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278 CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES Figure 9-11. The Rank Administration panel To add new ranks to the list, click the Add new rank button toward the bottom of the page. That button takes you to a form that will help you create the new rank. Give the rank a title. If you plan on using this rank as something you will assign to specific users, rather than basing it on post count, set the Set as special rank option to Yes. If you set this to No instead, enter the minimum number of posts required to attain that rank. If you have images to use with your ranks (such as stars), fill in the path to the image for that particular rank. Click Submit, and the rank will take effect. If it is a special rank, you then need to go to the User Management panel, find the user you wish to assign the rank to, and use the rank assignment drop-down box at the bottom of the form. Users with special ranks assigned to them are not subject to the post count- based ranking system. Private Messaging with phpBB Private messages offer a spam-safe, simple solution to registered users of your board who want to exchange personal messages. For users who don t wish to reveal other contact information to the rest of the board, private messages come in very handy. They can be used as a point of contact by you, the administrator, for example, when you find a user is exceeding the bounds of how you feel he should conduct himself. It is exceedingly important to stress the usage of private messages on your board, and as such, understanding the inner workings of phpBB s private messaging system can be incredibly beneficial. On the other hand, if you are an administrator who would rather not use private messages, phpBB permits you to disable them. In the Administration panel, select Configuration under General Admin, and scroll down to the Private Messaging section. From there, you can set private messaging to the Disabled option and save your changes. Tip The option to disable private messages can be advantageous if your board is under siege from people who are using them to spam your members. Additionally, if you need to perform any maintenance on your private message database tables, disabling these messages is a good idea before doing so, as this will ensure the private message tables remain untouched throughout your maintenance period.
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CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES 277 not always take into consideration the pixel-size limitations specified in the Administration panel, so users may select avatars that do not necessarily agree with your layout. You can edit avatars via the Management link under User Admin in the Administration panel. You can also gather a gallery of your own hand-selected avatars and make them available for your users. This is especially useful if your site has a particular theme and you wish to have your avatars fit that theme. You add images to the gallery by putting them in the directory specified in the Avatar Settings in the Administration panel (the default is images/avatars/ gallery). Creating directories underneath the main gallery root creates categories in which you file your images. Figure 9-10 illustrates a Random gallery with a couple of images. To select an image from the gallery, the user clicks the radio button underneath the image, and then clicks Select avatar. phpBB assigns this as the user s avatar. Figure 9-10. An avatar gallery phpBB gives users a bit of a runaround when they wish to change their avatar. You must delete any existing avatar before you change it to a new one. To delete your avatar, check the Delete Image check box in the Avatar control panel section of the Edit Profile form (see Figure 9-9, shown earlier) and click Submit, as if you were editing your profile. Then, you must reenter the Edit Profile form and select your new avatar. Just make sure your users are aware of this procedure, and all will be well. Administering User Profiles As a forum administrator, you have the ability to edit every facet of every user profile, including the username and password. Additionally, you have the ability to activate and deactivate accounts at will, disable a user s ability to display an avatar and send private messages, and much more. You can set a rank for the user as well, and delete accounts from there. Creating a Ranking System As mentioned in the previous section, you can assign special ranks to users. Alternatively, you can create a ranking system that automatically updates a user s rank when he reaches a certain post count. You accomplish this by using the Rank Administration utility in the Administration panel, illustrated in Figure 9-11.
