I’ve added a new feature to the addon, the bridge will now transfer any existing private messages from PHPmotion to phpBB on installation (as once the bridge is installed it uses phpBB messaging). If you’ve already installed the bridge and would like to transfer any old messages you can still do so easily, check out the changelog for instructions. I’ve also made a few changes to improve the session handling once a user logs out.

Upgrading is very straightforward simply download the new version from your client area and follow the instructions in the changelog, only two files need uploading.

For more information on  the add-on check it out here: phpbbmotion – phpBB3 and PHPmotion user integration

This is possibly the worst thing you’d want to happen to your established site, except from maybe the server dieing and not having backups (you do have backups, right?).

I’ve got in touch with the developers to see what they say, it was probably just a moment of forgetfulness on their behalf. Good thing I’ve got my eyes open heh

Anyway the solution would be to use 301 redirects for all the existing links to the new ones. If you know how to put these in place then prepare to do it once you’ve upgraded so you don’t lose your hard work!

As for those using the seo pack, their link solution (if they provide one) won’t work for your sites as the links are already rewritten. I will be providing custom solutions depending on your seo pack settings so you don’t lose any links, you just need to get in touch with me. You can contact me through my portfolio site here. If you decide that it’s not a problem losing links then you can upgrade as normal without any problems.

It’s best to contact me before upgrading though as the link redirections need to be put in place as soon as possible so the search engines don’t get a chance to spider the site.

The phpBB3/PHPmotion V3 bridge is now complete! It’s available at the very low price of 10€ at the moment because it’s new & also because I am seriously broke at the moment and if I wish to continue working on the Internet I need to bring in a bit of cash…

It will eventually go up so grab it while you can! I have tested it best I can so hopefully there won’t be any bugs. If any do appear all updates will be free of charge, this is for all updates ever.

Installation has been simplified, more details on the phpmotion addon are available here.

PHPBBMOTION – phpBB3 / PHPmotion V3 Bridge

The new version of the phpBB / PHPmotion bridge “phpbbmotion” is now ready and will be available within the next couple of days on line. It is slightly different to the v2 version as it does not integrate so many of the features together and focuses more on just integrating registration/logging in actions.

Some more good news is that it will be cheap, I am planning on releasing it cheaper then the previous version! It will be available for 15€ ($21 USD) and 5€ installation (excluding phpBB/PHPmotion script installation). Installation is simplified and no changes are required to phpBB core files (there are some optional changes to make to the theme). This means every phpBB3 mod will work!

The bad news

The addon/theme announced here is no longer being created. This is mainly because of lack of time but also because I am working on another project which could interest you (possibly even more then this addon) but more on that when it’s nearer completion.

What will this pack do? Pretty much everything my previous addons have done and more!

Wait, …what?

Yes that’s right, this pack won’t just give you improved seo like the seo pack for V2, it will also give you phpBB integration! But that’s not all, you’ll also have a new look as it will be based on 100% hand-written valid xhtml & css (written by yours truely).

Hmmm, is that all?

No! If you think the seo pack helped you before, wait until you see this! All the templates will be optimized with top notch search engine techniques and because it’s all neat lightweight code load times should be pretty fast There are also some other features so cool that I dare not mention them until I get further with the development as they will probably be pinched off me :p

Can I help?

As this pack is still in it’s very first baby steps, there’s still a lot of choices to be made. Here’s some things you can help me with (or at least give me your opinion):

• Design elements: Seen something neat on another website? Would like something similar available for PHPmotion? Comment & I’ll take a look to see if it can be included!
• Color schemes: I’m planning on making the theme easily editable but it’s always better when there’s a pre-made choice of colors, right? What would you like? Pink & Black? Yellow & Red maybe?
• Remind me! This is surely the easiest! I’m currently doing a thousand things at the moment. If you don’t see updates every now and then, leave a comment so I know there are still people out there interested!

I’m currently working on a mock-up which I’ll post once I’m happy with it so what do you think? Sound interesting? Have you used v3 yet?

You can download the update by logging into your client area.

List of updates:

• Now compatible with PHPmotion V2.1 (version for V2 still available)
• Bug fix: Video previewing redirected to video page, problem solved.
• Bug fix: Undefined variable in addon.php
• Bug fix: Problem with user name checking, also now checks against existing files so that there’s no problem with people registering as “videos” which would result in their profile page being yoursite.com/videos and causing a problem (unless you change the video path setting to something other the “videos”).
• Update in functions.php: new function to determine path requested.
• Removed template files which don’t require editing to make it easier to see what needs changing on custom templates.

