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Douglas had another test to complete during this episode of phpBB Weekly, and David apparently had a harder time hijacking team members for this episode, so he was joined this time by his brother, Francis Lewis (Handyman). With the retirement of phpBB2 still holding the #1 slot for phpBB discussions across the internet, David and Francis talk a bit more about the retirement news, albeit from somewhat more of a teams-based angle. During this episode, they talk a bit about how the EOL of phpBB2 will help the phpBB3 branch (as well as 3.2 Ascraeus development) in the long run. They also discuss some of the enticing phpBB3 features that users and MOD authors can see as they slowly transition over to phpBB3, including a look at how and why phpBB3 is more “stable” than phpBB2, some of the interesting aspects of phpBB3’s Database Abstraction Layer (DBAL) and an overall analysis of why phpBB3 doesn’t require as much MODding as phpBB2 did.

In other news, the MOD Database Cleanup is slated to be completed in full on Wednesday, April 30th Saturday, May 31st, and David and Francis talk a bit about will be taking place. They also provide an update on the latest news with Londonvasion and the Star Trek Guide MODs Manager, as well as a status update on the MOD Team’s upcoming Package Manager (codenamed Blinky).

The MOD of the Week is Full Syndication Suite for phpBB3 by Schumi, and the Style of the Week is Avalon for phpBB3 by CyberAlien.

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.

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We’re back from our vBulletin April Fools joke to throw a very full episode at you all as we catch up on the plethora of phpBB news that has been churning out over the past week or two.

We start off by briefly chatting with David about Star Trek Guide’s Deck 15 Stunt that they pulled for April Fools Day, including lobbying for him to release the code he used for Deck 15 as a MOD. Afterwards, we spend a little time talking about the upcoming phpBB 3.0.1 release (can you say “bugfixes,” anyone?), and discussing the beginning of the minor release candidates and the associated phpbb-qa mailing list.

We then turn to the 3.2 “Ascraeus” front and discuss some of the latest SVN checkins, including the beginnings of the new BBCode parser that Marek (APTX) checked in, and the new Database Abstraction Layer (DBAL) function that DavidMJ has committed, as well as the beginnings of a completely retooled posting API. We’ll be sharing more details about these new features soon once we learn more about them ourselves.

We take a bit of time to discuss once again the future of phpBB2, and how long it will last. NeoThermic calls in to offer some of his comments, and we spend some time discussing why some people would be in favor of killing phpBB2 and why others would be against it.

For the main part of the show, Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty) joins us to talk about Londonvasion 2008, the first major phpBB conference taking place all day in London on Sunday, July 20th, 2008. We chat with Yuriy about how Londonvasion came about and what will be taking place there, as well as beginning some initial discussions for how phpBB Weekly will plan to cover the event. If you have any suggestions for how you want us to cover this event, please see our Londonvasion Topic in the phpBB Weekly forum.

There was no MOD or Style of the Week this week since we were limited on time for this episode.

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.

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For the first time, Douglas steps off of the air on a phpBB Weekly episode and lets David take the helm. It’s probably risky, particularly after our excellent episode last week, but Coastal Cleanup Day in the San Francisco Bay Area and Douglas once again goes to do his part this year.

Meanwhile, David spends some time talking about how phpBB3 parses styles and how you can use certain styles only within specific forums in phpBB3. He then moves on to talk a bit about how you can integrate BBCode throughout your site and in your MODs, and then he talks a bit about how the module system works and whether or not a MOD should use it or not.

The next release (either RC-6 or final) of phpBB3 will include a new hooks functionality and a new DBAL tool, and what will this mean for MOD authors and how can they be implemented? This also means that MOD authors no longer have any excuse to not support all 8 DBMS types supported in phpBB3.

And for our weekly dose of MOD Team news, we talk a bit about MOD validation on phpBB.com and its importance, and we welcome Paul back on the MOD Team and also welcome Esmond Poynton (poyntesm) as the newest member of the MOD Team!

The MOD of the Week is ACP Add User MOD for phpBB3 by Highway of Life (that’s self-promotion for you!), and the Style of the Week is nDesign v2 for phpBB3 by Midnight Phoenix.

Additional links mentioned:
phpBB MODs Documentation
Geoffreak’s phpBB3 MODX Script Generator