PHP Forum software with API?

Hello,

does anybody know a good PHP based forum software (doesn’t matter if it’s commercial or not) with a decent API to interface with f.e. MODx? We are developing a new community-site and we want to integrate the forum accounts with the MODx webuser accounts in the best possible way.

Olaf

Vanilla has a nice API too (but there already has been an integration effort going on... search the forums !

I think phpBB3 (which really suprised me in a good way) has a cool new API.

phpBB recently got a lot of bad press due to a major security issue; I don’t know if it’s been fixed or if the sites are still vulnerable.

I don’t think the security issue was for phpBB3.

I never liked it before version 3.x, but now it just rocks (became my first choice for forums which need advanced features and moderating) and security seems to be way better (at least not worst than SMF or MyBB)

Edit : Indeed check Secunia’s page for phpBB3
http://secunia.com/product/17998/?task=advisories

The only advisory I’ve found dates back to 2006 and it’s a bit weird since phpBB3 was not released at the time
The file which is supposed to be at fault (admin_smilies.php) doesn’t even exist in phpBB3

phpBB3 has been audited by Sektioneins

Not meaning to do some advertising but there has really been a big effort and you can’t compare phpBB2 with phpBB3

“For phpBB3 the phpBB developers have rewritten most of the source code which lead to a better security architecture than phpBB2’s. Among other measures access to request parameters is handled through a single function which enforces type safety. In combination with the new database abstraction layer this makes it hard to build insecure database queries.”

But back to the API :
http://www.phpbb.com/mods/documentation/phpbb-documentation/basic_api/index.php
http://www.phpbb.com/mods/documentation/phpbb-documentation/dbal/index.php

my preference would be to go with phpBB 3.x as we already work with 2.x .. but i cannot find anything about an API for 3.x?

Olaf

Check the 2 links I posted above, which is the documentation for the API and DB API

http://www.phpbb.com/mods/documentation/phpbb-documentation/basic_api/index.php
http://www.phpbb.com/mods/documentation/phpbb-documentation/dbal/index.php

What happened to all the SMF Fans?
Their API is at http://www.simplemachines.org/download/?tools
and there is a bridge for MODx rolling around here....

Yes there is a bridge it’s the SMF Module which is in the repository... SMF 2.0 seems nice, but I have made my mind up and for me it’s phpBB3

Don’t know if it’s an April Fools post, but what’s your take on this article on phpBB3 David?

Don’t think it’s an april fools post, I can certainly understand how some users would react this way to the differences between phpBB2 and phpBB3. Most of what is said in that post can easily be dismissed :

Templates are now even more complicated : maybe so for someone who wants click and use, customize through the admin panel. But for someone who knows HTML/CSS and is ready to learn a template language then it’s flexibility at last ! The template caching issue is a non-issue, it can be turned off in config

It’s STILL not SEO friendly : Well, as such it’s not but it’s very easy to make it SEO friendly with the phpbb-seo MOD (http://www.phpbb-seo.com/). A great MOD by the way.

Modifications still aren’t any easier to add : Duh ? I mean how hard is search and replace, copy and paste ? I’d say anyone with half a brain can do it. The only thing which will be annoying is upon system upgrades, you’ll have to re-apply the MODs, true that’s a downer... no system is ever perfect.

Still no RSS feeds… : There are several MODs for that, it took me 15 minutes to set up feeds on a per forum basis for modxcms.fr forums.

HUGE footprint, is it really justified? : Well, 10 MB is a lot indeed. But given the feature set, it’s not that shocking...

Too many whining copyright notices : I don’t even remember this...

Quick reply : True, this feature is missing... but there probably is (or will be) a MOD for it. I find the save draft feature way more interresting - and certainly more distinctive - than quick Reply (for a "long post" user like me, it’s a welcome safety).

HTML is no longer accepted in comments : Not true, you can enable this in the admin, at your own risk....

Unprofessional : who is this guy to say it’s not professionnal ? I’d say it compares fairly well to IPB... add paid subscription MOD to phpBB3 and IPB can start worrying...

I hate it, but you love it! : what can I say, then don’t use it ! (NB : "It’s open source and GPL so it appeals to all the freetards out there." -> now here is a new slang, freetards).

But back to more interresting feedback.

I think phpBB3 will not be loved by phpBB2 users because it’s not the same philosophy and maybe even not the same target group. Let me elaborate...

When I chose a forum the modxcms.fr forums believe me I re-tested every forum solution around (except phpBB, which I have NEVER been fond of)
My shortlist :

• Vanilla : I like the "think different" approach and I’ve heard nothing but good thing about its API.
• UNB : Not very well known but it has a great balance between simplicity and advanced features
• Phorum : Most people skip it because themes look ugly, but it’s fast and from 5.x and up has a great templating system

I dropped Vanilla because it hasn’t got such a great template system IMHO, or maybe it does but I didn’t click with it. I dropped UNB, not because of templating, but the fact that it’s a single dev product and it’s stagnating.

I ended up with Phorum 5.2, because it has a great template system you really get control of your designs and it’s not cluttered. I even went as far as building a custom template which was really fast to do. But I got stuck by a very simple item which really annoyed me : the BBcode parser is unable to process list ! I mean I don’t care that the BBcode parser is simple and has only a few tags, but list ? This and a few other features I needed and did not find had me drop the ball.

I was really frustrated. At some point I thought that the improvement of MyBB 1.4 would be good enough to warrant a re-test but editing the templates/css in the admin, in a rigid boxy way didn’t cut it. I even went as far as testing IPB and considering buying a licence. But I found the admin was really unintuitive and of course as a hosted demo you can’t really dig into the template system which annoyed me.

I was wondering : how come I can’t find a OS forum with a decent feature set and a nice template system ?
I ended up testing the only solution I hadn’t tested : phpBB3. I downloaded it, and first browsed the template folder, opened a few template files and got interrested (it has a smarty like syntax, very easy). So I installed.

The admin has really nothing to do with phpBB2.

It’s packed with feature, allright, that’s not a tool I would use for a small forum or unskilled admins.
But all in all, it’s more logical than IPB, SMF or MyBB for instance. It took me around 2 hours to get familiar. Permission system is consistent and powerful, and moderating features are top notch (more important, the moderating process is fluid as hell : I’d say the best I have used, and I am also moderator at and IPB powered forum). I also like the way user groups are handled.

Last but not least, there is a great SEO module (check http://www.phpbb-seo.com/), you can choose three level from simple to advanced, I chose intermediate for modxcms.fr.

I don’t have a big forum yet but the speed surprised me : it’s good. Caching is pretty advanced, you even get Database Query Caching which is not so common.

All in all, my experience with it is really very good !