Upgrading:

• Replace addon.php & functions.php in the seo-pack folder.

Don’t already have this addon?

What are you waiting for? This seo pack provides your site with better links & custom meta tags! Grab yourself a copy today!

Personally I haven’t been able to look through v3 yet from lack of spare time. I did start installing it until I found out my cgi-bin wasn’t correctly configured and I had to get back to work, so it’ll have to wait a few days (hopefully not too long because I want to have a good look round). But I did get a quick look through the admin and it’s a huge improvement as you could probably tell from the screenshots on the forum.

Anyway, once I’m finished installing it I’ll be able to let you know what I think & don’t worry I’ve already come up with a few ideas for addons which will help make your site even cooler (but I’m not saying what just yet )!

Would you gain anything out of using a valid theme?

The short and simple answer is yes, you gain in every possible way over invalid source code. Valid code means generally cleaner code which the author checks in a tool like the W3 validator this tends to make the author more aware about their code and therefore write tidier more efficient layouts.

This means less code, better cross browser compatibility, easier to edit and also better search engine rankings (well maybe not every time but it may help). Not forgetting that you’d also be keeping to current web standards.

If any of you used v1 (yes that is a while back now) you may remember I released an “updated” version of the default theme. This helped many with their customisations as it provided them a valid base to work on, the question is would you want something similar for v3?

Anyway here’s a question for you until I’ve got some more information to share on a v3 theme :

When v3 is released do you plan on turning it into a profitable professional video website?

Here’s some of the stuff you’ll find unique to this theme:

• Clean bright looks (all existing themes are on the “dark” side, no not of the Force!)
• Ajax comments & comment refresh (New comments appear directly on screen, no more accidental double posting because users don’t see their comments!)
• Valid xHTML/CSS
• Lightweight & Cross browser friendly coding
• Scores 70+/100 (C) according to Yahoo’s performance checks! (All other PHPmotion themes score F!)*
• Super sexy success/error messages! (Unfortunately PHPmotion defaults are very basic)

These aren’t the only cool things about the theme but I wouldn’t want to spoil the suprise, I’ll post a link once there’s a demo!

* Please note, I’m not saying anything is wrong with any of the existing PHPmotion themes simply that this one is highly optimized for performance!

Many people on the forum post about having <br/> appearing in descriptions, comments, etc.. well I had this problem too on a clients website so I fixed it. And I thought I might as well share it with all other webmasters having problems out there.

This solution is probably only best suited to those with quite a few videos already uploaded as it applies the changes to any video. If you are working on a new site it may be simpler to clean the tags on upload.

First step, open up your favorite text editor, create a blank file and name it functions.php. Then copy/paste the following code into it:

function clean_tags($field,&$value)
{
/**
Remove unwanted breaks, etc..
**/
$clean = strip_tags(str_replace(array('<br>','<br />','<br/>',"\r\n"),'',$value));
$value = sentence_spacing($clean);
}

function sentence_spacing($the_string)
{
/**
When breaks are removed it can squish all together, add spaces in correct places.
May or may not be the same for all languages.
**/
$patterns = array("/!/","/\s,/","/\?/","/\./");

$replacement = array("! ",", ","? ",". ");

$the_string = preg_replace($patterns,$replacement,$the_string);

$the_string = str_replace('  ',' ',$the_string);

return $the_string;
}

Basically the first function clean_tags does… you guessed it remove unwanted tags and line breaks from the string. Whilst the sentence_spacing function helps make sure that it doesn’t all turn into one big string of words stuck together. By using the preg_replace function it adds an extra space if needed after characters like: ?, !, ., etc..

Anyway once that file is created and saved upload it into your classes/ folder. Now in classes/config.inc.php add the following line to make the functions available to the script:

require_once('functions.php');

This can be placed pretty much anywhere within the php tags. Now upload that file. This is where you get to start using the cool new functions we’ve just made. Open up the template file of the page which is displaying the problem and find for example the following (from inner_index.htm):

<!--[blkfeatured.description;block=div;ope=max:45;comm]-->

Now change it to this:

<!--[blkfeatured.description;block=div;ope=max:45;onformat=clean_tags;comm]-->

Now if all went well after uploading the template all <br/> problems should have disappeared from that block. You just need to add this to any other place you start seeing this problem pop up.

Did this help or didn’t it work? Please leave a comment below or post in the forum to let me know!