FluxBB
The FluxBB CMS is a forum which is characterized by a lighweight code and a small number of SQL tables (17 against 30 for phpBB), thus is resources-saving.
It should be used to add a FAQ or a forum to a portal site rather than to power a site devoted primarily to be a forum.
Adding fluxBB on a site requires some measures against spam, because the protection features are limited to a list of IP banishment, which is ineffective against proxies.
The software is distributed under the GNU GPL.
History
PunBB was created by Rickard Andersson, the first stable version appears on 7 August 2003. In 2007 the rights to the software have been sold to Informer.com who wanted to sponsor the project. But in 2008, the company transfers the project to a sub-domain of its website (punbb.informer.com) in the goal to promote his own business.
The author then become disinterested and project contributors have decided to launch a fork as fluxBB.
PunBB nevertheless continues its development using the code of fluxBB, but it is planned to separate developments of the two softwares in the future.
Features
Besides source code of a fairly sophisticated level, fluxBB has rather basic functions.
- Runs on MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite.
- XHTML and CSS compliant standard.
- Forums and categories.
- Follow-up discussion with e-mail messages.
- Choice of display order.
- Banishment and permissions.
- BBCode editor, HTML by plugin.
Plugins can extend these basic functions. Including adding a search box or an RSS feed and anti-spam functions.
How to see latest posts on the home page of a site
The forum once installed in a subdirectory of the site, it lacks visibility. To raise awareness of the posts, you have tol use a script to automatically display the last ones, which can be done more easily by creating an RSS feed of the forum.
At this point we can view it using a software like RSS Reader.
More information may be found on these pages:
- Displaying last threads of the home page. For punBB or fluxBB.
- Scripts of recent articles.
- How to create an RSS feed from an SQL database. The table must be changed to that of fluxBB.
Integrating the forum in a website
By default, the CMS has several themes which are actually sets of different colors on the basic theme of the site.
You can create your own theme by changing the style files in the style directory. A template system is planned for the version 2.0.
See How to put a banner on top of a fluxBB forum. (Like on this site.)
Making money with your forum
We know that the ads are not profitable in the forums.
If the traffic is substantial, it may want to monetize compensate for the important work that requires moderate a forum.
See the article How to place advertisements in a fluxBB forum (or PunBB).
Anti-spam
- Mass-delete of members that are just spammers.
Using an SQL command. - Script to delete spammers on fluxBB.
An improved version built in a script;
Tools
Documentation
- fluxBB variables.
To be used in scripts, mods and extensions. - Tables.
The structure of the database is the same for 1.2 and 1.4 version, but columns of tables have small differences. - FluxBB.
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