3.1 General settings
The general settings are divided into three sections
3.1.1 The forum general settings
3.1.1.1 Name of the forum
This is the place where you can set up the name of the forum
which will appear at the top right. Please note that the word
“FORUM” will be prefixed. Therefore if you choose an expression like
“Testing” the page will display “Forum Testing”.
3.1.1.2 Logo of the forum
In this field you can set up the logo which will appear at the
top left of the homepage and of any pages generated by the forum.
The “browse” button enables you to select an image from your hard
drive. Once you have validated your choice the logo will be uploaded
and set up on the server. Clicking on the box “Do not display a
logo” will delete the current picture in use.
3.1.1.3 Logo URL
In this field you can set up a URL associated to the logo
picture. In this way, a user clicking on the forum logo will be
redirected to the url that you have specified in this field.
3.1.1.4 Number of topics per page
In this option you can specify the number of topics that
should appear on a category homepage (or sub category homepage). If
the number of topics has been reached, a new page is automatically
created.
3.1.1.5 Number of messages per page
In this option you can specify the number of messages that
should appear on each topic page. When the limit number of messages
has been reached, a new page is created for this topic. This is a
default option and the user can modify this setting in his profile
page. The same is true for the number of topics per page.
3.1.1.6 Flags limit for the forum
In this option you can set up the number of flags that should
be available for each user (refer to the Forum Users Guide for more
informations on those flags).
3.1.1.7 Time Zone (in hour)
In this option you can specify a time zone different from the
one set by default on the forum (Paris GMT+1/+2). This option only
is useful for the economic solution of the forum. Note that the
forum will automatically switch to seasonal time (summer or winter
time).
3.1.1.8 Appearance of your forum in the full forum list
In this option you can set the visibility of your forum in the
full forum list that we host (forum0.php). This feature only is
useful in case you want to create a private forum.
3.1.1.9 Default language
This option enables you to translate the forum in a specified
language of your choice
3.1.1.10 Friendly forum URL(rewriting mode)
In case you have activated friendly rewriting for the forum
URL, this option will precise the forum name in the URL.
3.1.1.11 Forum Root :( super administrator)
In this option you can set the base url in all emails
generated by the forum
3.1.1.12 Forum Directory Access
In this option you can set up the directory of your choice to
access the forum. For example is your website is http://no1dev.com
and you wish to access the forum by going to
http://no1dev.com/forum/, you will have to enter “/forum/”.
3.1.1.13 Force the automatic redirection to the default forum
URL
In case a user should try to access the forum in a
non-traditional way, this option forces the redirection to the
default forum URL. For example, if your forum is located at
http://forum.no1dev.com, a user trying to access it from
http://no1dev.com/forum will be automatically redirected to the
right url.
3.1.1.14 Maximum width, height and size of avatars :( super
administrator)
The first two options enable you to limit the size (in pixel)
of the image associated to each nickname (avatars). The maximum size
of the avatars is to be set in Ko.
3.1.1.15 Maximum width, height and size of personal smileys :( super
administrator)
The first two options enable you to limit the size (in pixel)
of the smileys associated to each nickname. The maximum size of the
personal smileys is to be set in Ko.
3.1.1.16 Allowing smileys in poll
In this option you can allow or forbid smileys in poll
titles
3.1.1.17 Limiting words characters
With this option you can prevent a user from posting a too
long word. What is a too long word? It would be a word containing so
many characters (hundreds of characters) that it could deform the
graphical appearance of the forum.
3.1.1.18 Rating system activation (stars)
This option activates a rating tool (stars) above each member
avatar depending on several settings like the number of messages
posted by the member, the quality of the messages posted by this
member or the number of sanctions received by this member.
Here you will specify the email address that should appear in
the sender field in all emails generated by the forum
3.1.1.20 Cookies Directory Access
Here you can specify the path to save and access forum
cookies. Let’s say, you enter http://no1dev.com. If your forum is
located at the sub-domain http://forum.no1dev.com, both your website
at the root of your host (http://no1dev.com) and the one located in
the sub-domain will have access to the cookies, for instance to
retrieve the login ID and password.
This feature is controlled by a live test when you access the
cookies. However this test being based on JavaScript, it cannot be
100% reliable. Therefore, we advise you to be careful when modifying
this setting for if you successfully enter an inaccessible path to
cookies; you could be locked out of the entire forum.
3.1.1.21 Sharing Forum Databases (super administrator)
With this option you can share one data basis with another
forum (Super categories, categories, sub categories, messages). This
feature can be useful if you would like to use a different graphical
theme but still retain the shared data basis.
