MyPlaza Documentation - Installing & Upgrading

New Installation

Upload all the files supplied in the Upload folder to the root of your MyBB installation directory.
Go to your AdminCP and activate the plugin. Note that the activation process may take a little while - this is because MyPlaza does do a fair bit of stuff during activation.
Congratulations! You have now installed MyPlaza. I suggest you review check the Modules section to see what modules you want. Activate these modules, then add the items to a category if necessary. In particular, review the Options of the Income module, then, if you have a board with some activity, I suggest you recalculate everyone's money by visiting the Maintanence section of the AdminCP. Enjoy!

Upgrading from Previous Version

MyPlaza v0.4 (or later) users with Advanced Modules enabled and configured:

Simply go to your AdminCP -> MyPlaza -> Update Manager and click Install this Update

Other users (v0.4 or later)

Upload and overwrite your current installation with the newer files.
Upload the included upgrade04.php file to the root of your installation directory.
Run the upgrade script by accessing it from your browser (eg, by going to http://mywebsite.com/forums/upgrade04.php).
Delete the uploaded upgrade04.php (to prevent other people from running it :P)

MyPlaza prior to v0.4

There is no way to upgrade directly to the current version. You should download the MyPlaza v0.43 package, upgrade to it, before upgrading to the current version.

Notes

If you make your /inc/plugins/myplaza folder writable, you can upload modules from the AdminCP. If you consider this to be a security risk, do NOT make that folder writable!
By default, items added by modules are not assigned a category. You will need to assign the items to a visible category before they show up in the Plaza!
Two modules are automatically activated once you activate MyPlaza - these are Income and Donate. If you do not need these features, you can easily deactivate these modules.

Template Handling

I personally find MyBB's template system a little cumbersome, especially if you have a large number of themes installed on your board. For example, every time you install a new theme, template edits performed by a plugin may not appear. Also, if you want to manually edit some templates, you have to make sure the changes occur across all templatesets.

For this reason, I've made my own template replacing system for MyPlaza. There are four modes which MyPlaza can use:

[mode 1] MyBB standard system (default)
[mode 0] Disabled (no replacements are done; only use this if you know what you're doing)
[mode 2] Create custom templates as GLOBAL templates, and remove templates which match the MASTER template (this is my preferred method, as it keeps the main templates in one set (GLOBAL) and is able to handle any custom templates)
[mode -1] Soft replacing - this replaces templates at run-time rather than at install time. This will cause a slight slowdown to your board (though this slowdown should be negligable) but should allow MyPlaza to work around most theme issues. Note that, to use this method, you'll need to perform a code edit: In /inc/class_templates.php, Find:
$sql .= " ,'".trim($title)."'";
Add above/before:
if(!isset($this->cache[$title]))

Note that you'll have to set the mode before you activate MyPlaza. To set which mode you want, open up /inc/myplaza/myplaza_install.php and find the line:

define('REPLACE_MYBB_TEMPLATES', 1);

Replace the 1 with the mode you want to use.

Also note that if you use the automatic updater, this value will probably get reset back to mode 1.

Advanced Modules

Advanced Modules functionality allows MyPlaza to perform a number of neat things, including:

Allowing modules to perform code edits, saving the user from doing so.
Enabling automatic update features (update MyPlaza straight from the AdminCP).

By default, it is disabled - this is for security reasons. You can enable Advanced Modules in the AdminCP. In addition, you will need to configure it by editing /inc/myplaza/config_am.php.

Advanced Modules is fairly safe, if set up properly. You can restrict access to Super Admins only, and even restrict access to certain IPs.

However, if you still consider this a security risk, or you prefer to perform code edits yourself, just leave this disabled. However, this can come in handy even if you find it a little risky, security wise - enable Advanced Modules temporarily when a module requires code edits, then disable it afterwards. Note that you can also disable Advanced Modules by deleting or renaming the config_am.php file, if you consider the option in the AdminCP to be insufficient, security wise.

Setting up Advanced Modules

Well, firstly, you'll obviously have to enable Advanced Modules from the AdminCP - to do so, just visit AdminCP -> Board Settings -> Change -> MyPlaza Options -> Enable Advanced Modules = Yes.
Next, you'll have to edit the file /inc/myplaza/config_am.php. I highly suggest using FTP over PHP, as, using PHP will require you to CHMOD all your files to 777 (security wise, you'll need to weigh it up - using FTP means that a hacker may be able to steal your FTP details, whereas, using PHP, an attacker could write to all your files). Check the file for details on how to set up Advanced Modules.

A few notes on Advanced Modules:

Advanced Modules will automatically back up any modified files. By default, this is stored under the /backup folder (changable in config_am.php).
When you deactivate the MyPlaza plugin, the /backup folder is NOT removed. However, the backups table is removed, so details on backups will be lost (but backed up files are left there).
The backups are provided mainly for reassurance purposes. I don't recommend relying on them to save potential issues which may pop up due to a module incorrectly modifying files. Please keep your own backup copies!
Installing updates, via the AdminCP, is done through Advanced Modules