On behalf of the phpBB Team, I am proud to announce the formation of the Extensions Development Team!
With the release of 3.1, phpBB will leap into the new era of drop-in plugins that we have desired for so long. In an effort to maximize the benefits of this change, we are further looking to bridge the gap between the users of phpBB and the developer community.
Due to the great diversity of customisations requested by our userbase and the relatively limited resources available, we have always heavily relied on independent MOD authors, one of the most valued portions of our community, to populate and support our extensive MOD database. The Extensions Development Team will lower the learning curve for developers to get involved with the phpBB project by supporting their efforts and guiding them toward the successful release of extensions. The team will likewise produce and maintain officially-supported extensions.
The team was formed several months ago and began the process of initial setup and planning. The team is likewise working on “Board Rules”, the first official extension which will provide administrators with the ability to setup and configure a page of rules for the overall board or website.
You may have seen that a [3.1.x] Extensions in Development forum has been created on phpBB.com. In this forum you will find further information about the current status and plans of this Board Rules extension.
We will be looking for supplement this team with additional members in the future. We would like to have a very diverse team in skill sets, whether they be PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript, UI development, support, or others. Regardless of your experience level, you can get involved and help! If this sounds interesting to you, please do not hesitate to contact me with a private message.
We will look at popular MODs and MOD requests for phpBB 3.0 as well as the phpBB Ideas list to identify which extension ideas should be prioritized. We are looking forward to producing some fantastic extensions in the future and helping our community members build some fantastic extensions of their own!