TetraBB.com Home of Tetra-WebBBS and TetraBB PRO

TetraBB PRO extends the funtionality of Tetra-WebBBS not only regarding additional features but one day will provide a full separation of code and presentation by using HTML templates for all major pages. This will be an important improvement compared to the limited header and footer templates the basic Tetra-WebBBS version offers.

However, implementing such a fully template based system isn't doable all at once. The approach chosen to achieve the overall aim is to first ensure all TetraBB PRO specific pages are based on templates from the very beginning. The second step is to provide PRO templates for all features of Tetra-WebBBS which get rewritten. This can be taken as a developmental roadmap making things available step-by-step while moving forward.

Now, what does all this mean for the current TetraBB PRO snapshots which are made available?
The answer is pretty simple:
All PRO specific stuff is already based on full HTML templates. Examples are PRO search, PRO admin portal and RSS feeds. In future more functionality will be based on templates.

Some readers will be interested in how the template engine works. - That's simple as well.
Fortunately we don't need to reinvent the wheel. We're building on existing Perl modules which are made available by CPAN and are preinstalled on a lot of server or at least can be installed easily. TetraBB PRO uses the HTML::Template module as it's template engine.
Of course there are other solutions which could have been chosen. The key for decision was the fact that HTML::Template indeed can be "installed" by simple upload via FTP. That makes TetraBB PRO available without hassle even for those who's webhost didn't preinstall the Perl module.

If you're new to such a templated system and have any questions then feel free to ask at support board.

Those who want to customize the pages to the utmost may go ahead and edit the template files which are all located in structured subfolders of the /tmpl folder in $data_basedir - as long as you keep backup copies you can't break too much