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276 CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES Timezone: Users have the ability to customize times to their own time zone. Note that if you change the global time zone of the board in the Administration panel, that change will not take effect for existing users; it affects only new registrations. Additionally, note that phpBB 2.0 does not support automatically compensating for Daylight Saving Time (DST), so users will need to adjust their time zone settings accordingly. (phpBB 3.0 will support automatic DST changes.) Date format: phpBB offers fine-grained customization of the date format using the exact formatting offered by the PHP date() function. The default setting can be changed by the administrator; like the other options, these defaults kick in only on new registrations. A guide to the syntax for the date format is provided in a link to the corresponding php.net page for the date() function. Choosing Avatar Options phpBB offers many options for displaying avatars, as Figure 9-9 illustrates. You can permit users to upload avatars to the server from their hard drives or another web site, or link to avatar images on remote sites. Alternatively, you can provide a gallery of avatars for your users to peruse and select from. You can pick and choose which options you wish to enable by using the Configuration panel in the Administration panel, under the heading Avatar Settings. Figure 9-9. phpBB Avatar options Permitting users to upload their avatar images to your server is by far the most convenient method for your users. In order for this option to work, you must make sure the upload directory you ve specified (typically images/avatars) is writable by the web server; otherwise, your users will have problems uploading files. This option is less than desirable if your server is strapped for disk space. You can specify a hard limit on the size of files uploaded to your server under the Avatar Settings section in the Configuration page of the Administration panel. Enabling remote avatars permits users to link to images hosted on other servers as their avatar image. This approach helps take the load off your server, but there is an increasing resistance against cross-linking images from other servers. More and more hosts use server- based measures to prevent hotlinking from their servers. To add insult to injury, phpBB does
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CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES 275 Always show my e-mail address: The default is Yes, to show your e-mail address. I heartily recommend changing your answer to No for this question. It potentially opens up your e-mail address to unwanted messages, most notably spam messages. There s enough spam on the Internet, so why potentially expose yourself to more? Hide your online status: Users can set their visibility to the Who s Online list with this preference. The default is No. Even if it s set to Yes, board administrators can still see the user logged in. The user is denoted with italics as being hidden. Always notify me of replies: Users have the ability to be notified by e-mail of replies on every topic they post in, effectively enabling the topic watch feature for each of these threads. This can cause increased e-mail traffic, especially if you have a busy board, and could delay registration e-mail and other important correspondence from your board if a great deal of users take advantage of this feature. phpBB sets this to No by default. Notify on new Private Message: When a user receives a new private message, the default behavior is for phpBB to send an e-mail to the user stating that he has a new message in his Inbox. Users can select No to turn off this feature if they wish. Pop up window on new Private Message: Templates (including the default subSilver) offer the option to pop up a window when you receive a new private message. You will need to check with your template author (if applicable) if that feature is offered with your template. This feature defaults to Yes, although users with pop-up blockers may never see these notifications. Always attach my signature: If the user has a blank signature, phpBB will automatically default this option to No. If the user fills in the signature box, phpBB will see this and set the option to Yes, as most users generally wish to attach their signature to each post. If this isn t the case, the user can switch the preference off and attach her signature selectively. Always allow BBCode: phpBB defaults to leaving BBCode on all the time, and I generally recommend leaving this option set to Yes. Users can shut off BBCode if they find they don t want it in their posts, particularly if the forum administrator permits HTML. If you disable BBCode for your board in the Administration panel, this setting has no effect. Always allow HTML: This defaults to No, so HTML isn t allowed. If you have HTML disabled in the Administration panel (highly recommended), this setting has no effect. BBCode is highly encouraged over HTML, as errors in BBCode are far less likely to break the layout of your board. Always enable Smilies: If users do not like the graphical smilies provided by phpBB, they can turn off that feature for all their posts by changing this option to No. This may be useful for your members who do not have a broadband connection. Board Language: If you have multiple language packs installed, users can set their preferred language to read phpBB here. This defaults to whichever language you set as the default in the Administration panel. Board Style: If you have multiple styles installed on your board and you do not force one style over the others, users can choose which style they wish to use on the board. This is strictly a per-user setting and does not affect the board globally.
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274 CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES Figure 9-7. The Profile Information section contains optional, publicly available information about a user. Setting User Preferences The Preferences section of the Edit Profile form, shown in Figure 9-8, allows users some control over how phpBB behaves. I ll provide a brief description of each of the preferences and suggest the best practices with them. Figure 9-8. The Preferences section is where users can choose some preferences for how phpBB
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CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES 273 Creating User Profiles phpBB s user profiles allow for a great deal of personalization for your members. I ll walk you through the user profile options phpBB makes available to registered users. Entering Registration Information The information contained in the Registration Information section is the basic registration data required to establish an account on a phpBB forum. Figure 9-6 illustrates this section of the Edit Profile form. Figure 9-6. The Registration Information section contains the basic information for a user account. If you permit users to change their username, then the Username field will be editable. If users decide to change their e-mail address and e-mail verification is enabled, they will need to reactivate their account. I will discuss e-mail verification in detail in Chapter 10, as that is an important step in securing your board. Adding Profile Information The fields in the Profile Information section of the Edit Profile form, shown in Figure 9-7, contain the information that is publicly viewable when viewing a user s profile or perusing the member list. Users can fill out as much or as little of the information as they please it is all optional. Users can also add a custom signature to append to each of their posts. Your policies on allowing HTML, BBCode, and smilies pertain to signatures as well. The default limit is set to 255 characters. This is a comfortable limit, which you are free to adjust using the General Board Settings options accessed through the Configuration link under General Admin in the Administration panel. It is generally good practice to keep the signature size around the default limit, or perhaps even under it. This helps prevent posts that have more signature than substance, if that is important to you.
