The History of APBoard
From a teenager in Berlin, a PHP3 function reference and an idea – to a forum that brought a quarter of a million people together, that the German Bundestag used as a discussion platform, and whose traces can still be found today in the German-language forum software landscape. And that was rebuilt in 2023.
The Origins: MagicBoard and a PHP Reference
The history of APBoard does not begin in the year 2000, but earlier – and it does not begin with Christin Löhner alone.
In 1999, a developer named Darth Paul wrote a small PHP forum system: MagicBoard. It was a modest starting point – a simple user registration, a basic design, nothing more. But it was there.
At the same time, a teenager in Berlin was learning PHP. No course, no bootcamp, no mentor. Just a printed PHP3 function reference, a text editor and the will to build something of their own. Their nickname: DMA147. Their name then: Alexander Mieland. Their name today: Christin Löhner.
Darth Paul allowed MagicBoard to be used as a starting point. As the later APBoard source code noted:
“Based on a very early version of MagicBoard v.1.5 © 2000 by Darth Paul, modified with permission”
What came of it is the project you are reading about right now.
PHPBoard: The First Ten Days
On October 4, 2000, the first dateable version was created. It was not yet called APBoard – it was called PHPBoard. And the development had an intensity that would become typical of this project:
| Date | Version | What was added |
|---|---|---|
| 04.10.2000 | PHPBoard V1.0 | PHP3 + PHP4 compatibility, first database structure, code parser |
| 08.10.2000 | PHPBoard V1.1 | Close thread, first approaches to language files |
| 10.10.2000 | PHPBoard V1.2 | Admin delete function, German language file complete |
Three versions in seven days. The code was written in the evenings and nights, iteration by iteration, with the function reference beside the monitor.
APBoard V1.3 – First Official Release
On October 13, 2000, PHPBoard became APBoard – Another PHP Board. The changelog records this moment without detour:
“APBoard V1.3 (AnotherPHPBoard) – 13/10/2000 – FIRST OFFICIAL RELEASE!”
The English language file was done, the code parser for formatting complete, the help file finished. A forum, finished enough to show the world.
What is remarkable: on the same day, Version 1.5 already appeared – with an automatic installation script and category management. Two releases in 24 hours. That was the pace.
From that day on, the project was run under its full name:
The first credits document the founding team:
Six Weeks, Ten Versions
What followed was a development phase of remarkable density. Between the first release on October 13 and the end of the year, ten further versions were created – at weekly intervals, sometimes faster.
[*] apb1_, apb2_, apb3_ …)
Multi-board support in version 1.8 was a technically clever solution: instead of requiring a separate database installation for each forum, multiple forums shared a single MySQL server through dynamically generated table names. A concept that was of real practical value to many webmasters at the time.
APP – Another PHP Programs: The Ecosystem
APBoard was not alone. Under the umbrella brand
APP – Another PHP Programs
(reachable via phpprograms.de, later
php-zentrale.de and php-programs.de),
a whole ecosystem of PHP projects was created – all from the same hands,
all open-source, all aimed at concrete everyday webmaster problems:
APBoard
Another PHP Board – the core project. 250,000+ community members at their peak.
Lives on as v3APPortal
Another PHP Portal – three-column portal with news, content stream and user area.
Still running on rcpanzer.deAPBook
Another PHP Guestbook – guestbook system, developed up to version 1.3.0.
ArchivedAPCms
Another PHP CMS – content management system focused on page management.
ArchivedAPHtaccess
htaccess generator (v1.6) – for the seemingly magical Apache configurations of the time.
ArchivedAPGallery
Image gallery system as a standalone project.
Archived
The APHtaccess generator is the most zeitgeist-y project:
Apache configuration via .htaccess was impenetrable magic for most
webmasters of the early 2000s. A generator that handled it for them
solved a real, everyday problem.
Professionalization: The Gamesweb Phase
At the beginning of 2001 something shifted. The contact address in the source code changed
from phpboard@halflife-editing.de to
dma147@gamesweb.com, the homepage from
phpboard.halflife-editing.de to www.dmx147.de.
DMA147 was now working at Gamesweb, one of the early German
gaming portals.
At the same time, APBoard was officially released under the GNU General Public License Version 2 – a commitment to open source that became the core of the project and would later play an unexpected role.
New contributors joined the 1.9.x phase team: Snoopy brought bug fixes, new search functions, sorting and templates. Stiwi contributed ideas and the Stars hack. Sir_Berick rounded out the team. The solo project had become a collaborative open-source endeavor.
APBoard 2.x – The Community Suite
On August 15, 2001, APBoard 2.0 ALPHA appeared – and it was a fundamental leap. Version 2 was not an update, it was a rebuild. The changelog lists over 30 new features for the first alpha release alone.
