Setup Your Forum
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Where to Begin?
Now that you've created your ProphpBB Forum and logged into your site, you'll notice it's quite bland. With 'Your First Category as the highlight of your forum, it's probably safe to say it's time to Setup Your Forum!
Even though you have already logged in as the Administrator, you will still need to enter your Username and Password to get into the Administrator Panel. Scroll to the very bottom of your forum and click Administration Control Panel. It will now ask you to Re-Authenticate yourself as the Admin by typing in your Username and Password. This is just an additional security feature offered by phpBB3.
Perhaps one of the first things you will notice in the Administration Control Panel (ACP), are the numerous Tabs at the top [General | Forums | Posting | Users and Groups | Permissions | Styles | Maintenance | System]. It's probably good to get your ProphpBB Forum Board Settings in order.
Board Settings
When you log into your ACP, you default into the General Tab. Running along the left side of the page, you'll notice a bunch of options to choose from. Board configuration is going to be your primary focus. Let's start from the top and work down. The following list shows the basic settings which should be changed.
Board Settings
This is pretty much the only section recommended to make changes while just starting your forum.
» Site Name {Enter the name of your site}
» Site Description {A little about your site}
» System Timezone {Change to your timezone}
» Override User Style {Set to YES}
» Click Submit
Board Features
These are the 'Extras' of the board. This mainly focuses towards what Users can do in their posts.
Avatar Settings
When a user posts, along with his/her username, number of posts, the date they joined, and, of course, an Avatar (if they choose one).
Private Message Settings
The most common method of communication between users, moderators, and administrators within the forum. Keeps user's emails confidential.
Post Settings
Gives you (the Admin) more control over what features are available to members when they post.
Signature Settings
Signatures (Sigs) come at the end of each post any given member makes. Allows you to limit how much text or how many links are allowed in a user's signature. You can even blan users from using signatures.
User Registration Settings
» Account Activation: {Choose which ones fit your needs best}
» Limit username chars: {Choose which special characters are allowed}
» Enable visual confirmation for registrations: {Choose YES}
Once you have the general board settings ready, its time to make your Categories, Forums and set their Permissions.
A Clean Slate
You'll want to click on the Forums tab to continue setting up your board.
The first thing you'll see in your Forum administration is Your First Category. This needs to be deleted so you can start creating your own Categories with their individual Forums. Click the Red Circle with the White X on the far right of the category name.
This will take you to a screen which asks what you want to do w/ the posts within that category at this time. You're going to completely delete all posts so just skip to the Submit button. Just keep in mind for future reference, this will delete all of the posts and subforums within the category. If you wanted to save your forums and threads, you have the option to move them to another forum by using the other drop-down menu on this page.
To finish deleting the Category with it's Forums and Posts (Threads), click « Back to previous page.
Setup Categories & Forums
Now you are ready to start creating your own forums! First step is to create a Category (optional - but recommended). It's best to think about categories and forums you want to have (In the end, it saves you a little time). If you don't want categories, but instead just create a series of forums, skip down to --Creating a Forum--.
Creating A Category
Now you're in the Forum administration area, take notice of the 'Create new forum' button at the bottom right. Type the name of your first Category in the text area then click the 'Create new forum' button (or Enter on your keyboard).
The resulting page will have many options and settings for your new Category. First thing's first: Change the Forum Type to Category .There's no need to change any of the other settings/options. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and click Submit.
Creating a Forum
First, you need to select the category you want to start adding forums to. Hopefully only having one category to choose from at this point should make it easy! Click on the category entitle Welcome then type in the name of your new forum (in this case, its Introductions) and click 'Create new forum.'
When the Settings & Options page pops up, the Forum Type, by default, is set to Forum (see below image). Unlike the Category Forum, you dont want to skip over the other data fields. The only think left to do is type in a Description (optional - but recommended). Scroll down and click Submit
IMPORTANT - Before creating your next forum, Click Set Permissions of your first (In this tutorial, Introductions)!
Setting General Forum Permissions
There are two ways to get to any forum's Permissions.
1) Click the Forums tab, navigating to an individual forum, and clicking the Forum Settings (the green gear). Scroll to the bottom and click Submit and then click Set Forum Permissions. 2) Click the Permissions tab, under the Forum based permissions section, select Forum permissions. Click the forum you want to set the permissions for and then click Submit.
The next screen you are brought to will have four distinct sections. The one we are going to focus on at the moment is the bottom-left entitled Add Groups. While holding the Control key (Ctrl), click each of the Groups [Administrators | BOTS | Global Moderators | Guests | Registered Users] and then click Add Permissions.
The reason this step is necessary is, by default, if a group is not assigned any permissions, they dont have access to the forum. Even being an Administrator, if you open a new window and visit your forum's homepage, you wont see the Welcome Category nor the Introductions Forum.
For each group, you will see a drop-down menu for the Role. The following is the Suggested Settings for your Roles:
Administrators: Full Access
BOTS: Read-Only Access (or No Access)
Global Moderators: Full Access
Guests: Read Only Access
Registered Users: Standard Access
Just click Apply all Permissions to finish the setup.
