Control Panel
To navigate the various sub-menus in the control panel, simply click the different icons across the graphical menu located at the top of the module. On any page, clicking the blue disk will save changes and the green arrow will allow you to go back without saving.
The first screen you see when accessing the Control Panel is the Dashboard interface. This page displays a summary of the active topics, current users and other general forum statistics. This page is great for staying up to date on your forum community’s discussions.
Click the Forums button at the top to begin an in-depth customization of your forums layout. You will see a forum structure similar to the view you see while posting on your forums. Clicking any of the group or forum names will open their options. Individual forums can inherit settings from the group they belong to, or they can be configured separately. Clicking the green arrows with change to forum sort order. Along the top there are options to create a New Forum Group or a single New Forum.
Forum Groups are used to categorize forums. If you make a new group or wish to edit an existing group, there are many options on three different tabs to consider.
- Forum Group – This is the name of the group that will be displayed in your forums.
- Vanity Name – The word that you would like to appear in the URL for this forum group. Optional if Friendly URLs are disabled.
- Active – Un-checking this box would disable the group.
- Hidden – Making a forum hidden will completely remove it from the forum list for users who do not have permission to view it. If you hide the group that contains Active Social discussion groups, it will never be displayed in the forum list.
- Templates – These different templates allow you to customize the layout of different parts of the forums.
- Email Address – The address you enter here will show up in the “from” field on email notifications sent to users. If you are using the mail connector, make sure that the email you enter here is the same as the one you enter then the mail connector settings.
- Create Post Count - The minimum number of posts a user must have in order to create their own topic without moderation.
- Reply Post Count - The minimum number of posts a user must have in order to reply to a topic without moderation.