WowBB FAQ
Top Questions
- Ordering & Support
- Installation & Moving Hosts
- Features
- User Accounts
- Miscellaneous
- Ordering
 1.1. When do I get WowBB?
Once we get your order, we will send you your license and customer area login details via e-mail within one business day of your order.
- 1.2. How much does it cost?
You have two options. You can either lease WowBB or buy a license:
- You can lease WowBB with or without hosting. Without hosting, it is $55/year to lease WowBB. With hosting, you get full web hosting and a free domain name for as low as $7.95/month. All upgrades are free.
- If you buy WowBB, it costs $99 per license. All minor upgrades are free, major upgrades are discounted. Optional web hosting and a free domain name starts at $3.95/month.
Note: You can switch from one lease or hosting plan to another at any time you wish. You can also start with a WowBB lease, and buy WowBB later.
Please see our order page for details.
- 1.3. Can I manually download and install WowBB?
Yes, you can download WowBB from the customer area, and install it manually.
- 1.4. What are the system requirements?
You will need PHP 4.0.5 or better and MySQL 3.23 or better to run WowBB. Apache web server (any version) is recommended, but any other web server that supports PHP should work as well. In addition to Apache, we have also tested WowBB with Microsoft IIS, and it works fine.
- 1.5. Is there a trial version?
Yes, we offer a free instant trial.
- 1.6 What support options are available?
We offer support via our private support forums and e-mail.
- 1.7 Can you install WowBB for me?
If you experience difficulties during the installation, and need assistance, we would be happy to install WowBB for you. There is no charge for the installation service.
- 1.8. I currently use board X. Will my existing users and posts be preserved if I switch to WowBB?
Yes, if your existing board is powered by one of the software below:
- phpBB 2.0.x
- UBB.Threads 6.x
- Installation
- 2.1. Why am I getting an "Access denied for user ... Unable to connect to DB server ..." error?
WowBB requires one MySQL database to run. If there is no MySQL database available for WowBB, you must create one, and associate it with a MySQL username and password before the installation. This can usually be done from a web-based control panel provided by your web host. In many cases, you can ask your web host to create a MySQL database for you, too.
- 2.2. How can I enable search engine friendly URLs?
In order for this feature to work, your web host should be using Apache web server with "mod_rewrite" enabled. If you are sure that mod_rewrite is enabled on your server, find the htaccess.txt file in your board's base directory and rename it to .htaccess (don't forget the dot). Then activate search engine friendly URLs from the General Tab of the admin panel.
- 2.3. How can I move my board to another host or domain?
There are two ways to move your board from one host or domain to another. The easy way is to simply reinstall WowBB to your new host/domain, and restore your board's backup. But you will lose some of your configuration and theme changes, if any. If you do not want to lose those settings, you can follow these directions:
- Old Host/Domain:
- Backup your board from Admin Panel > Advanced.
- Download all WowBB files to a folder in your hard disk via FTP.
- Change to the directory in your hard disk where you have downloaded WowBB. Open config.php with a text editor such as NotePad, change the line define("INSTALLED", 1); to define("INSTALLED", 0); and save.
- New Host/Domain:
- Create a new MySQL database on the new host/domain, and associate a MySQL username & password with this database.
- Upload all WowBB files from your hard disk to the new server. Set the permissions as follows (most FTP programs let you set permissions):
- config.php - 666 (read-write for all)
- images/avatars - 777 (read-write-execute for all)
- themes/default - 777
- themes/default2 - 777
- themes/shades - 777
- Run install.php from the directory you have uploaded WowBB to. For example, http://yourdomain.com/forums/install.php.
Enter the new database settings in step 3, and a new admin username and password in step 4.
- If the images are broken, click the General tab of the Admin Panel. Update the Base Directory field accordingly, and click Save.
- Restore your backup from Admin Panel > Advanced.
- Features
- 3.1. Can I have private forums?
Yes, you can create private forums that can only be viewed and used by selected user groups. Here is how:
- Select a user group from the users tab of your admin panel. This is the user group for which you want to make a forum invisible.
- Click the Permissions button.
- Select the forum that you do not want this user group to see.
- Click the Add forum button.
- Uncheck the View All box of the forum you have just added.
- Repeat steps 3 through 5 for other forums if necessary.
- Click Save.
Repeat the above steps for other user groups if necessary.
- 3.2. What is Mana?
WowBB uses an advanced iterative algorithm to determine the most respected users. A user "adds mana" to other users she respects, and the more mana she has, the more the increase in recipients' manas. A user can also change her mind, and remove mana from someone to whom she added mana before. However, the more members a member adds mana to, the less the effect of those mana additions.
For example, let's assume that your mana is 3 out of 4. If you want to add mana to someone then you basically add him/her 3 points divided by the number of members to whom you added mana before. If you added mana to one member before, the amount of mana you would add is 3/(1+1)=1.5 points. This is a dynamic process. Whenever someone adds or removes mana, the manas of all members are calculated from scratch.
