RocketTheme Version 2.0 - Part 2

Written by Andy Miller Wednesday, 05 November 2008 00:00

In Part 1 of our RocketTheme version 2 coverage we gave an overview of some things in store for our next evolutionary release of RocketTheme's site. In this article I'm going to cover the changes that will take place in regards to phpBB3.

First, let's clarify what phpBB3 means in the RocketTheme equation. When we started the Joomla Template Club we were on a small joomla-based forum platform called Pearl. This quickly got to the point where we out-grew this software and were forced to look for an alternative. At the time, the best PHP-based forum product out there was arguably Simple Machines forum, or SMF as it is known. The Joomla community forums had recently switched to this platform, and as I had just completed the Joomla forum skin, it was fresh in my mind. Anyway, we quickly moved to SMF and integrated it into the club with the JoomlaHack's SMF Bridge. This worked very well overall, but often led to issues regarding upgrading Joomla and SMF itself. Fast forward a few years and when we were originally planning RTv2, we also reviewed the forum situation. The status of the bridges with Joomla 1.5 was more tenuous than it had been with Joomla 1.0 due to some issues with incompatible licenses and some personalities clashing on the Joomla and SMF teams. Anyway, it was clear that SMF was not the forum of the future when it came to integration with Joomla 1.5. I took a comprehensive look at every GPL forum package out there, and when i stumbled across a then-in-beta phpBB3, I was sold. I could tell from the install process, and the forum administration panel, that phpBB3 was a superb product that had undergone revolutionary changes since the last time I had looked at phpBB2.

After some thorough evaluation, I convinced Brad Baker and the other Joomla folks that phpBB3 was a great alternative to SMF. I set to work with "Dicky" and "Jelly Doughnut" from the phpBB team to create an SMF convertor that would enable a large SMF-based forum such as RocketTheme or Joomla's to be converted to the new phpBB3 format. This was a pretty time intensive process, but Dicky and Jelly pulled it out and created a pretty darn robust convertor that is available on the phpBB community site.

While this was on-going I started working on the idea to create phpBB3 themes that could be used along-side or by themselves. After hunting around we acquired the appropriate 'skilled' labor, and set to work converting our most recent themes to phpBB3. This has been going on for over a year now and we've created quite a portfolio of designs. You can see the current state of development on our phpBB3 demo site. We have been working diligently on these phpBB3 themes, and have created a phpBB3 administration module that allows you to configure the the features of the themes in a similar way you modify parameters in Joomla 1.5 templates. This module has become known as RokBB, and we are continue to evolve and test it in preparation for our phpBB3 theme club's availability. The problem we now faced was how to create a new phpBB3 club to distribute and support these themes. The problem with our current RocketTheme site is that it was developed specifically for the Joomla template club, and really had no capability to support another club in parallel. RTv2 would solve this but that was months away and we were missing the all-important bridge component that could be used to link the login information and also the forum group membership based on club enrollment.

I started working with Jinx (former Joomla lead developer), head honcho at JoomlaTools, to create a completely hack-free Joomla 1.5 bridge for phpBB3. RokBridge phpBB3 Edition was the project that was born from this effort. This is an ongoing project that is taking a little longer to complete due to busy schedules, but already working very well with our new RokClub powered test environment.

The last piece of the phpBB3 puzzle was to create a new RTv2 phpBB3 theme that fit into our new design and provided the clean and professional forum feel you've come to expect with RocketTheme's community forums. This has undergone a few revisions since its inception, but the resulting design fits in so smoothly with the rest of the RTv2 site that you probably won't even notice that this is a separate theme and is not wrapped inside of a Joomla template. I'll post a few screenshots of things to come in the next post so you can get a feel of the overall changes in the look and feel for the new site. If you've seen the existing demo site header, you already have had a feel where the new design is going.

NOTE: In answer to a question we've already received, the phpBB3 Theme Club will be a separate club from the Joomla Template Club, but existing Joomla club members will have the opportunity to join the phpBB3 club for a discounted "Upgrade" price. We will be releasing a new price matrix in the coming days so you can get a feel for how much these offerings will cost.