Installing FlashBB
Installing FlashBB is intended to be extremely simple. For most users, it's as simple as uploading the files to your web server. Your FlashBB download includes two folders: "flashbb" and "src". The "src" folder contains the Flash 2004 Professional source code for FlashBB, and the "flashbb" folder contains files that you should upload to your server.
Using a good FTP client like Absolute FTP, open a connection to your web server. You should already have one of the following bulletin boards installed on your server:
phpBB 2.x
vBulletin 3.0.x
vBulletin 3.5.x
The "flashbb" folder should be uploaded to the bulletin board root folder on your server. What does that mean? Well, on TUFaT.com, I have vBulletin installed in the "forum" folder:
http://www.tufat.com/forum/
Thus, I would upload the "flashbb" folder and all of its contents as shown below. You only need to upload one of these folder: phpbb, vbulletin, vbulletin35, depending on which forum you use. Please note that the "vbulletin" folder corresponds only to vBulletin 3.0.x, and the "vbulletin35" folder corresponds only to vBulletin 3.5.x.
http://www.tufat.com/forum/flashbb/
http://www.tufat.com/forum/flashbb/classes/
http://www.tufat.com/forum/flashbb/lng/
http://www.tufat.com/forum/flashbb/vbulletin35/
http://www.tufat.com/forum/flashbb/sounds/
http://www.tufat.com/forum/flashbb/bbdisp.php
http://www.tufat.com/forum/flashbb/config.php
... and so on ...
Of course, substitute "tufat.com" with your domain name, and "forum" with the name of the folder where your bulletin board is installed. This is what the files looked like on TUFaT.com after uploading to the "forum" sub-folder (where my vBulletin installation is present):
When you access the "index.html" file in FlashBB for the first time, FlashBB will create a new database table on your web server, "flash_user_config". It should have the same table prefix as your existing bulletin board. Thus, if you are using phpBB, it should be named "phpbb_flash_user_config", and if you are using vBulletin it might be "vbulletin_flash_user_config" or something else, depending on what your particular table prefix happens to be.
phpBB:
vBulletin:
It would be a good idea to check to ensure that this table has been created using phpMyAdmin or phpFlashMyAdmin. If it is not created after your first FlashBB access, then there is something wrong. Remember: this table is created automatically by FlashBB upon first access of the FlashBB index.html file; you should not create this manually.
When you access FlashBB for the first time, you may be presented with this error popup window.
If you get this popup error, you should change the permissions of the "vbulletin35" or "vbulletin" or "phpbb" folder (depending on which bulletin board you are using), and set this folder to a writable setting, like CHMOD 777. Most FTP clients, like Absolute FTP, can do this. For example, in Absolute FTP, you would right-click on the folder, then go to the Properties option, as shown below:
Step 1: Using Absolute FTP, right click on the folder, then go to Properties.
Step 2: Set this folder to a writable permissions level.
Now, refresh your FlashBB screen to load the FlashBB interface by accessing the "index.html" file within the "flashbb" folder, i.e.,
http://www.your_domain.com/your_forum_subfolder/flashbb/index.html
On TUFaT.com's vBulletin system, this URL is:
http://www.tufat.com/forum/flashbb/index.html
If you receive this error, you are strongly recommended to email the contents of the "log.txt" file to Darren Gates, to help with FlashBB debugging. The error indicates that FlashBB encountered some invalid action or invalid SQL statement. Although FlashBB has been tested on a variety of web servers and configurations, there may be a few items that were missed. What can I say, it's a complex system.
Thanks for using FlashBB!
Darren & the FlashBB Development Team