Author: PeteBest
Versions of software: Mdpro 1.0.5 + PNphpBB 1.2a
Many new users have problems setting up a module, this guide is designed to give these users a helping hand. I installed a fresh copy of mdpro and installed PNphpBB as this is one of the most popular modules available
Most modules contain installation instructions in the docs folder. I'd recommend reading these as sometimes it's not as simple as it first seems
Step 1
We need to upload the module to your webserver. You'll need a FTP client to upload the files, I'd recommend FlashFXP or if you want a freeware solution try AceFTP
Once you've connected you'll need to upload the PNphpBB2 directory to the modules folder. It's very important to keep the directory structure and folder names the same. This is usually a matter of dragging and dropping the directory into your FTP client, but it does depend on your setup.
PNphpBB has a few directories that need the permissions changing. This is due to modifications that allow users to upload files. From your FTP client find the CHMOD option and change the /PNphpBB2/files and /PNphpBB2/images/avatars directories to 777 (world writeable)
Step 2
Once that's complete, log into your site with an account that has admin access. Go into your admin panel and select the settings tab, then go into modules.
Regenerating checks the file structure of your site and checks for newly added modules. Once this is complete the module should appear in the list in the uninitialised state.
When you press the initialise link the PNphpBB script creates all the tables in your database and notifies you of any errors. If there aren't any errors, we can activate the module
Step 3
We have now completed the basic installation of the module. Next we need to add a link so that users can get there. Many themes contain links that you can customise, but we'll just deal with adding a new link from the main menu here
From your admin panel, go to the settings tab and select the blocks admin. This lists all the blocks that you've got active at the moment.
Here we want to edit the Main Menu block and add a link to the PNphpBB module. Look towards the far right column options, here we can see that the middle link edits a block, click there.
The title of the link is what you want to appear in the block. The URL can either be hardcoded or the link can just be in the [directory of the module] format, so in this case [PNphpBB2] Note that this is case sensitive. The block description is just the mouse rollover text, so you can have whatever you want here. Once you have entered all this information, hit the commit button and your link will be added to the menu
Step 4
We're almost done now, the PNphpBB module setup needs to be deleted, so connect to your FTP again and delete the /modules/PNphpBB2/install directory. Leaving this in is a security risk, luckily enough the module won't run without this deleted.
Now follow the created link and you'll be in your forum. Most other modules will be very similar to setup, so this guide should have given you a good insight to adding modules
