One of the more popular MODs for phpBB2 (and now a standard feature for phpBB3) is subforums. The original forum structure for phpBB2 includes the following hierarchy:
Board -> Category -> Forum -> Topic -> Post
With the very popular Simple Subforums MOD (sometimes called SSF) you can get this:
Board -> Category -> Forum -> Sub-Forum -> Topic -> Post
For some people that one extra level is enough. You can enable posting at the parent forum or the child forum level if you want. Several years ago I wrote my own sub-forum MOD for use on my largest board. It works okay. Like the SSF MOD I only coded for one level. Unlike the SSF MOD mine is optimized from a query perspective, and doesn’t require the eXtreme Styles MOD. I think both of those are advantages to my code over SSF.
But what if there was something else… something in between a full-fledged sub-forum implementation and a basic configuration? I have written a new MOD to do just that, and am currently using it on my largest board.
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Today I got a note from my host. Seems that they’re concerned that I am going to overrun my monthly bandwidth, given that I have used 80GB of traffic so far this month. Their estimated bandwidth usage for the month was over 1300GB.
Hm. Here are their numbers:
Current usage as of 05-15-2008: 80.7 Gigabytes
Allowed usage: 1200 Gigabytes
Estimated usage: 1,372.1 Gigabytes
Half-way into the month, have used 80GB… I’m not quite sure I see how that math works. 
One of the features missing from phpBB2 is a Merge Topic option. Forum moderators can delete, lock, split, and move topics. A locked topic can be unlocked. A moved topic can be moved back to its original location. But there is no “undo” for deleting or splitting. If there was a way to undo a “split” it would most likely be called a “merge” which – if available – would also provide a way to merge two similar topics together to combine a discussion. In the next few posts I want to talk about how I designed and wrote a MOD to address the missing merge feature in phpBB2.
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The phpBB Group announced their first-ever user conference back in April. An excerpt:
What is Londonvasion 2008?
Londonvasion 2008 is the first ever live phpBB conference. We are very excited to present you with this unique opportunity to meet fellow community members, as well as the phpBB team.
The conference will be held on Sunday July 20th in a hotel across the street from London Heathrow Airport (UK). Doors will open at 9:00 AM and the event is scheduled to end at around 17:00 (5 PM).
We welcome speakers and presentations on any phpBB related topic; please contact me if you are interested. A full list of planned discussions will be made available prior to the event.
If you’re wondering, I do plan to attend. 
I am hoping to be able to speak as well, although with the recent retirement of phpBB2 I am going to have to consider changing my topic ideas. Stay tuned for details, and be sure to register if you can.
May 17, 2008
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