PunBB

Infobox_Software
name=PunBB


caption=PunBB 1.3
developer=Informer Technologies
latest_release_version=1.2.17
latest_release_date = release date|2008|08|20
latest_preview_version=1.3 RC
latest_preview_date=2008-06-17
operating_system=PHP / MySQL
genre=Internet forum
license=GPL
website= [http://punbb.informer.com 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." [http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16370] 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 of 2003.

The domain of PunBB was moved to [http://punbb.informer.com punbb.informer.com] from [http://punbb.org 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.". [http://punbb.informer.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=19084] . 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. [http://punbb.informer.com/history.php] All this resulted in a split: several developers left PunBB and started their own fork called FluxBB. [http://punbb.informer.com/forums/topic/19157/development-team-annoucement/]

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 next major release of PunBB, version 1.3, is currently under development. This version will feature many tweaks and improvements of the 1.2.x codebase, along with some new features. These include:

* New markup and CSS.
* Search engine optimized "Fancy URLs" via mod_rewrite.
* Proper extension support - Extend the functionality without touching a line of PHP code.
* New topic read marking system.
* Improved syndication - Feeds extended to include individual topics. Also feeds in the form of Atom and XML format.
* Multiple moderator groups.
* Per-style templates - It will be possible to have one set of templates per style.
* Unicode (UTF-8) support.

PunBB is also open to [http://forums.punbb.org/viewforum.php?id=23 feature requests] .

Release history

See also

* Comparison of Internet forum software
* FluxBB

References

External links

Official
* [http://punbb.informer.com/ PunBB]
* [http://punbb.informer.com/forums/ PunBB Support Forums]
* [http://dev.punbb.org/ PunBB Development]

Unofficial
* [http://www.punres.org/ PunBB Resource – Modifications and Styles]
* [http://www.jsand.net/spinkbb/?lang=en SpinkBB – PunBB skin generator]
* [http://www.pundemo.org PunBB 1.3 BETA - Demo]
* [http://punhosting.com Free Forum Hosting (PunBB 1.3 BETA)]