Part of the /legacy/ archive. This page reproduces selected text from the phpwebthings.org homepage as it appeared on September 9, 2004, captured by the Wayback Machine. Original capture URL: web.archive.org/web/20040909232224/…. Excerpts only, lightly cleaned of layout chrome and grouped under headings I added for readability. The wording is the original authors’.
Page title and tagline
Title: phpWebThings and phpDBform Creator
Meta description: phpWebThings is an application to create a cool web site
Meta keywords: php, mysql, phpwebthings, phpdbform, html, forms, cms, portal, poll, news, forum, database, dynamic
“What is phpWebThings?” (homepage centerbox)
phpWebThings is a Powerful, professional application framework for intermediate to advanced PHP programmer, open source Web Portal, Online Community System, Content Management System (CMS) or whatever you want to call it. The goal of phpWebThings is to have an automated web site that is easy for the webmaster to manipulate while still being secure and functional. Each user can submit comments to discuss Articles, News, Downloads similar to many other systems.
The main features include: All Modular design, Web Based Admin, User Login, News System, User Messages, Downloads, FAQs, Contact Area, Links, User and Authors edit, an Integrated Banner Ad system, Internal Search Engine, Support for 20 languages, Comments option in Polls, lot of themes, File Manager, Download Manager, FAQ Manager, Categorized Articles and many, many more friendly functions.
phpWebThings is written 100% in PHP and requires:
(The original list of requirements followed; PHP 4 with MySQL extension and MySQL 3.x or 4.x.)
Localization maintainers (as listed in 2004)
- Arabic Support — Mohamed Hesham
- Portuguese Support — Paulo Assis
- Russian Support — Dr. Victor Mosco
- Japanese Support — Yasushi Yonehara
- Dutch Support — Ottojan Visser
Selected news posts visible on the homepage
2004-07-14, 17:44 — Posted by ckleiman:
VITY activates theme changer ! OK, the VITY USA website just got better! Since it is necessary for the default VITYIDEA theme to hide the right sideboxes and because it doesn’t look very nice when the wide themes hide them, OJ made changes to the main.php files of the new wide themes to always show. Now you can click on VITY products in the VITYIDEA theme and the right sideboxes are hidden and it looks very nice; then change theme to VITYPHP, for example, and click VITY products and they appear in a nice centerbox with right sideboxes showing. Me so happy!!!!!
2004-07-14, 14:04 — Posted by george_findlay:
php 5.0.0 released! The PHP team is proud to announce the final release of PHP 5!
2004-05-26, 23:19 — Posted by tester1:
Journals 1.2 has been released in the download section. It included various bug fixes, and a few new features along with minor layout changes. New Features: Mood and music fields so users can add their current music and mood to each journal entry; embed music link added so users can make their current music a link; admin can turn on or off the options above; added user’s avatar to the journal list page to give each journal a more personal feel; added user’s avatar to the journal page; added some nifty icons (things are more lively now although I liked the plain look myself); when a journal entry is deleted by the user the comments for it are removed as well (the first module to do this).
2004-05-26, 23:00 — Posted by tester1:
Webmail 1.2 has been released. First off this is version 1.2; the news post for the last version said 1.2 but it was really 1.1 as far as the module was concerned. New Features: popup address book to populate the To field without losing any info you already entered into the form; popup attachment page; “Add to book” option added near the From field while reading mail; separate signature added for outgoing mail; folders — there are now 3 folders your users can use to store mail (sent, saved, drafts); quotas are enabled for folders and adjustable by the admin; admin can clean attachments dir with the file manager.
1.4 patches sidebar (April 2004)
- Security Patch — Posted: 2004-03-26
- Theme Patch — Posted: 2004-04-24
- Forum Patch — Posted: 2004-03-30
- Mail Function Patch — Posted: 2004-04-19
Editorial note
This snapshot caught the project at what looks like its busiest period: tester1 had just shipped two module releases on the same evening; ckleiman was excited about a theme switcher in the VITY portal; george_findlay had relayed the PHP 5.0 announcement with the air of a project that genuinely cared. Reading these notes twenty-two years later is a particular kind of useful. It’s a reminder that the PHP web of 2004 was a network of small, named, reachable people building things in their evenings. The shape of self-hosting in 2026 is not all that different. The names have changed; the rest, less than you’d think.
— Edwin Rice, April 2026