3.1.1.22 Welcome Message
In this field you can write a specific message in the
welcoming email received by all new members.
3.1.1.22.1 Advanced Customization of the Welcome Message
This link will redirect you to an interface where you can
daily manage the bottom parts of Welcoming emails
You enter the first part of an HTML code in the field
reserved for the welcoming email. Then the member receives his
login credentials. Finally, the bottom part can be customized with
another HTML code (eg.horoscope…)
You will find a calendar where you can select the day of
your choice for the customization of the bottom part of welcoming
emails.
Finally, at the bottom of this page you will find a field
where you can enter a test email address for you to check out what
you have done.
3.1.1.23 Forum Rules
This space is left empty so that you can add conduct rules for
your forum. Those rules must be agreed to by new members before they
can start using the forum.
3.1.1.24 Rating System Activation (Stars)
The rating system is represented by star icons above members’
avatars and enables them to interactively rate each other.
If you decide to activate this tool, you will have to specify
both the number and the size of those star icons. The icon’s width
and height should be equal. You can modify the icon of the rating
system by going to the section titled Icon Management.
You can also pre-set a full reset of the rating tool every X
days by mentioning the number of days of your choice in the
appropriate box.
Also you find will some links to immediately reset the rating
tool for forum members as well as for super-administrators on all
forums hosted on the server.
This option enables the administrator to choose whether or not
forum members can have a contact list in order to create quick list
to find another member on the forum (to send PMs for
example).
3.1.1.26 Authorize member with multiple alias to post
By default, on the MD Forums, a member with multiple aliases
cannot post if he or she has been banned. This option enables you to
authorize member with multi aliases to post on the forum. However an
alert message will be sent to administrators and super
administrators to let them know that a member has posted and that it
might be someone with multiple aliases. The administrator will then
have the choice to separate the two nicknames if he believes that
those are two different people.
3.1.1.27 Deactivate private messages
If you do not wish forum members to use private messages, you
can deactivate this feature here.
3.1.1.28 Shorten the page title when viewing a topic
When you are browsing the forum inside a subject, the
<title> of the page is composed of the topic title, the sub
category name (if there is one) the mother category name and the
forum name. All this can produce long page titles. This option
enables you to shorten the page title by mentioning only the topic
title and the (sub) category title. If there is a sub category, the
mother category will not appear and be replaced by the forum
name.
3.1.1.29 Add branch to the tree-structured menu
You can add a branch to the default MD forums tree-structured
menu. You can determine the text and its URL
Classic branch:
Here we added a branch to the tree-structured menu. We put a
fake link under “Le Site Dev”. This process, however, is not
compulsory; you can leave it empty. The root will display but won’t
be clickable anymore.
3.1.1.30 Display the list of the forums on the server in the
tree-structured menu.
You can also add a link to the list of the forum hosted on the
server in the tree-structured menu (a URL usually looks like
http://forum.nomduforum.fr/forum0.php)
You can place this new navigation level below or above you
previously added branches (should you have added any)
If you leave the “display text” field empty, the default text
will read “Forum list”. Or its equivalent depending on the preset
language applied to the forum.
In the example below, we added the forum list above the branch
that we added in the previous step.
In the example below we have modified the text (“La liste de
mes forums”) and we moved it below the branch that we
created.
3.1.1.31 Deactivate the search engine
You can deactivate the forum search engine. 3 options are
available « No », « Yes », « Yes, temporarily » The only difference
between « Yes » and « Yes, temporarily » is that a message will be
displayed to the user after trying to perform a search. This message
informs the user whether the search has been temporarily deactivated
or not.
3.1.2 Change the default colors
In this option you can specify the default appearance of the forum with your own
color codes. You can preview your work before validating your choices.
You can also browse other forums’ themes and those defined by users.
Note that users can use their own colors (refer to the Forum Users
Guide for more information about this option)
Once you are satisfied with your choices, you can activate or
deactivate the 3D borders and validate. If you are not satisfied you
can use the “reset” button to get
back to the default theme.
3.1.3 Graphism
In complement to the feature that we described above, this
advanced option lets you fully customize the appearance of the
forum.
You can choose to modify 13 modules and each of them can be
personalized with 4 options. We will review them all. By default, the
button is positioned on “Default
background” which auto set the default color of the
background for the module you are working on.
The second available option is « gradient ». When clicking on it, new options
will appear as shown below.
You can choose the two colors that will compose the gradient
tone by picking some of the predefined colors (available from the
drop-down menu) or with personal hexadecimal color codes. You can
visualize your modifications at any time by clicking on the Preview button on the right panel.
