new user
Content -> Forums -> Show forums -> Click on the name of a forum or category -> Choose the tab Permissions for users and groups.
Enter the name of a usergroup or username into the textfield (if a user- or groupname starting with the typed characters already exists, the field will be filled out automatically) and add it to the box Groups and usernames above by clicking the appropriate button. Select the new item there and then set the permissions in the box Permissions for …. Please note that an Allow setting overrides a Deny setting!
Of course you can always refine the permission settings by using more detailed permissions for forums, user groups or single users. Also consider adding custom user groups with special permissions. Keep the permission inheritance system in mind, as it helps you to set up permissions faster!
If you want to set a forum only visible and accessible for Administrators, you simply need to do the following:
Enter the name Administrators (if not already listed in the box Groups and usernames) and click on the Add button, which adds the new name to the box above. Repeat this process with the group Everyone. Now select Everyone there and deny Full control in the box below. Then select Administrators and allow Full control. Now only administrators have access to the edited board!
Design -> Styles -> List styles
In a fresh board installation, the following styles come preinstalled: WoltLab Basic and the activated standard style WoltLab Blue Sunrise.
To better understand the powerful style editor, just add a new style from the menu and start modifying it as you like. That way you're sure to keep the original styles intact. When you add a new style you'll always get another instance of the style WoltLab Basic. If you are a beginner with CSS design, we recommend starting your first design experiments with that style, since it contains no hacks in the Additional CSS-Declarations that may confuse you!
To modify a newly created style or to edit an existing, just klick the Edit button or the style preview image. You will be redirected to the style editor where you'll find many tools to modify the page design to your needs.
Note: Never edit CSS files directly on the file system! Always use the style editor!
Keep in mind that the greater part of the style editor offers only basic editing tools, to help less advanced users start using it. More advanced users may use their own CSS code by pasting it in one or both of the text fields at the Additional CSS-Declarations in the tab Advanced. CSS code found in those fields will always be included at the end of the dynamical style file the style editor generates when saving a style. That way you are able to override every existing style declaration easily.
Don't forget to select the corresponding template group for your style, for template changes to be shown.
You may export styles as compact style archives, rename and share them with others that way. Templates cannot be exported and shared together with styles in a style archive!
Design -> Templates -> List templates
More sophisticated designs are sometimes only achievable by modifying templates using the template editor. Note that you'll have to add a new template group if you want to modify templates, you cannot modify standard templates. Don't forget to choose the corresponding template group in the style editor for template changes to be shown. Keep in mind, that modyfied templates will not receive software updates any more! However, the original templates are still being updatet.
Note: Never edit template files directly on the file system! Always use the template editor!
Is a software framework and also the backbone of all community based web applications from WoltLab. It can be imagined as the operating system powering WoltLab Burning Board 3. Burning Board 3 uses many components of the Community Framework, which is available for free under LGPL. Learn more about Frameworks in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework
Get more information about WoltLab Community Framework at: http://www.woltlab.com/wcf/
Is a commercial package for the WoltLab Community Framework and a modern, powerful and vastly extensible forum system.
Get more information about WoltLab Burning Board 3 at: http://www.woltlab.com/products/burning_board/
The free plattform for all users of WoltLab Burning Board and other compatible software. Find out more about plugins and how to customize the software to your needs. Download styles, ask for new plugins or just code one for yourself! Build styles or other extensions and make them freely available to other users at the WoltLab Community.
Get more information about the WoltLab Community at: http://community.woltlab.com/
This is were settings, modifications and updates of your installed web application, such as Burning Board 3, can be done in WoltLab Community Framework. All community applications from WoltLab have their own ACP.
In the Internet, text is being transmitted as an encoded data stream, which is readable by computers only. To decode this to make it readable text for you, the browser needs to know the used encoding. The encryption method is called character encoding, it will be recognized automatically by your browser, if the encoding type is found in the source code of a HTML document. Specific languages need certain character encodings. Find further information about character encoding in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding
The main user of an application or operating system is normally called Administrator. He has the most rights and manages the application and its users. During the first installation of a community based application, like WoltLab Burning Board, you need to create at least one user account which is automatically the administrator account.
Enjoy your new forum software!
The WoltLab-Team!