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CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES 285 Figure 9-20. The Group Information section, from a moderator s point of view Visiting Other Points of Interest The following are some other features of interest to end users: FAQs: phpBB offers an extensive list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the software built in with each installation. The link is available in the header of each page on the board, and provides a quick online reference guide to some of phpBB s features. As a phpBB administrator, you should be familiar with the contents of the FAQs and be ready to direct your users there, as it is a valuable resource. Member lists: The Memberlist page does exactly as the name suggests: it lists all the registered users of your community. You are able to sort this list by several criteria, including joined date, post count, and username. phpBB also provides a presorted Top Ten Posters by post count. This can be useful if you are interested in promoting the top contributors in your community. Tip Some unscrupulous folks see that their site is linked in the phpBB member list, and register accounts on many boards across the Internet to help boost their Google page rank. The Restrict Guest Access modification (http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/1415) limits viewing of the member list to registered users, thus removing this incentive. See Chapter 11 for details on installing modifications. Who s Online: The Who s Online feature keeps track of user activity on the board, accurate to about five minutes. Visiting the Who s Online page shows you a list of users, the time of their last activity, and their location. This can be a fun feature for those who are curious. Remember that those who hold their privacy dear can elect to hide themselves from the Who s Online feature by making a change to their profile.
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284 CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES to the leader of that pack, who will then have the option of adding and removing members. As a measure of checks and balances, all administrators, regardless of their group moderator status for a particular group, are able to perform group moderator functions. The final set of options set the status of the group: An open group is a group that members can request to join. All potential memberships are subject to the approval of the group moderator. A closed group does not permit members to freely request to join. The group moderator must manually add members to a closed group. A hidden group is like a closed group. In addition, it does not show up in the publicly available list of user groups in the Group control panel, so nonmembers won t know it exists. After you set up the group up as you desire, click Submit. You will get a confirmation message, and all will be well. Now, let s venture out of the Administration panel and explore the Group control panel. Viewing Groups Figure 9-19 illustrates what you will see after you create a group if you did not make yourself the group moderator. If you did make yourself the group moderator, you will see a list of groups of which you are a member. If there are also groups that you aren t a member of, you will see those groups listed as well. Figure 9-19. The Group control panel s initial page Modifying and Removing Groups The group moderator (and forum administrator) can add and remove group members, as well as open, close, and hide a group from the Group control panel, shown in Figure 9-20. To change the status of the group, select your preference of group type (open, closed, or hidden) and click Update. To add members, you can type the exact username of the member in the box on the bottom-left side of the screen and click Add Member. Alternatively, you can click the Find a username button, and phpBB will display the username search box, where you can search for the user you wish to add. After you find the user in that list, click Add Member. Administrators have further power over groups through the Administration panel. There, you can change the name, description, and moderator of the group, as well as the group s status. You can also remove a group from the board. To remove a group, log in to the Administration panel, and go to the Group Management panel. Select the group you wish to delete from the drop-down list, and click the Look up group button. At the bottom of the form, you ll see a check box to delete the group. Check that box, and then click Submit. The group will be deleted.
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CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES 283 In Chapter 10, I will discuss using user groups as a tool to secure your board. For now, I ll discuss the mechanics of setting up and modifying user groups. Setting Up User Groups Only an administrator can create a user group. To create a new user group, log in to the Administration panel. In the navigation pane, click Management under Group Admin. You will see a panel that resembles Figure 9-17. Figure 9-17. A noticeably barren Group Administration panel To create a group, click the Create new group button. You ll see the form shown in Figure 9-18, where you are prompted for a few details about your new group. Figure 9-18. The form for creating a new group This form is straightforward, for the most part. Give the new group a name and describe it. The group moderator is someone who you wish to manage the day-to-day operations of the group. If you are creating a group of people who will have permissions to moderate the board, you will probably want to make yourself or another highly trusted member the group moderator, as this person is empowered to add and remove group members. If you are creating a largely social group who will have limited power on the board, you can give the group moderator title
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282 CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES Figure 9-16. Returning search results as topics Caution On extremely high-traffic boards, the search feature can become quite database-intensive, and performance could suffer as a result. Such problems are largely related to limitations on your database server. phpBB is built to work around such limitations as efficiently as possible, but in case of severe load, it may be necessary to temporarily disable search functionality. Conducting Special Searches phpBB s search engine is also equipped with three types of predefined special searches. Any users guests or registered are able to find posts that have yet to receive a reply by clicking the View unanswered posts link in the top-right portion of the page, just above the forum and category listing. Registered users can perform two additional searches: A search for all new posts since the user s last visit (very useful for catching up with recent activity, especially after a long layoff from the forum) Affectionately nicknamed ego search, a search in which the user can find all his own posts on the forum Tip If your board has a lot of traffic, you can eliminate these special search links in the template, so that users won t click them and add even more load. Chapter 12 provides details on editing templates. Grouping Users phpBB offers a versatile user group feature that administrators can use in a variety of ways. User groups are most commonly used to lump together users who have the same permissions, which can be a great timesaver. Instead of hunting down users and assigning them individual permissions to do certain things on the forum, you are able to simply add them to the group, and the permissions are attached automatically. For example, on my communities, I use user groups to put together a group of super moderators, and I permit the super moderators group to moderate all forums on my site. I also have a group of users who are permitted to see a private forum.
