Features

What is UseBB 1?

UseBB 1 is an Open Source forum package developed in PHP 4 and using the popular MySQL database back-end to store data. Unlike other popular forum systems, UseBB does not strive to have as many features as possible, but to be one of the easiest and most usable forum packages, limiting the basic feature set to only the essential. UseBB is pure forum software.

UseBB is an ideal solution for small to medium-sized websites which require an easy to use forum package without the bloat, that produces standards compliant output, is secure and easily configurable.

Additional Info

Screenshots

Of both the user interface and the ACP.

Live demo

Unofficial demo provided by opensourceCMS.com.

License

UseBB 1 is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.

Note: the UseBB.net community forums do not have all features enabled or visible to guests/members. Therefore, the forums should not be seen as a full demo of the package.

Feature list

This page lists the important features available in UseBB 1 and is thus not complete. As a reasonably well configurable system, UseBB contains 110+ global configuration settings, not including per user and forum settings.

Categories and Forums

• Virtually unlimited number of categories containing an unlimited number of forums
• Per forum level-based authorization settings: viewing (forum and topic titles), reading (topics), posting new topics, posting replies, etc.

Posting

• An unlimited or maximum number of replies per topic can be set per forum
• Supports the use of BBCode and smilies in posts
• Full HTML posting possibilities (by default admin only)
• Posting flood protection
• Enable/disable post count increasing per forum

Member Features

• Virtually unlimited number of members possible
• Each member has his/her own personal profile page with a number of standard fields
• Separated displayed name
• Supports remote avatars
• Distinct contact forms for sending personal e-mail messages
• Global member list with username searching and sorting
• Online members/guests list, with current locations and user level filter

Moderation Features

• Moderators can be set per forum
• Can move/close/reopen/delete topics
• Can edit/delete posts
• Can manage sticky topics
• Supports the staff hierarchy (moderators cannot edit administrator's posts)

Administration Interface

• Set various configuration options and create/edit/delete categories and forums
• Prune forums (topics) and members
• Send mass e-mails
• Set up bad word censors
• Create/edit/delete member accounts
• Ban accounts and by member name, e-mail address or IP address
• ACP modules provide easy extension of the ACP
• and much more...

Access Control

• Four fixed levels: guests, members, moderators and administrators
• Level based access to individual forums
• Level based access to active topics, member/staff/online list, search engine, etc.
• Disable guest access to entire forum, member profiles and/or contact information
• E-mail or admin based user activation
• Possibility to disable user registrations by guests

Anti-Spam Features

• Stop Forum Spam API integration
• "Potential spammer" status can disable links in posts and profiles
• Random math or custom anti-spam questions for unregistered post or registration attempts

Security Features

• DNSBL lookup and banning of IP addresses, with support for multiple servers (e.g. spammer databases)
• Quick deletion of (spam) accounts: deletes all posts and blocks e-mail address/domain and IP address
• Registration logging, logs detailed user info in a log file upon registering
• Hide never activated accounts from the member list, statistics, etc.
• Access to Admin Control Panel requires separate password verification and has manual and automatic logout

Various Features

• Full-text cross-forum search engine with forum/member filter, sorting, etc
• Topic subscriptions via e-mail and on-line overview
• Active topics listing, including (admin defined) forum filter and last reply age cutoff
• Global (active topics), forum and topic RSS 2.0 feeds
• Cleaner (friendly) *.html URL's
• Single forum modus for boards with only one forum (disables forum index and shows global statistics box on forum)
• Built-in frequently asked questions

Coding & Technical

• Separated output templates from PHP code
• Default template uses standards compliant XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS
• Supports application/xhtml+xml content-type for XHTML aware browsers
• Supports user interface translations (English and Dutch available by default)
• Support for most ISO and other character sets (but no support for multibyte encodings such as Unicode, UTF)
• Implementation of Google's rel="nofollow" for BBCode
• Support for HTTP only cookies
• Form and URL token system to protect against CSRF
• Developed with PHP's E_ALL error reporting level
• PHP notices hidden to users, but can still be logged
• Limited size on server (± 1 MB)

So, what does UseBB 1 not have?

• Attachments
• Uploadable avatars
• Polls
• Private messages
• Subforums
• User groups
• Approval queue