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Admin | Admin Section | Admin Function | Private Categories/Board    
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Admin Functions

What can you do now from the Admin Center? A lot. Here are the main functions and their explanations:

Member Functions


Functions you are permitted to perform for members

View all members
View all members in the board. You are presented with a hyperlinked list of member names. You may click on any of the names to find details of the members (homepage, age, etc.), and as Administrator you are able to modify these parameters. You have complete control over members, including the ability to delete them from the forum.

Edit Member Groups
You may create or modify "Member Groups". Member Groups are special groups that you can create to restrict access to certain categories on your forum. For example, you can create a category, where only the "Gold" membergroup can access and see it. ( here is how )

Mailing list
From this menu you can send messages to all members who've registered and entered their email addresses (not all will, of course). You may edit the distribution list, or send messages to all. Useful for important update/news information. However, use sparingly, the board doesn't have an "opt in/out" feature, and may users may object to having messages sent to them without their authorization.

Edit Ban List
provided - is the ability to "ban" users, to prevent people who have violated the trust of the board by spamming, trolling, etc. This allows you to ban those users who are detrimental to your forum. As an admin, when you view messages, you can see each user's IP address used to post at that time. In the ban list, you simply type that IP address in, save, and they can no longer post from that location.

Set Reserved Names
This allows you to put in keywords or names that you want to restrict people from using as a name or username.


Forum Functions

 


Edit Categories
From this menu you are able to edit "Categories". Categories are the upper-level topics for a forum. For example, if you had a wide-ranging site that offered information on "Sports" and "Cars" and "Music", these would be the top-level Categories you'd create. Under each of these categories you'd likely want to create heirarchical "sub-categories," or "Boards" for topics within each. Here's a small example:

  • Sports - A "category"
    • Baseball - A board under the category of "Sports"
    • Football  - A board under the category of "Sports"
  • Cars - A "category"
    • "Chevy" - A board under the category of "Cars"
    • "Pinto"   - A board under the category of "Cars"

Categories allow you to break down the board into broad topics ("Cars, Sports"), and the "Boards" under them are the actual topics under which members can post. In the above example, a user interested in Pinto's would post a message under "Cars->Pinto". Categories allow people to quickly find what their interests are: Instead of a "Store" you have "Hardware" and "Clothing" stores you can go to. This simplifies your search for "pipe joint compound" because you can go to the Hardware Store "category" instead of the Clothing Store (where you're unlikely to find pipe joint compound).

A good example of Categories in use is if you have a board that discusses computers. You may want to break your board down into Categories that include:
  • Hardware
  • Software
  • Operating Systems
  • Applications
  • Games ...

Underneath these categories you would then create boards beneath them (Under "Hardware" you may create boards of "CPU", "Motherboards", "Cases", "Disk Drives", and so on). This helps users navigate the board and it helps people find and respond to topics of their interest.

Edit Boards
In this menu you can create/reorder/remove the boards under the categories discussed above. It's a simple hierarchy, with this structure:

  • Category
    • Board1
    • Board2
    • ... etc ...
As noted above, a Board is a key topic underneath a broad category. If you want to discuss "Pintos" you'd go to the "Auto" category and jump into the "Pinto" board to post your thoughts in that board.

Administrative functions for this menu item are to create new boards under each category, to reorder them (put "Pinto" behind "Chevy"), or to delete the board entirely.

Modify Your Template
This brings up a simple editor for the HTML of your template code. The "template" defines the look-and-feel for your pages. It is an HTML file. You can modify the template here, or use some other HTML editing software to create the look & feel for your site

Modify Your Settings and Colors
This is one of the more "exciting" menu options. In here you are able to set the following parameters:

