Forum

A forum is a way for people to interact with each other in an online discussion and where people can hold conversations, ask questions, and provides support in the form of posted messages. A forum may contain several subforums, each having several topics.

To manage forum groups and forums (inside forum groups), go to Content management → Forums.

Add a new forum group

Click the Add new forum group button.

• Define a new forum group Name.
• In the Display order field, enter the display order of the forum group. A value of 1 represents the top of the list

Click Save.

Add a new forum

• From the Forum group dropdown list, select the required forum group.
• Enter the Name of the new forum.
• Enter the Description of the new forum.
• Select the Display order for the forum group. A value of 1 represents the top of the list

Click Save.

Forum Settings

To access forum settings, go to Configuration → Settings → Forum settings. This page is available in 2 modes: advanced and basic.

This page enables multi-store configuration; it means that the same settings can be defined for all stores or differ from store to store. If you want to manage settings for a certain store, choose its name from the multi-store configuration dropdown list and select all the checkboxes needed on the left to set custom values for them. 

Common

Define the following forum settings in the Common panel:

• Enable forums by selecting the Forums enabled checkbox.
• Select the Relative date and time formatting checkbox to enable the relative date and time (for example, 2 hours ago, 1 day ago).
• You can allow specifying customers' signatures by selecting Signature enabled.
• Select the Show customers to post count checkbox to show the number of posts created by a customer.
• From the Forum editor dropdown list, select the forum editor type to use:
  • Simple textbox.
  • BBCode editor.

  NOTE

  It is not recommended to change the forum editor type in the production environment.

Permissions

Define the following forum settings in the Permissions panel:

• Allow guests to create posts.
• Allow guests to create topics.
• Allow customers to edit posts.
• Allow customers to delete posts.
• Allow customers to manage forum subscriptions.
• Select the Allow users to vote for posts checkbox to enable voting.
  • The Maximum votes per day field sets the number of votes a user can do per day if the previous setting is enabled.
• Enable private messages by selecting the Allow private messages checkbox. If enabled, the following two settings will be visible:
  • Select the Show alert for PM checkbox to enable the alert pop-up window if a new private message was received.
  • Select Notify about private messages if a customer should be notified via email about a new private message.

Page sizes

Define the following forum settings in the Page sizes panel:

• Topics page size — the page size for topics in forums, for example, '10' topics per page.
• Posts page size — the page size for posts in topics, for example, '10' posts per page.
• Search results page size — the page size for search results, for example, '10' results per page.
• Active discussions page size – the page size for the active discussions page, for example, '10' results per page.

Feeds

Define the following forum settings in the Feeds panel:

• Select the Forum feeds enabled checkbox to enable RSS feeds for each forum.
• In the Forum feed count field, set the number of topics to be included in each feed.
• Select the Active discussions feed enabled checkbox to enable RSS feeds for active discussion topics.
• In the Active discussions feed count field, set the number of discussions to be included in the "Active discussions" feed.