Hello! And a question concerning front page for phpBB

[DoubleK]

Hello EXreaction! Nice site my fellow Cheesehead (Go Pack!). Fellow Techimo poster and now fellow phpbb fan! My goodness I think I have also just became one of your fans, lol. I also signed up for the discussted forums for some good old fashioned debate. My wife is going to get mad at me if I spend anymore time on my pc

It is a good thing that I have given up on competitive online multiplayer gaming for now so I can fulfill my dream of running my own phpbb forums now for family and business reasons.

Question, I know very basic html code, mainly related to posting functions on a phpbb forum I do plan on learning html and xml albeit at a slow pace. I realize I could use notepad to create my main page for my site I have setup already but I digress my kungfu (html) is no good. Is there a gui based tool that will let me do this?

I want to run a total of 3 sites eventually from my host (http://www.bluehost.com) One for business, family and gaming again someday and this is why I just don't stick my site I have established now into my hosts home directory. It is my understanding that if I did this then managing any one of those sites would become very complicated and/or probably would not work having 3 phpbb2 folders in the same directory opposed to sticking them in an appropriately named folder and then into the public_html directory.

Also any links you could supply me with in my quest for knowledge is always appreciated! I started here last night: http://www.w3schools.com/

Thanks in advance for any input.

[EXreaction]

For your front page, you may want to give this a look at (if you are going to use phpBB2): http://mx-system.com/
If you want to use phpBB3 you are probably going to want to build your own portal, which isn't too difficult. There is a good starter tutorial here for adding pages to phpBB3: http://olympuswiki.naderman.de/Adding_pages

If you only want to use 1 domain for all 3 sites you might want to use subdomains for 2 of the sites, and leave the most important one on the main domain. I don't know how your host has it setup for you being able to do that, but it's not difficult to do.

If you would use 2 subdomains you would have those 2 sections in a separate folder off the root directory, then the main page would either be in the main directory, or if your host has the option to change it, you could put that in a separate directory as well (just to keep it all organized).

If that isn't all clear let me know, I have a bit of a cold right now and I just don't feel too good, I can explain it a lot better later when I get rid of this cold.

[DoubleK]

Hey thanks a lot EXreaction. Hope your feeling better. I stayed away from BB3 simply because of the "unstable" admission. I need simplicity for now as I am learning. BB2 will work for my needs.

[EXreaction]

Starting to feel better today.

Since you are going with phpBB2, I'd give mxbb a try for a portal.

[Dred]

DoubleK, use subdomains and feel you better

[DoubleK]

What I did was run phpBB2 on all three for about 6 weeks. BB2 pales in comparison to BB3 as far as native security is concerned. I have now run BB3 successfully without a hitch since Jan 8th and am quite comfortable and proficient in the acp now. I wish I had never messed with BB2 as it was very piece meal considering its age.

My 1st domain I registered with the host is now redirected to itself so I could leave my root directory empty and have all of my domains (forums) neatly organized in said hosts root directory's public_html folder.

Currently I am working on mxBB and experiencing some installation issues mainly it will not install. I am going to look at that portal information you posted eX and see what it all means.

[DoubleK]

Ah I found the root of my problem eX. mxBB is not compatible with Olympus.

Now that I understand the terminolgy a little better things should go much faster, lol.

I am looking to set up a portal.

Software for php dummies that will do that?

[EXreaction]

I'd give stargate portal a try:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=156802

[DoubleK]

Yes Thanks EX, I looked at Stargate briefly. Was not enamored. Although I will never dive into code as you have I did like the kvtm portal currently in development but I worry about having to spend my life on the computer looking at code that I do not understand.

Simply put like many others I am a installer/gui kind of guy. I do not mind learning new things but at this level (web development) will gladly stay naive. At this level of time consumption you had better be getting paid! I can appreciate that and thank you for contributing to the phpbb community with your great mods and help for saps like me.

What I do online? Game and help others with PC hardware/Networking Issues

What do I do In life? Work in manufacturing. Part of the team that builds GM's huge non-selling gas guzzling Suv's like the Suburban, Tahoe and Denali.

What do I want to do online? Play video games competitively at Twl and Cal. Not be a web developer!

Basically I need a portal to link to our olympus carbon copy themed forum and for that portal to have a calender, embedded irc client would be great, news, recent posts and a shout box for impromptu scrimmages.

I am thinking for the time being Joomla? If Joomla is a bust Drupal? If they are both beyond my limited capabilities pm me a price quote on maintaining a website and portal on a yearly basis? Work is tough right now being laid off every other week but my wife just finished nursing school! WOOT!

I think I need to take my sorry butt back to school.

[EXreaction]

The problem with Joomla and other CMS systems is that they are not really compatible with phpBB3. They don't keep your styles or anything with the current bridges available, the only thing they can do is keep your users and logins together.