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The Forums plugin page allows you to manage all the Forum categories in your community, and determine the Global Settings and Member Level Settings for your community.
To reach the Forums plugin page, in your Admin panel navigate to Plugins > Forums
The “Manage Forums page allows you to add, edit, delete and arrange your Categories and Forums.. Moderators can be chosen from existing members or removed from individual forums. We’ll show you how to do all of the aforementioned items in the steps following the screenshot below.
Categories show at the top of each Forum as the Forum’s header helping to organize and separate different Forums by topic.
Below is the Admin panel view of the Categories:
Here’s how they look front end in your community:
Changing the order of your Categories is as simple as clicking the “move up” link to the far right of the Category that you want to move up. Clicking the “move up” link will move the Category and all of its Forums above the Category directly above it.
To change the name of a Category, click on the “edit” link of that Category.
A popup will open, to edit the Category name. Click “Save Changes” when done.
Deleting a Category will delete the Category as well as all Forums within it. To delete a Category, click on the “delete” button to the far right of the Category that you want to delete.
This will open a popup asking you if you want to delete the Category. Click on the “Delete Category” button in order to delete the Category and all of its Forums.
Forums are a way to centralize topics around a certain subject or group of people. This is where your members will post their threads. These show beneath the main Category headings.
Here’s how Forums look in your Admin panel:
Here’s how Forums look front end in your community:
Forums can be reordered by clicking on the “move up” button of the Forum that you would like to move up in the list. Clicking on “move up” will cause the Forum to be placed above the Forum directly above it. The topmost Forum in a Category does not have a “move up” button. If you wish to move the forum from its current Category into the Category above it, you will need to edit the Forum and change its Category.
Editing a Forum
If you wish to change the Name, Description, Category, or Member Level of a Forum, you can do so by clicking on the “edit” button next to the Forum that you want to edit.
This will open a popup that will allow you to edit those settings and save your changes.
To delete a Forum and all of its topics and posts, click on the “delete” button next to the Forum that you would like to delete.
Moderators are members that have the ability to manage Forum posts. They have an extra row of buttons that allow them to: edit the topic; make a topic “sticky” which keeps it at the top of the list; close topics to disallow further posts; rename the topic; move the topic to a different forum; delete the topic; edit or delete any posts in a topic. Each Forum can have its own Moderator(s).
To remove a Moderator from a Forum, click on the “remove” button to the right of the Moderator that you want to remove.
This will open a popup asking if you want to remove the member as a Moderator. Click on the “Remove Moderator” button to remove the Moderator from the Forum.
Global Settings contain the general settings for the entire Forums plugin. To get to this page, click on the "Global Settings" tab. When done changing any settings, be sure to click “Save Changes."
You can determine how many Posts will be shown per page; how many Topics will be shown per Forum page; enable or disable BBCode and HTML.
The number entered in the “Posts per Topic Page”will be the number of Posts that are displayed per page. For example, if you enter “10” in this field and have 100 Posts in one Topic, that topic will have 10 pages with each page having 10 Posts displayed.
This controls how many Topics will show per Forum page. For example if you enter “1” in this field and have 10 Topics in a Forum, the Forum will have 10 pages with each page having one Topic displayed.
BBCode is a type of code that is popular with forum or bulletin board software. You can choose to allow or not allow members to use BBcode in your Forums.
The ability to add styling,links, or media to a post with the use of HTML tags can be allowed or not allowed in your Forums. If you choose to Allow HTML tags in your Forums, you will still need to set which HTML tags are allowable in the “Member Level Settings” section.
These settings are applied on a per Member Level basis. To get to this page, click on the "Member Level Settings" tab. Note that settings here will override Member Level Settings for Moderator, Admin and Super Admin levels. Use caution when disabling settings for those Member Levels.
Select the Member Level that you want to edit.
Decide whether the selected Member Level is allowed to view Forums.