  • Maintenance Mode?
    • Check the box to disable the boards while you change/update your BB. Users will be rejected while in maintenance mode.
  • Disallow guest from doing anything but login or register?
    • Check this box to disallow guest from doing anything but login or register?
  • Your Language pack name
    • English is default, select the other available languages you want to support.
  • Message Board Name
    • Set this box to whatever you want to name your board.
  • Webmaster Email Address
    • Email address for the webmaster of the BB.
  • --------------------------------------------------------------
  • Title BG Color
    • The background color of the title text. This color is used mostly on table header text.
  • Title Text Color
    • The color of the title text.
  • Window BG Color
    • The background color of one of the two alternating "panels". A usage example is when you view messages, they are colored row by row. This is the first "row" or message. It is used throughout.
  • Window BG Color #2
    • The background color of the second "row".
  • Category BG Color
    • The background color of category table rows on the Board Index and used in a few other places.
  • Table Border Color
    • This color is actually used as a table "background" color, but the way the tables are rendered, this makes border lines between table rows and columns be this color.
  • Form Text Color
    • Color of all text under all forms & pages.
  • Sub-title Text Color
    • Color of sub-title text which can be seen throughout all form pages.
  • --------------------------------------------------------------
  • Use text menu instead of images?
    • This option replaces graphics for certain menu items with text. E.g., the "Logoff" graphic is replaced by the more simple "Logoff" text string.
  • Show current position in forum as link instead of text?
    • By checking this you will change the icons from graphics to a text link.
  • Show view profile button under post?
    • By clicking this you will display the profile link that will display the members/users profile.
  • Please choose your Time format-Settings
    • Set your preferred time-format settings.
  • Time Offset
    • This is the number of hours to add/subtract to make the time display in your local time. For example, if it is 8:52pm on your server (look at the displayed time on your board) and it is 7:52pm where you live, then set this number to -1. This will be for guests mainly, because users also have the option to set their own time offset.
  • # of Top Posters
    • Set this to allow users to display the "Top 'n'" users, the number of users who have most posted to this forum.
  • Members Per Page in Member List-All
    • Set this to the maximum number of member names to display in each page.
  • Maximum Topics to Display
    • Set this to display the maximum number of "Topics" for each page.
  • Maximum Messages to Display
    • Set this to display the maximum number of private messages to display
  • Remove entries from user logs after XX days
    • The user logs are files named username.log (where username is the name of one of your members). Each member has one of these files; it keeps track of what boards and messages they have visited and when. This is how *new* is determined for each user. Setting this number will clear their log after that many days, so that all posts and boards will show new for them (if they haven't visited that board/post for however many days you have set).
  • Insert Original Message in Replies?
    • When a user replies to a thread, provide the option to include the original posters text for reference.
  • Enable News?
    • If you wish to display news on your board via the "news fader" or the <news> tag (in the template), this option must be turned on!
  • Allow users to hide their email from public (except admin)?
    • By clicking this you will allow members/user to hide their email address as an option.
  • Show Latest Member on Board Index?
    • Display the newest member to register on the Board Index.
  • Show Recent Posts Bar on Board Index?
    • Show the most recent member posts on the Board Index page.
  • Show Members List Bar on Board Index?
    • Show a link to display the Members of the board
  • Show Modification Date on Modified Posts?
    • When users modify their posts, provide the option to display their modification time and date.
  • Show User Pics in Message View?
    • Option to display members' profile pictures in the posts.
  • Show User Text in Message View?
    • Option to display members' personal text in the posts.
  • Show Gender Image in Message View?
    • Option to display the gender (male/female) image in the posts.
  • --------------------------------------------------------------
  • # Posts to become "Junior Member":
  • # Posts to become "Full Member":
  • # Posts to become "Senior Member":
  • # Posts to become "Gold Member":
    • This section allows you to set the levels of post to advance users to higher member levels
  • --------------------------------------------------------------
  • Show News Fader on Board Index?
    • When users first logon, show the sequenced "news" items. See the Admin functions for explanations on "news" items.
  • News Fader Title Color
    • This is the News Fader Title color for the News Fader (if you have it turned on).
  • News Fader News Color
    • This is the News color for the News Fader (if you have it turned on).
  •  

Forum Set-Up

 


Edit News
This allows you to set the text for news items displayed on the Board Index page. Add any item you want (e.g., "Don't miss the conference this Tuesday"). Each news item is separated by a carriage-return.

Set censored words
You are able to "censor" words by forcing their replacement. For instance, if you want to replace posters usage of "maniac" with "goofball," you can use this page to set up this replacement.


Attachment(Platinum Account)

Attach files in post
Use this function to attach music, documents, videos, correspondence and much more.

  1. File limit is 1000 kb per file.
  2. Total directory limit is 10,000 kb.
  3. All files are removed automatically after 90 days.
  4. To request custom limits, features and to stop removal of attached files send an email to support@xsorbit.com. One of our account executives will happy to go over our pricing schedule for added features.
 


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