Why I built the APBoard
The beginning and the end
Back in 1999 I was very active on IRC under the nickname dma147, and one day DarthPaul came up to me and said: hey, give PHP a try. PHP is a really cool, fairly new programming language for dynamic websites.
DarthPaul had started writing a piece of forum software at the time and called it MagicBoard. There wasn’t much to it yet, just a simple user management.
He handed me his existing MagicBoard source code, and with the PHP3 function reference on my knees, I started developing that code further through pure trial and error.
On October 4, 2000, I released the first version 1.0 of the PHPBoard. Version 1.1 followed on October 8, and version 1.2 already on October 10. I picked that name because, well, it was a discussion forum (a board) written in PHP. But it turned out shortly after that a forum with the exact same name already existed. So I renamed mine to APBoard, Another PHP Board.
On October 13, 2000, I released version 1.3 of the APBoard, so already under the new name.
By version 1.3 the forum system was already fully finished and usable. It had syntax highlighting for code blocks, you could format text with BBCode, and it was fully translated into English.
On that same day, October 13, 2000, I also released versions 1.4 and 1.5. Version 1.5 already came with a fully automated installation script and a category management.
And so it kept going, one release after another.
On November 20, 2000, version 1.9.3 came out. More than ten versions in six weeks. If you want to read more about the history of the APBoard, feel free to do so here: https://www.apboard.de/history/
The APBoard was a huge success. In the official support forum, which of course was an APBoard too, many, many thousands of people registered. The APBoard was downloaded tens of thousands of times and used by thousands of people.
Even the German Bundestag relied on the APBoard back then as a discussion platform for one of its working areas. The German branch of UbiSoft, the gaming software studio, used the APBoard as a support forum for their users.
And then, suddenly, in May 2001, the Woltlab Burning Board version 1.0 came out. From the very start it was obvious that there was an APBoard hiding underneath WBB 1.0. Functions and database tables had identical names, the functionality was identical, the design was identical.
Barely a year later, WBB 2 followed, which actually was a complete rewrite and no longer contained any APBoard under the hood.
The fact, and the realization, that my forum software, released as open source under the GNU GPL 2.0 of that time, wasn’t safe from code theft made me literally lose all motivation to keep developing the APBoard. And so, sometime in 2002, I released the last version myself. Many dedicated members of the APBoard community didn’t want to accept the end of the project and kept developing the APBoard on their own. But in 2006 the APBoard project was actually officially shut down.
Other big forum software makers simply got too large and too powerful. First and foremost the Woltlab Burning Board, of course, but also vBulletin and whatever else they were called and still are called today.
But why a continuation of the APBoard now, after 20 years?
The end back then was, to put it mildly, difficult. From 2002 onwards I made myself scarce, barely posted anything in the support forum, hardly showed up on IRC anymore. I had lost my passion for the APBoard.
My own withdrawal and lack of motivation were ultimately responsible for the APBoard meeting its end. Even though a few dedicated users held on to the APBoard for a few more years and even kept developing it, the “APP - Another PHP Programs” project, and with it the APBoard and the APPortal, was doomed to fail. Because I dropped it like a hot potato.
I tried several times to get a continuation going. Back in 2011 I once started rewriting the APBoard completely from scratch. But I lost interest again back then too. The code was set aside and eventually forgotten.
All those years, I had the feeling that I owed it to my community from back then to give the APBoard a worthy successor.
In 2018 I gave it another shot, but I clearly wasn’t ready yet to actually finish the project even then.
In 2023 I started again, and even though the code once more disappeared into the drawers for over two years, this time I finally managed to pull myself together and rebuild the APBoard completely from the ground up with current technology.
I simply owed it to the community from back then, from 2000 to 2006. And even if the keenest and most active members of that old community, like for example Lacritima, Relict, Funlex, Snoopy, Stiwi, Ampfinger, Arne, Ascii, Bunny, Commander66, Darksky, Darth Paul, Der Al, Elton, Fabian, Floo, Hilfe_Fehler, Jörn, Manu, Markusw, MisterS, PG-Computer, Sir_Berick, Slanker, SuSeLinux, Temardo, The Master, Tool-Time, Voller17, Yyoshii or Zago, probably won’t even notice today that there’s a worthy successor, I still know for myself that I finally managed to create and release one.
So now, at least when it comes to the APBoard, I can finally find my peace of mind.
But that doesn’t mean it stops at this one version 3.0.0 that just got released! I’m already working on version 3.0.1, and more versions will follow. I don’t intend to give up again so quickly.
I really hope that the new APBoard, the APBoard Next Generation, will find many friends and inspire a lot of people.