The "Yes, allow viewing and subscription of forums, even private ones" option is only available for the moderator/admin/super admin member levels. This option will allow members of this level to see all Forums on the site no matter what level of privacy the Forum has been set to. Selecting the "Yes, allow viewing and subscription of forums" will allow members of this level to view and subscribe to all Forums which apply to members of this level. Selecting the "No, do not allow forums to be viewed or subscribed to." option will not allow members of this level to view any Forum pages or see the Forums menu item in any menus on the site.
You can limit the ability of the selected Member Level from being able to create Topics.
The "Yes, allow creation of topics in forums, even private ones" option is only available for the moderator/admin/super admin member levels. This option will allow members of this level to create topics in all Forums no matter what level of privacy the Forum might have. The "Yes, allow creation of topics" will allow members of this level to create Topics in Forums they have access to. Selecting the "No, do not allow topics to be created." will not allow the members of this level to create any Topics.
You can decide whether the members of the selected Member Level are allowed to edit Topics.
The "Yes, allow allow editing of topics in forums, including other members’ topics" will only appear for moderators/admins/super admin Member Levels. Selecting this option will allow members of this level to edit any Topic as they see fit. The "Yes, allow editing of topics" will only allow members of this level to edit the Topics that they have created. Selecting the "No, do not allow topics to be edited." option will not allow the members of this level to edit any Topics.
You can decide whether the members of the selected Member Level are allowed to delete Topics.
The "Yes, allow deletion of topics in forums, including other members’ topics " will only appear for moderators/admins/super admin Member Levels. Selecting this option will allow members of this level to delete any Topic as they see fit. The "Yes, allow deletion of topics" will only allow members of this level to delete the Topics that they have created. Selecting the "No, do not allow topics to be deleted." will not allow the members of this level to delete any Topics.
You can decide whether the members of the selected Member Level are allowed to Post to topics Forums.
The "Yes, allow members to post on all forums, even private ones" will only appear for moderators/admins/super admin Member Levels. Selecting this option will allow members of this level to Post to any topic belonging to any Forum as they see fit. The "Yes, allow posting to forums" will only allow members of this level to Post to topics within Forums that they have access to. Selecting the "No, do not allow forum posts." will not allow the members of this level to Post to any topics in any Forums.
You can decide whether the members of the selected Member Level are allowed to edit Posts.
The "Yes, allow editing of posts, including other members’ posts" will only appear for moderators/admins/super admin Member Levels. Selecting this option will allow members of this level to edit any Post as they see fit. The "Yes, allow editing of posts" will only allow members of this level to edit their own posts. Selecting the "No, do not allow forum posts to be edited." option will not allow the members of this level to edit any Posts.
You can decide whether the members of the selected Member Level are allowed to delete Posts.
The "Yes, allow deletion of posts, including other members’ posts " will only appear for moderators/admins/super admin Member Levels. Selecting this option will allow members of this level to delete any Post as they see fit. The "Yes, allow deletion of posts" will only allow members of this level to delete the Posts that they have created. Selecting the "No, do not allow forum posts to be deleted." will not allow the members of this level to delete any Posts.
NOTE: there is still a pre-programmed list in the source code that limits the allowed HTML tags in an entry. If you would like to see the list of forbidden tags, please refer to the /application/libraries/Engine/Filter/Html.php file. These tags were forbidden to prevent the corruption of the site's styling. If you would like to take any of the tags off the list, you are more than welcome to at your own risk. We recommend caution when enabling HTML tags as they can be used for nefarious purposes. If allowing HTML, we suggest that you only allow trusted Member Levels access to this feature.
Enter the maximum number of topics allowed for the members of this level. The field must contain an integer between 1 and 9999, or 0 for unlimited.
Enter the maximum number of posts allowed for the members of this level. The field must contain an integer between 1 and 9999, or 0 for unlimited.
When finished with making changes, click on the “Save Changes” button to save the changes you have made.