Most important changes compared to the 1.x series:
- Public Names – different login and display names
- Template system – complete separation of code and presentation
- Database-based language files – full multilingual support
- File upload system – attachments directly in posts
- Photo gallery – integrated photo system
- Dynamic stylesheets – fully customizable design
- Slide menu – animated navigation menu (by MaXimuS)
- MX-entry validation for email addresses
The final Version 2.0 appeared on October 1, 2001. The development team around dma147 grew further under the umbrella organization APP – Another PHP Programs.
php-programs.de APBoard 2.2 – What it could do
Version 2.2 was no longer just forum software. It was a complete community platform. The setup system installed 69 database tables, the configuration table had 116 columns, the user profile 91 fields. The following modules could be installed individually:
Forum Core
- Categories, boards, threads, posts
- Moderation system
- Private messages
- Thread ratings & polls
- Smilies management
- Censorship filter
Community
- Photo albums & user pics
- User pages with guestbook
- Member ratings
- Online time tracking
- Birthdays & holidays
- Newsletter
Portal & Content
- Integrated portal system
- Board news
- Announcements
- FAQ system
- Book recommendations
- Greeting cards (Powercards)
Tools & Games
- Arcade games
- Quiz system
- File downloads & uploads
- Bug tracker
- Spambot detection
- Member map (geolocation)
The user data model even contained hardware profile fields:
cpu, ram, mb (motherboard),
graka (graphics card), sk (sound card),
os – a mirror of the gaming community culture
of the early 2000s.
The Woltlab Burning Board
APBoard was released under GPL version 2 – source code freely available, redistribution and modification expressly permitted, as long as the license was respected and the origin credited.
From the era of APBoard 1.9.x emerged the WoltLab Burning Board, which later became one of the most widely used German-language forum systems. Those familiar with APBoard found familiar structures in early WBB versions – technical similarities that the community discusses to this day.
Interesting from a historical perspective: five database fields appear together for the first time in APBoard 1.9.9 and can be found in the same combination in WBB 1.1.1c:
show_email_global · users_may_email · mods_may_email · disable_smilies · views
The table prefix convention also shows parallels: APBoard used
apb1_, apb2_, apb3_ –
WBB used bb1_, bb2_, bb3_.
Identical scheme, different prefix. Function names like
rowcolor, floodcontrol,
makeforumbit or formatdate
can be found in both systems.
For context: these observations concern exclusively WBB 1.0. By WBB 2.0 at the latest, the Burning Board was completely rewritten from scratch – without APBoard code. WBB versions from 2.0 onwards are an independent development.
APBoard largely remained in the background – an early open-source project whose influence was greater than its fame would suggest.
Where APBoard was deployed
APBoard was no niche solution. At its peak, it counted over 250,000 community members and was installed thousands of times. Some deployments are still verifiable today.
German Bundestag
Version 1.9.9bArchived pages of the project “Electronic Democracy” can be found in the web archive of the German Bundestag, which used APBoard as a discussion platform. The footer of these pages reads:
AnotherPHPBoard v.1.9.9b © 2000 by Alexander Mieland (DMA147.ThW.N)
283 members discussed virtual panel debates, online hearings and constituency forums – APBoard as a tool for parliamentary citizen participation.
Ubisoft Germany
Version 1.9.9.2The German support forum of Ubisoft – one of the largest publishers worldwide at the time – ran on APBoard. Its use is documented for the year 2002 in the Wayback Machine. In the footer:
AnotherPHPBoard v1.9.9.2 © 2000-2002 by Alexander Mieland (DMA147.ThW.N)
Supported titles included Silent Hunter II, Splinter Cell, Rayman M and Die Siedler.
rcpanzer.de
Still running todayThe RC tank community at www.rcpanzer.de has been running APBoard and APPortal for over 25 years – actively, with posts from 2026, with maintained code.
The generator tag in the APPortal source is still original:
APPortal v3.0.1a – Powered by APP – Another PHP Program – http://www.phpprograms.de
Thousands of posts about RC tank technology – on a system Christin wrote at age 27.
rcpanzer.de is one of at least three still-active APBoard installations worldwide. Other known running installations: 6euro66.de/apboard and insel-losinj.de.
The End – and the Long Aftermath
At some point around 2006, active development of the classic APBoard came to an end. Version 2.2.0-r3 of April 19, 2006 is the last known state. No dramatic closing statement, no big finale – the project fell silent.
What remained: an SVN archive with 6,147 files, all versions from 1.9.1 to 2.2.0 preserved. A changelog that records every development step since October 4, 2000. And rcpanzer.de, which simply keeps running.
Not as a museum. As a forum.
The First Reboot
In 2011 there was a first attempt at a modern successor. The code is in the archive: APBoard 2.9.8, already using Twig as a template engine, jQuery 1.5.1, PHPMailer, TinyMCE. The header:
“Another PHP Board – APBoard – The next generation APBoard”
Copyright (c) 2000–2011 by APP – Another PHP Program, Alexander Mieland
The project had a modular structure (About, Account, Admin, Blogs, Forum, Gallery, Messages, News, Online, Profile, Register), a new AJAX layer and output buffering with gzip compression. Co-developer was Eric Appelt.
This rewrite attempt was not continued. The codebase slumbered in the archive.
APBoard v3 – The Real Rebuild
On June 12, 2023, Christin Löhner began APBoard v3 – this time not as an iteration, not as a rewrite based on old code, but as a complete rebuild from scratch.
New technologies, new architecture, but the same attitude as in 1999: no framework overhead, no unnecessary complexity, solid PHP code that does what it’s supposed to. Except now PHP is at 8.5, Twig is used as the template engine, prepared statements are consistently maintained, and the security architecture withstands ten audit rounds.
The domain apboard.de was secured.
The official forum runs at
main.apboard.de,
development and source code via
gitlab.apboard.de
(GPL-3.0).
Same history. New chapters.