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272 CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES Figure 9-4. A poll that you have not voted in yet After voting (or if you abstain by clicking View Results, which is ultimately a null vote), you can see how your poll is going. Figure 9-5 shows how the poll results look. Figure 9-5. The poll results Polling can be allowed and disallowed via setting permissions on the forum. Generally, users with posting rights also have polling rights by default, if you use the Registered preset. Editing Posts phpBB provides the ability to edit individual posts after they have been posted to the forum. Unless permissions dictate otherwise, users are generally permitted to edit their own posts. phpBB provides a message at the bottom of the post stating it has been altered when an edit is made after the post s first five minutes of life. Posts edited by moderators and administrators do not display the post edited notification. This puts a bit of burden on the moderators and administrators of the forum not to abuse their power and edit posts, knowing that the post is edited blindly and without being logged.
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CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES 271 The rights to stick topics or make them announcements are set through the permissions system, introduced in the previous chapter. The default permissions for sticking posts and creating announcements permit administrators to do this anywhere and moderators to do this in their assigned forums. phpBB s default settings are generally reasonable for most communities, but if you wish to alter these settings, see Chapter 10 for details. To remove sticky or announcement priority from a topic, simply edit the first post in the thread and change the options accordingly. You can also use this functionality to bump sticky topics up to announcement status and vice versa. Attaching Polls to Topics When posting a new topic, phpBB gives you the option to add a poll to the topic. The form that adds the poll resides at the bottom of the post form, as illustrated in Figure 9-3. Figure 9-3. The options for adding a poll for new topics Adding a poll is straightforward. You enter the poll question, and then enter an option. Add options to the poll by clicking the Add option button next to the text field of your new poll option. You can optionally set your poll to close after a period of time you specify (in days). When you are finished setting up your poll, click Submit, and it will post your topic with the poll, as shown in Figure 9-4.
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270 CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES As the administrator, you can use the Smilies (phpBB uses the terms emoticons and smilies interchangeably) option in the Administration panel to add or remove smiley codes at your leisure. To add a code for an emoticon, click the Add a new Smiley button at the bottom of the form. You will be prompted for the code, the smiley image file (which must reside in images/ smilies), and a description of what the emotion expresses. Click Submit, and the code will be added. Alternatively, you can add more emoticons en masse by installing Smile Packs, which come complete with the necessary codes, descriptions, and images. All you need to do is unzip the Smile Pack file you wish to import into the images/smiles directory under your phpBB root. Then go to the Smilies panel, click Import Smiley Pack at the bottom of the form, and select the pack from the drop-down menu. You can choose to overwrite your existing set of emoticons, and choose to resolve conflicts by replacing or keeping existing emoticons. After you click Import Smileys, phpBB will automatically add all the codes in the pack to the board, and they will be available for use immediately. If you would like to release your installed emoticons as an installable Smile Pack, you can use the Export Smile Pack option to make it so. phpBB generates a smiles.pak file, which you rename to whatever you like, keeping the .pak extension. Then you create a zip file with your emoticon images and the .pak file, and release it at will. Making Topics Sticky and Posting Announcements Users with the proper permissions in a forum have the option when creating a new topic to make it normal, sticky, or an announcement, as shown at the bottom of Figure 9-2. Sticky and announcement topics are denoted with special icons, and are stuck (hence the term sticky) at the top of each forum. Announcements in multipage forums appear at the top of each page in the forum. Sticky topics appear only at the top of the first page. Figure 9-2. The options for setting a sticky or announcement post are highlighted.
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CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES 269 Users can access BBCode two ways: manually type in the code or use phpBB s formatting toolbar, available in the post form, which looks like Figure 9-1 (clad in the default subSilver style). Figure 9-1. The BBCode formatting toolbar on the post form The phpBB formatting toolbar offers full control over BBCode directly from the form. To get an explanation for each formatting option in the toolbar, simply hover the mouse over its button, and a description will appear in a line above the text box. Users have the option of disabling BBCode in each of their posts by setting the corresponding option in their profile (as discussed in the Setting User Preferences section later in this chapter), or they can turn BBCode off in an individual post by checking the Disable BBCode in this post check box located at the bottom of the post form. To see the results of their formatting before making a live post, users can select the Preview button in the post form (before choosing the Submit button). When they are satisfied with their formatting, they can submit their post. Working with Emoticons (Smilies) phpBB offers optional graphical emoticons to replace the common Internet punctuation faces such as that have permeated e-mail for years. phpBB contains more than 20 emoticons by default, with the option to add plenty of others. To add an emoticon to a post, you can simply type the emoticon code that corresponds to the image you wish to use. Alternatively, you can use the clickable emoticons that sit on the side of the post form. phpBB shows only a few of the emoticons on the post form by default. If you wish to work with more emoticons, you can click View more Emoticons, and a window will pop open with the full suite of additional emoticons. You can click an emoticon in the pop-up window, and the appropriate code will be added. If users report problems with this window, their pop-up blocker probably stops that window from appearing.
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