I don’t know why they haven’t implemented quick reply and quick edit functions to phpbb 3.0.0. I personally find them very useful and as i have seen they are highly appreciated by phpbb fans. It would have been a great thing to have native support for that. As expected, some good folks coded a few lines to help phpbb have that extra feeling it lacks.
Don’t forget to backup your files before you proceed and to refresh your template files from ACP after you are done.
“Evil Quick Reply“ is the name of the MOD which adds a button next to “Post Reply” that says “Quick Reply” and when pressed toggles a textbox (without refreshing the page) in which you can type a fast reply and submit it right away without going through the “advanced reply form”. This MOD is extremly easy to install, it doesn’t require any database adjusting and you can get it up and running in like 2 minutes. It has been successfully tested on the latest phpbb3 version (3.0.0). Also it supports prosilver and subsilver2 styles engines. Optionally you can choose to add the BBcodes and the smilies to the quick reply form.
Unfortunately not even to this day there isn’t an official MOD designed to quick edit posts on both prosilver and subsilver2 styles. However if you use a subsilver2 based style you can consider yourself lucky because in spite of the fact that it’s just in its DEV state there is a MOD that provides the quick edit function. “Ajax Quick Edit“ is also a great MOD that’s easy to install, supports phpbb 3.0.0 and it doesn’t require any database adjusting. The single disadvantage for the moment is that it currently supports only subsilver2 style engine but as the developer promised, support for prosilver will soon be available (i might post a quick notice article when prosilver will be supported just to give the ones that are interested a heads up).
These being written all that remains now is to inform you on the alternatives you have in case of you’re not the admin on the forum but still want to use this great functions as the forum administrator didn’t implemented the above MODs. As some of you already know, GreaseMonkey is an awesome Firefox addon that supports user scripts. I bet most of you already know what i’m about to write because of the terms association firefox-greasemonkey-userscript-phpbb. You got that right ! There are two user scripts available that will enhance your experience with phpbb3 based forums.
“phpBBv3 Quick Edit“ for GreaseMonkey is just another breathtaking, must have script (with a little AJAX) that’s more than useful because it offers you the chance of editing an article without refreshing the entire page EVEN when no such MOD has been implemented to that forum !
“phpBBv3 Quick Reply” script offers the much needed quick reply function to phpbb3 forums users. Remember that this is possible even if the forums don’t have MODs implemented !
The above two user scripts for GreaseMonkey represent a kind of consolation yet a very viable alternative !
*to download/install the MODs or scripts mentioned in the above article please refer to the links given.
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Basically, the phpbb team are somewhat arrogant and niave, and just outright refuse to implement any kind of quick reply/edit function on the basis that it’s against their idea of the function message board software serves. Might seem slightly reasonable, until you notice the hypocrisy of the fact the official development forum is filled with one line/word posts, ping pong chatting, etc., and the fact that over 50% of their users are immediately going to have to install third party MODs (which is inconvenient and potentially problematic in the long run), not to mention the users that are unwilling/don’t know how to install MODs that would also like a quick reply feature. It’s just utter hardheadedness and stupidity.