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Welcome to the phpFox2 developers manual. This manual will help you get started with how to develop new modules and plug-ins for phpFox2. phpFox2 is based on a modular system, which runs all of the common features we as users see when we visit a phpFox2 website. It also contains libraries or libs as we will call it, which is the engine that runs the skeleton of phpFox2 and its modules. The products core is designed to be a CMS (Content Management System). If you were only to include the core engine and the few required Core modules to run the product it would simply by a CMS. We bring in modules to introduce other features, which once packed with a heap of them turn the CMS into a Social Networking Solution. With this in mind we leave it up to the client to decide what sort of a site they would like to run and what sort of features they really need to get their crowd interested in their site and what it has to offer. Since the core can be stripped away from modules this leaves a lot of freedom for the script to evolve into other products such as a Software Licensing System or a Bug Tracker.
The modules are based on a MVC (Model View Controller) architectural pattern. phpFox2 is developed under a OOP (Object-oriented programming) environment, which will give future developers an easier time to enhance the product to their benefits.
Requirements for the product have become more flexible when dealing with PHP related requirements such as safe_mode or open_base_dir. Using those as an example the product can work with whatever those are set to allowing clients not to worry about if their server has a specific setting enabled or not. Our goal is to have a product that is as flexible as possible to make sure it works on all of the popular hosts today. There is one strict requirement and that in order to run the product you must have PHP5. Past requirements have been PHP 4.3.3, however since PHP5 introduced a wave of improvements when it comes down to OOP we decided it was time we move forward. As for MySQL the same 4.1 is required, although phpFox2 will support other database drivers and not just MySQL.
When reading this manual it is wise to read everything in order and not skip ahead as items that we cover later on will require knowledge of something you have learned earlier in the manual.