Finally, mana takes the normal distribution rule into account, and it gets increasingly accurate as you get more members.
- 3.3. Does WowBB support member signatures?
Yes, WowBB supports member signatures. You can toggle them from the topics tab of the admin panel.
- 3.4. How does user account integration work?
Whenever someones registers, activates her account, logs in, logs out, changes her password or updates her profile, WowBB calls the corresponding functions in a file called integration.php. To integrate WowBB's account system with your existing user account mechanism, all you have to do is to add the necessary PHP code to the normally empty functions in integration.php.
If you would like the integration to work both ways:
- Create entries in the wowbb_users database table based on your existing membership database. Only the user_name, user_password (MD5 encrypted), user_email, and user_joined (YYYY-MM-DD) fields are required.
- Whenever someone logins, set a WowBB cookie. For example:
setcookie("wowbb", $user_name . "||" . md5($user_password) . "||||||||||", time() + $cookie_lifespan, "/path.to/wowbb");
- 3.5. Can I replace or remove the WowBB logo?
Yes, you can replace or remove the WowBB logo located in the top-left corner from the general tab of the admin panel.
- 3.6. Can I completely customize the look and feel of WowBB?
Yes, the appearance of WowBB is fully customizable from the themes tab of the admin panel. There are three powerful tools that you can use:
- A unique stylesheet editor with real-time preview to quickly change colors and fonts.
- A template editor for full control over customization; best for inserting custom HTML code (adding banner ads is a popular one).
- A file manager to upload files directly to theme directories, or delete existing files.
- 3.7. How can I add new emoticons?
- Upload the new emoticons to a directory under WowBB's base directory (images/emoticons is usually a good choice).
- Click the emoticons tab of the admin panel.
- Type the name of the directory (for example images/emoticons) in the directory field, and click Add.
- You will see the list of all emoticons in the directory you have just entered.
- Choose the images you wish to add as emoticons by selecting the checkboxes next to them. Don't forget to fill the corresponding name and code fields.
- Click Save.
- User Accounts
- 4.1. Why can't I login/logout?
Web browsers treat yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com differently although they are usually the same. Cookies which are required for login/logout are domain specific, and sometimes they are stored for the wrong domain, and cause problems. To solve this problem:
- Download config.php from your board's base directory to your hard disk.
- Open it with a text editor such as NotePad.
- Find this line:
define("COOKIE_DOMAIN", "");
- Replace it with:
define("COOKIE_DOMAIN", ".yourdomain.com");
where yourdomain.com is the name of your domain. The dot in the beginning is important. It means that one cookie will be stored for all subdomains of your domain including www.
- Save config.php, and upload it back to the base directory of your board.
- 4.2. I turned off my board and logged out, but I can't login now. How can I login again?
If you log out while your board is off, you will not be able to login again! If you have accidentally logged out, here is how to get your board back online:
- Download the config.php file in your board's base directory to your hard disk via FTP.
- Open this file with a text editor such as NotePad. Find the following line:
define("BOARD_ON", 0);
and change it to:
define("BOARD_ON", 1);
- Now, save and upload it back, and your board should be online again.
- Miscellaneous
- 5.1. Will there be a CMS/portal integrated to WowBB?
Yes, a CMS (aka portal) software based on and closely integrated with WowBB is currently in the works. Sorry, we do not have a release date yet.
- 5.2. Can I remove the copyright link at the bottom?
You cannot normally remove the copyright link located at the bottom as stated in our license agreement and terms of service. However, you can pay a one-time fee of $75 to get it removed. Please contact us for details.
- 5.3. Will WowBB support threaded and/or hybrid modes?
WowBB is not a threaded bulletin board, and will probably never become one. The main reason for this is that threaded boards break the natural flow of a discussion by allowing branching. In a flat board, if you want to address someone, you can either quote part of his/her message or write his/her name in the beginning of your post. Good moderators know how to keep posters on topic, and may close a topic if it becomes off-topic. You don't often see this in threaded boards.
Another problem of threaded boards is that post titles are often useless, and you can easily see dozens of identical "Re: What do you think about this?" titles in a thread. In oral conversations, we don't use a title to summarize what we are going to say, so virtually no one uses titles in threaded boards.
Finally, the popularity of flat bulletin boards as compared to their threaded counterparts clearly shows what board owners and users prefer.
You might argue at this point that a hybrid board that allows both flat and threaded views could offer the best of both worlds. But this is not the case: Replies can appear out of place because users who view the board as flat has no idea of the structure of branches, and users who view the board as threaded wonder why there are so many seemingly unrelated replies in a particular branch.
- 5.4. Is there a chat room add-on available?
Yes, WowBB can be integrated with a powerful third-party chat-room called SigmaChat. For more information, please see http://www.wowbb.com/sigmachat.php
|
|
|
