PunBB

PunBB

File:PunBB 1.3.png PunBB 1.3
Developer(s)	Informer Technologies
Stable release	1.3.4 / {{|2009|05|20}}
Operating system	PHP / MySQL
Type	Internet forum
License	GPL
Website	punbb.informer.com

PunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. It is released under the GNU General Public License. Its primary goals are to be faster, smaller and less graphically intensive as compared to other discussion boards. PunBB has fewer features than similar software, but is generally faster and outputs smaller, semantically correct XHTML and CSS compliant pages.

Currently, PunBB runs on a number of operating systems that are able to support the PHP scripting language. To store its data, PunBB relies on either MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite.

History

PunBB's creator, Rickard Andersson, wrote the software for a personal project after he found there was no open source forum software at the time that output valid XHTML pages. Speed and simplicity are the main goals of PunBB, so Rickard chose not to implement features such as private-messaging, polls and file attachments. These features have since been released as third-party modifications.

PunBB was originally known simply as 'Pun' because "pun is a play on words and that's basically what happens on a bulletin board." [1] This was later changed to ensure the name didn't stand out compared to similar software such as phpBB. The 'BB' addition stands for Bulletin Board.

Version 1.0 of PunBB was released in August 2003.

The domain of PunBB was moved to punbb.informer.com from punbb.org in late April 2008. Rickard Andersson said "Moving the PunBB website under the informer.com domain is a way for our benefactors to promote their other services to the PunBB community and to promote PunBB to users of their other services. The move does not affect the project in any other way, including GPL terms.".[2]. Many community members disagreed with this change.

Just a couple of days before the domain movement (and independently of this), Rickard Andersson decided that he couldn’t pay much attention to PunBB any more due to personal reasons.[3] All this resulted in a split: several developers left PunBB and started their own fork called FluxBB.[4]

Firstly, PunBB simply ported many changes from FluxBB. In June 2008 a system of notifications about new versions of extensions was invented into PunBB core. The PunBB 1.3 RC was released "to make the work of extensions developers easier" and to "provide maximum compatibility of PunBB and FluxBB at the level of extensions". From this moment on, PunBB have completely separated from FluxBB.

PunBB developers declare that they are going to "develop PunBB further by making the core even faster and more lightweight, while providing PunBB with all the modern features with the help of the unique extensions system".

Version 1.3

The latest major release of PunBB, version 1.3, was first released on November 9, 2008. This version featured many tweaks and improvements of the 1.2.x codebase, along with some new features. These include:

• Extension system based on hooking technique. One click extension installation, no need to modify forum's code anymore.
• Full UTF-8 support.
• More customizable styles, templating system.
• New layout: markup, CSS, language files updated, markup helper functions added.
• URL rewriting schemes, nice URLs built-in.
• Split/merge topics functionality.
• Multiple groups for moderators allowed.
• Searches are now case-insensitive, extern.php improved, more global, per-group and per-user options added.
• Certain "bad" characters are silently stripped out from the text input.
• Got rid of extras folder, README added.
• Hotfix system based on extension system for quick bugfixes.

See also

• Comparison of Internet forum software
• FluxBB

External links

Official

• PunBB
• PunBB Support Forums
• PunBB Development

Unofficial

• PunBB Resource – Modifications and Styles
• SpinkBB – PunBB skin generator (1.2)
• SpinkBB – PunBB skin generator bêta (1.3)
• Free PunBB Forum Hosting