PHP-Nuke: Management and Programming

Claudio Erba

Webmaster
www.spaghettibrain.com

Chris Karakas

www.karakas-online.de

Andre Purfield

oss.cs-consultants.com

Fortunato Matarazzo

Chris Karakas

www.karakas-online.de

There has always been the necessity to have a definitive guide on PHP-Nuke. This tutorial describes the installation and structure of PHP-Nuke and the details of customizing the front end to suit the users' needs. The architecture of PHP-Nuke, with its modules, blocks, topics and themes is presented in detail, as well as the interplay of PHP and MySQL for the creation of a mighty content management system (CMS).It also delves into more advanced issues, like the programming of PHP-Nuke blocks and modules.


Table of Contents
1. Terms of distribution
Disclaimer
Formats
Licence
Availability of sources
Aknowledgements
2. Introduction to PHP-Nuke
Purpose
What Is PHP-Nuke
Short history of PHP-Nuke
The Nuke Communities
Why use PHP-Nuke and not static HTML pages
3. Front end structure: user view
The preinstalled modules
Other non-installed modules
The preinstalled blocks
4. Back end structure: administrator view
The administration functions
The Preferences Page
5. How to install PHP-Nuke
Installation process
Download
Upload through FTP
Formulation of the file permissions
How to install PHP-Nuke through PHPMyadmin
What Is PHPMyadmin
How to install the DB of PHP-Nuke with PHPMyadmin
The config.php file
Resources
6. Architecture and structure
Directory structure
Main page management
Module management
Administration management
7. Customising PHP-Nuke themes
Structure of a PHP-Nuke theme
Modifying the HTML template
Example creation of HTML file to include in the theme
Theme construction: the rules to follow
8. Creating blocks
The characteristics of the various types of blocks
How to create a new block
How to create a block, theoretical approach:
How to create a block, a practical example
9. Creating modules
Module structure
Creating fully compatible modules: the rules to follow
Module creation, the public part
Module creation, administrator part
10. Some security precautions
The permissions on the folders and files
Cookies - timeout and configuration
11. Programmer's tools
The database tables
The syntax of SQL code
PHPMyadmin, administering MySQL via web
What is PHPMyadmin
How to install the PHP-Nuke DB with PHPMyadmin
MySQL Front, how to administer a MySQL DB from Windows
Foxserv, making PHP-Nuke work on Windows Systems
Index
List of Figures
3-1. PHP-Nuke Homepage
3-2. Classifying articles
3-3. Downloads module
3-4. Private messages
3-5. Search module
3-6. Statistics module
3-7. Your account
3-8. Forum
4-1. Administration panel
4-2. Articles
5-1. PHP-Nuke 6.0 file structure
5-2. PHPMyAdmin start screen
5-3. PHPMyAdmin table selection
5-4. PHPMyAdmin: SQL query
5-5. PHPMyAdmin: table data
5-6. PHPMyAdmin: database dump
8-1. Block example
9-1. PHPMyAdmin: inserting values
9-2. Example module
11-1. PHPMyAdmin start screen
11-2. PHPMyAdmin: table forum_topics
11-3. MySQL Front: Connection
11-4. MySQL Front: export tables
11-5. MySQL Front: SQL Query