3.1.1.1: Adding Forums

To create a new forum, look to the bottom of the category you want your new forum to be in.  Enter the desired forum name in the text box at the bottom, and click Create New Forum.  You will be taken to the General Forum Settings panel.  (For more information on this panel, see 3.1.1.2 Editing Forums)           (You can also watch a flash video tutorial how to add forums here.)

3.1.1.2: Editing Forums

To edit a forum, look in that forum's row and click Edit.  You will be taken to the General Forum Settings panel.  Here you may adjust the following settings: Forum Name - This is the name of the forum.  (e.g. General Chat, Movie Reviews, Support, etc.)

Description - Describes your forum.  This is the smaller text that appears under each forum name on the Forum Index.

Category - A dropdown list box that will allow you to choose what category a forum is contained in.

Forum Status - A dropdown list box that will allow you to lock or unlock a forum.  A locked forum may not be posted to except by moderators and administrators.

Auto-Pruning - Here you can enable/disable auto-pruning. (For more information, see 3.1.1.5 Auto-Prune or3.1.3 Pruning)

3.1.1.3: Moving Forums

A forum's location can be described in two ways.  A forum is in a category, and has a location relative to other forums in that category.  To change the category that a forum is in, use the General Forum Settings panel, as described in 3.1.1.2 Editing Forums.

To change a forum's position relative to other forums in its category, use the Move Up and Move Down links in the General Forum Settings panel.  Move Up will swap the position of the desired forum with the forum above it.  Move Down will swap the position of the desired forum with the forum below it.  Move Up has no effect on the top forum in a category, and, likewise, Move Down has no effect on the bottom forum.

3.1.1.4: Resync

Some information in the database is contained it multiple tables.  This makes the board run faster by reducing the number of database queries on some pages.  Sometimes the information in different tables of the database gets out of sync.  This usually is caused by a connection problem which interrupts updating of the database.

When this happens, your forum may start behaving in a strange way.  Links to topics or posts that don't exist are common symptoms of this problem.

If you are having this problem, you can fix it by clicking Resync in the General Forum Settings Panel.  This will recalculate the forum information based on the actual posts that exist.  This operation has no harmful effect on the forums, just generates a small amount of overhead while you are doing it.  This is a good thing to try if you are not sure what is causing a problem on your board.

3.1.1.5: Auto-prune

Auto-prune is a feature that will cause a forum to prune itself.  (For more information on what pruning is, see 3.1.3 Pruning).  To enable auto-prune, make sure the checkbox is checked.

You may set the age of posts to prune.  All posts older than the set age will be pruned.  You may also set the frequency of pruning.  For example, you could have the forums prune themselves once a day, or once every seven days.

3.1.1.6: Adding Categories

To add a new category, look at the bottom of the forum/category listing.  Enter the desired category name into the text box and click Create New Category.

3.1.1.7: Editing Categories

By clicking on the Edit link next to a category name, you can edit the name of the category. Simply edit the name in the textbox and click the Update button to change the name of the category.

3.1.1.8: Moving Categories

To move a category, click Move Up or Move Down in the category's row.  Move Up will swap the position of the desired category and the category above it.  Move Down will swap the position of the desired category and the category below it.  Move Up has no effect on the top category, likewise Move Down has no effect on the bottom category.

3.3.1.1: Creating Groups

To create a group, go the Group Management panel and click Create New Group.  Here you may input the properties of your new group.  For more information, see 3.3.1.2 Editing Groups below.

3.3.1.2: Editing Groups

In this panel you can change the properties of a group.  You may control the name and description of the group, how membership is handled, and who is in charge of the group.

Group Name - Short name, uniquely identifies the group.

Group Description - Text that describes the group.  The description is seen when the group's details are viewed.

Group Moderator - Username of the user in charge of the group.  The group moderator can add/remove users from the group.  The group moderator may also control the group status. (For more information, see 4.4 Usergroups)

Group Status - May be one of three settings: Open, Closed, or Hidden.  For more information, see 4.4.2.4 Group Types (Open, Hidden, Closed).