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CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES 281 Performing a Search The Search Query form, shown in Figure 9-14, paints what could be a slightly intimidating picture to your users, but it s actually quite simple to use. You can search on keywords, author, or posts by an author with your chosen keywords. As long as there is some criteria in one of the text boxes at the top, the search will execute. Figure 9-14. The phpBB search feature, ready for your query If you wish to further narrow your search, you can specify additional search options. You can constrain your search to one forum or a category containing multiple forums (as delineated in the Forum Index page). You can tell phpBB to search the topic title and message text or only the message text. Additionally, you can specify searching all topics or constraining the time period in which you search, from one day to the last year. phpBB also provides several options for displaying your results. Returning results as posts, as illustrated in Figure 9-15, displays a preview of posts returned by the search engine, with your search terms highlighted. Returning results as topics, as shown in Figure 9-16, displays the results in topic form. In every case, when you click a result, phpBB takes you to the topic, and the keywords you searched on are highlighted in the page, making it fast and easy to find the post you re seeking.
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280 CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES Sending Private Messages Sending a private message is just like making a post on the forum, with a few important differences. As you can see in Figure 9-13, a Username field is added to the standard post form. You can enter the username of the user you wish to send the message to, or click the Find a user- name button, which opens a window in which you can perform wildcard searches to get the name exactly right. After entering the name, you can enter your message. All the standard formatting and smiley controls apply. Formatting rules are consistent with the rules for posting on the forum at large. You can preview your private message. When you re ready, click Submit to send the message. Figure 9-13. The form to send a private message When you send a private message, the sent message is listed under your Outbox until the intended recipient reads the message. If you feel you sent your message in error, you can enter the Outbox and delete the message you sent, effectively canceling the message. If you do not see the message in the Outbox, it likely has already been read, and thus moved to the Sentbox, which is analogous to the Sent Items folder in e-mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook. At this point, you cannot cancel sending the private message. Searching Forums phpBB s search feature is incredibly powerful, with keyword and author search, two methods of viewing your results, and good filtering of results. The search feature builds an index of keywords from the posts made in the forums and uses that index to perform the search. phpBB does an admirable job of keeping this index up-to-date without any administrator interven ch feature to your advantage.
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CHAPTER 9 TOURING PHPBB S FEATURES 279 Reading and Managing Private Messages When you enter the private messaging system in phpBB, you will be greeted by the Inbox, shown in Figure 9-12. All of phpBB s private message boxes look similar to the Inbox. As with a forum, you click the subject of a message to read it. The message is then marked as read when you return to the folder. Figure 9-12. The Inbox is the starting point of phpBB private messaging. If you use private messages on a regular basis, it s important to manage them. Keep a close eye on your folder usage, indicated in the top-right corner of the screen. If you fill up your Inbox, you will continue to receive new messages at the expense of older messages, which are irrevocably purged to make way for the newer messages. Size limits also apply to the Savebox and the Sentbox folders. By default, phpBB permits you to store 50 private messages in the Inbox, and 25 messages each in the Savebox and Sentbox. However, you can increase or decrease these folder size limits as demand requires, using the Private Messaging options accessed through the Configuration link under General Admin in the Administration panel. Managing your private messages is a simple task. Under the Mark column on the far right of your folder view, you can select messages to save or delete. Alternatively, if you wish to mass- move or mass-delete your messages, click the Mark all link in the bottom-right portion of the form. Mark all and Unmark all will select and deselect, respectively, all the messages displayed in your folder. You can then click the Save Marked or Delete Marked button. Saving your messages transports them to the Savebox, where they are held for retrieval later. To erase the entire contents of your folder, simply click the Delete All button, and your folder will be cleared out. Tip If you or one of your members report a user sending abusive private messages, you can use the User Management tool in the Administration panel to disable the abusive user s ability to send private messages.
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