Short guide on how to make Responsive phpBB 3.0.x based on real experience made on www.analogica.it – passion for silver salt photography.
The contents of the article
- phpBB version 3.0.x
- Purchase a professional theme
- Create a working copy of the forum
- Install the template
- Mark all the mods
- Reapply the mods to the new theme
- Use manufacturer mods (if any)
- Something could be left out
- Are you ready for Go Live?
- Conclusions
- And the other roads?
In the title I added ” without going crazy ” because if like me you manage a forum made with phpBB and the forum is more than a few years old, many mods installed and the default style is prosilver then making everything responsive can cause (serious) damage to health .
It is important to make the forum responsive because for a few months now Google has been using this parameter as a discriminant in the SERP, in short, you are either “ mobile ready ” or Google downgrades you, so you cannot avoid making the forum responsive.
phpBB version 3.0.x
Unfortunately phpBB version 3.0.x was made with programming logic not really 2.0, programmers have focused too much on the forum and too little on the concept of graphics and style.
To give you an example, every time you apply a mod (change) you are going to modify many files of both the “ core ” component of phpBB and the “ presentation ” component, ie the graphic style.
This means that when we install a new theme we either bring all (I repeat ALL) the mods we have done over the years to the new style or we seriously risk creating a very unstable hybrid , with the modified “core” and the “presentation” component. no.
Made this brief introduction to make your phpBB 3.0.x mobile ready you have 3 different solutions:
- Purchase a professional responsive phpBB theme
- Migrate phpBB from 3.0.x to 3.1.x
- Migrate from phpBB to VBullettin
All these solutions listed require (a lot) of work, some renunciation and in some cases a real risk of losing “something”.
So regardless of what solution you choose, backup both the files and the database, never work on the online version of phpBB and use your head . The risk of error is always around the corner.
I made this migration these days for the forum that I have been managing since 2009:
www.analogica.it – passion for silver salt photography.
Forum with many members and many accesses, but which was collapsing under the weight of the new Google policies on the subject of “mobile ready”.
In my case I chose the solution ” 1) Buy a professional theme for responsive phpBB ” solution that in some ways is the least risky and the fastest but also the “dirtiest” and least performing, because the “core” component remains old (phpBB 3.0.x is no longer managed)
What did I have to do to succeed in the mission impossible?
Purchase a professional theme
First of all I bought a professional (paid) theme with dedicated support and forum
This is the theme I bought on theme forest and this is the support site
A professional theme guaranteed me on the quality of the software and in fact, having chosen a bootstrap- based theme was very helpful, since I know this graphic framework very well and I was able to change the style without too many problems.
Create a working copy of the forum
The second step was to recreate a functioning copy of the forum , you can do it both locally and on the server (I opted for the second hypothesis), the important thing is that the copy is mirrored both of the files and of the data .
Important, if you have opted for the solution on the server and have installed the SEO mod then you must disable it , otherwise each link will refer you to the official one.
In my case the link I used is www.analogica.it/forum
Now it is password protected, therefore not accessible, but until a few days ago it was accessible to everyone, including users of the forum who actually helped me a lot in making it definitive.
This is to tell you that you can easily get help from the community, engaging users is a good way to get excellent results , especially considering the fact that in the end they have to like them and not you!
Install the template
Once you have created the copy then you can start installing the theme, if well done then it will be installable via automod, so with a few simple steps you will be able to have it available.
Once installed, however, you will immediately realize that all the mods passed over the years will no longer be available.
Don’t panic… it’s normal.
Mark all the mods
This point is very important, you must be clear about all the mods you have installed . If the forum is of a certain age then (surely) you will have some mods installed in standard form (manual) and some mods installed via automod.
Write down all the mods and how you installed them on a sheet of paper.
Reapply the mods to the new theme
We have arrived at the ” difficult ” part, if you do not want to lose all the mods you have installed over time you will have to ” reapply ” them to the new theme, one by one … slowly without being in a hurry, trying to reconstruct the installation steps for each of them.
Always remember that you are in a hybrid situation, the core is “modded” and the style is not, so it is important to apply the changes to the new style.
How to do?
The best solution is to try to understand what the mod has changed in the files contained in the “ styles ” folder and (where possible) reapply the changes to the new style.
It is a painstaking work and it is not always possible to obtain satisfactory results, because for example the styles used for “prosilver” are not suitable for other themes and therefore a manual modification to the template may be necessary.
Use manufacturer mods (if any)
If like me you have opted for a professional theme , then check the mods that have already been adapted to the theme you have purchased on the manufacturer’s website .
For example, I discovered that some of the mods I had installed had already been converted, one above all the mod ” phpBB Gallery “.
I don’t think I would have been able to get out of it alive if there hadn’t been this mod rewritten for the theme I purchased.
Something could be left out
Yes, you got it right. Some very complex mods, if they have not been rewritten by the manufacturer of the theme, could remain out of your upgrade and therefore you will no longer be able to “offer” them to your audience.
For example, I have encountered many problems with the ” reputation point ” mod and I am seriously thinking of disabling it.
Are you ready for Go Live?
Once you have rewritten all the mods and leave out those that are no longer usable, you are ready to go in line with the new theme.
How to do?
Very simple, from the administrative menu you will have to disable the old theme and enable the new one, without ever forgetting to clean the cache.
That’s it… you are online and with a responsive theme.
Conclusions
To conclude the short guide that I have described to you, however, it is not easy to put into practice and not without obstacles and difficulties, so always remember to:
- Back up your data
- Back up your files
- Work on a mirror copy of your forum
- Get help from those who know more than you
- Talk about it with your forum users
And the other roads?
I have not forgotten the other two solutions that I had proposed to you, namely:
- Migrate phpBB from 3.0.x to 3.1.x
- Migrate from phpBB to VBullettin
I opted for the “responsive theme on phpBB 3.0.x” solution but the other solutions are also valid.
The first is perhaps the cleanest of all, phpBB 3.1.x is already born responsive so you would not have this type of problem and you would have a board still maintained by the worldwide phpBB developer community.
The main problem with this solution is that the core component of phpBB 3.1.x is completely different from the previous one and therefore you will have to uninstall (and permanently lose) all the mods already installed.
In phpBB 3.1 the mods no longer exist, we are talking about extensions .
For me the main problem was the non-availability of the phpBB SEO extension , starting from scratch without rewriting the url would have caused “fatal” damage to the forum.
So I decided not to upgrade and wait for a 3.1.x version that is already SEO ready to finally come out.
The third and last solution is the most drastic and radical, switching to vBullettin would certainly be good as it is the most used professional platform in the world, but it would have its drawbacks:
- vBullettin is not free, on the contrary it costs a lot
- Importing data would be a very complex procedure
This does not mean that it is not a good solution, but it would mean starting from scratch. Of course it would have been better to use it right away, changing in the race could be complex and counter productive.