Delete the old group moderator? - When you change the group moderator, check this to remove the old group moderator from the group.  If this is unchecked when the moderator is changed, the old group moderator will become a normal member of the group.

Delete group - Check this box and click Submit to delete the group.

3.3.2.1: Simple Group Permissions

To grant a group access to a private forum using Simple Permissions, Choose Allowed Access in the Simple Permissions for that forum.  Choosing Allowed Access is the same as setting all Advanced Group Permissions to ON.

3.3.2.2: Advanced Group Permissions

Advanced Permissions will allow you to grant specific behaviors to a group.  In the Advanced Permissions panel, there will be a dropdown box for each Permission type that is set to PRIVATE in the Forum Permissions panel (for more information, see 3.1.2 Forum Permissions).  To grant the group a specific PRIVATE permission in a forum, simply set the appropriate dropdown box to ON.  To grant all PRIVATE permissions of a forum to a group, use Allowed Access in simple mode.

3.5.1.1: Banning by username

When a username is banned, that user may no longer login to your board.  When they login, they will be informed that they have been banned.  The user may still view and read the board as a Guest (Anonymous User).  To prevent a user from seeing your board at all, you must ban them by IP.  For more information, see 3.5.1.2 Banning by IP or Hostname.

To ban by username, simply select the username(s) to ban in the Ban one or more specific users listbox.  To ban more than one username at once, simply select all of the usernames you are trying to ban.  This is normally accomplished by holding the CTRL key and clicking each name.  When all of the desired names are selected, press Submit to add the ban information to the database.

Similarly, to un-ban usernames, simply select the banned username(s) from the Un-ban one or more specific users listbox and press Submit.

3.5.1.2: Banning by IP or Hostname

When an IP or hostname is banned, your board's content will be blocked from any connection coming from that IP or host.  Users from a banned IP will be informed of the ban, but may not view the board at all.

To ban by IP or hostname, simply enter the IP address or hostname to ban and click Submit.  To specify multiple IPs or hostnames, you may separate the multiple entries with commas (,).  For instance, to ban the IP 192.168.8.19 and the hostname banned.cheese.com, you would enter 192.168.8.19,banned.cheese.com

You may also ban multiple IPs or hostnames using ranges and wildcard characters.  To ban a range of IPs, use -(hyphen) (e.g. 192.168.8.19-124).  Banning a range of IPs will cause each IP in that range to be added to the list, so using specific IPs or wildcards is preferred.  The wildcard *(asterisk) will match any characters, so to ban all IPs that begin with 192.168, use 192.168.*.*   This also works with hostnames.  For example *.cheese.com will ban all hostnames that end with ".cheese.com"

To un-ban IPs and hostnames, simply select the banned IP or hostname from the Un-ban one or more IP addresses listbox and press Submit.

3.5.1.3: Banning by email address

Banning an email address prevents anyone from registering using that banned email address.  Any users currently using a banned email will not be affected.  To deny the user access to the board, you must still ban their username or delete their account.  When someone tries to register with a banned email address, the registration will fail, and they will be informed that it failed due to a banned email address.

To ban an email address, simply enter the email address to ban into the text field and click Submit.  You may ban multiple addresses by separating them by commas.  You may also use the wildcard *(asterisk) to ban email addresses meeting certain criteria.  For instance, to ban all email addresses at hotmail.com, you would enter *@hotmail.com into the field.

To un-ban email addresses, simply select the banned email address from the Un-ban one or more email addresses listbox and press Submit.

3.5.4.1: User Level

User - The user is a normal user.  They may have special permissions such as group membership or moderation privileges, but they have no access to the administration panel.

Administrator - The user is a board Administrator.  This means that they have access to the administration panel, and they have moderator permissions in every forum and group.

3.5.4.2: Simple User Permissions

To grant a user access to a private forum using Simple Permissions, Choose Allowed Access in the Simple Permissions for that forum.  Choosing Allowed Access is the same as setting all Advanced Group Permissions to ON.