Let’s take an example. Let’s say we want to create a red-to-blue
gradient. Their respective color codes are ff0000 and #0000ff
We will first make a simple gradient. Simply enter those two
values in the fields titled Fixed Color. The percentage field will
manage the blending of the two colors. Let’s say we set this field to
50% for the top color, this will produce an equal blending between red
and blue, that is, violet.
Finally the gradient height will determine the extent of the
gradient
Here are illustrations of our example :
This customization will produce ::
The Second Type of gradient follows the same logic except that,
as soon as the first gradient ends, it continues and reverses the
color settings. Here is an illustration with the same parameters: that
we used:
The third available option is « Images ». It enables you to browse your hard
drive for an image that will be displayed on the module that you are
working on.
Finally the fourth option is « Same
as…” which enables you to apply modifications on a module
that you have selected (selection done via the drop down menu). This
option is a time saver and makes it easy to re-apply
modifications.
Of course, all those options apply to
role="underline" .You have the possibility
to customize 13 of them.
3.1.4 Graphism (complementary information)
You can add a frame to your tables on the forum so as to modify
their appearance. The appearance settings can be found here.
You can choose several layouts from the frame depending on the
rounded corners that you want to use. You can also pick a skin to
customize this frame
3.1.4.1 The frame skins
A frame skin is a picture composed of 9 elements for the
frame. To create your own skin, you will need to determine the size
of the element and to draw the graphic that should be a square of
3x3 elements, each representing an element of the frame.
You can upload your frame skin in section "Icon Management".
The frame skin must be a square image with witdh and height divisible by 3.
Then, picture must be in PNG24 format.
Example :
The picture below is a frame skin. The forum software will
analyze the image and divide it into 9 equal sections. Each section
is a part of a rectangle. Please note that the up, bottom, right and
left sections will be tiled and has to be created for this
purpose.
This picture will be divided
to become (zoom: 200%) 
.
On the forum, it will generate:
3.1.4.2 Import/Export a graphical template
You can fully backup the appearance of your forum or import
another model from a template file. Those template files contain
everything related with the appearance of the forum: the colors, the
icons, the frame settings, the headers graphics…The only graphical
element that should not be integrated in the template is the forum
icon if you have one.
If you have customized your forum appearance, we advise you to
export it before applying another template from your library.
When you import a template, it is not directly applied to the
forum, instead, it goes to you template library. You will need to
click on the “Apply to the Forum” button to use it..
3.1.5 Icon Management
With this option you can use your own icons on the forum. There
are 53 of them. Those icons should be on your hard drive and will be
uploaded to the server when you have validated you choice.
If you administrate several forums you can also click on the
link « Copy those icons to another forum ». Those icons will be copied
to another forum. This makes it quite easy if you use personal icons;
you do not have to re-upload them each time on the other forums that
you manage.
3.1.6 Forum counter
Check out this option to view the total number of posted
messages.
3.1.7 Close the forum
Once this option is enabled, the forum will not be viewable. The
forum default page will be replaced by the text that you entered
before enabling this option
3.1.8 Daily statistics
In the administration control panel, there is a statistic module
on which you can fully analyze your forum popularity.
5 graphics are displayed by default on the homepage for monthly
statistics with daily reports
When clicking on each graphic, you will get monthly, quarterly
or yearly detailed data. You will find an extra link for the number of
messages. “Category Details” will
organize the posted messages by category.
A link to the settings is available on the top section of the
screen. From there you can manage the type of data that you want to
keep an eye on. In addition to those we already mentioned you can
choose to follow the number of subscriptions and the number of topics.
You can also decide to extend those statistics onto the whole
server.
Finally you can decide to display those statistics on the forum
homepage. If this option is enabled, the message counter will be
illustrated with a small graphic associated with the visited category
(see image below). A user clicking on this picture will be directed to
the detailed statistics.
3.1.9 Moderation Activity Statistics
Over there you can analyze the moderations actions that have
been made on your forum with monthly or daily data.
3.1.10 Predefined Moderation motives
On the forum, on the interface of the quick or a priori
moderation (see the Forum Moderators Guide manual), when you delete a
message you can add a reason for this action (a note that will be sent
to the user). You can predefine some reason models for a quicker
moderation.
To create a new predefined motive, simply enter your message in
the fiel next to the « Add » button.
Then click on “Add”
You can directly correct your message and then click on «
validate »
You can move those reasons up and down according to your
preferences.
Once you have set up all your motives they will appear in the
quick or a priori moderation interface
• First steps with the forum
• General Settings