how do i use the forums feature of my tikiwiki?

Answer by: Stuart Pierce, Aplus.Net Knowledge Base Support

The Forums are among the most popular features of TikiWiki. A forum is a collection of topics on a subject; topic is a collection of messages; message is what a user posted in the forum about any topic. Here is how to enable/disable the Forums feature of TikiWiki using the Aplus.Net Control Panel:

Start by logging into the Aplus.Net Control Panel at http://cp.aplus.net using your Registration Number and Customer Password.
Select Websites from the top navigation bar.
Next, select Hosting Domains and click on Manage Hosting Domains.
Now, select the hosted domain that you’d like to manage.
Click on the Design tab.
Click on the Tiki Wiki icon.
Go to the Features tab.
Use the respective radio buttons to enable/disable the Forums feature.
With the Anonymous View checkbox you can set whether or not public users will be able to browse your forums.
Click Modify to save the changes.

Now, you have only enabled the Forums feature for your TikiWiki. You can see below how you can create a forum, use the forum, and set permissions for other users. To proceed with the management of your forums, click on the respective Manage button in the Control Panel. The other option would be to go to: http://yourdomain.com/twiki and to login as user admin using your administrative password (please make sure to replace “yourdomain.com” with your actual domain name).

CREATE A NEW FORUM:

Expand the Forums menu found in the left navigation and click on Admin forums.
A form to create a New Forum will be displayed.
Once you have filled in your preferences, please do not forget to click the Save button.

USE THE FORUM:

You can enter the Forums feature section by clicking on the Forums link from the left navigation. Then, you can enter a specific forum by clicking on its name. When you enter a forum a list of topics will be displayed. Use the Post New Reply text field to post messages to a specific topic.
You will see a new topic button upon entering a forum. Use this button to create a new topic. You have to fill in a form where most of the fields are self-explanatory. More interesting is the Type drop-down box which is explained below:

Normal – for regular topic
Announce – for announcements
Hot – for a topic which is very important or polemical, or for anything you consider “hot”
Sticky – a sticky topic will be displayed on top of the list of topics regardless of any selected order
Locked – users will not be able to post messages.

To edit an existing Forum, click on the Configure/Options link in the “Actions” section. You can change here all preferences you set when creating the forum.

SET FORUM PERMISSIONS:

Click on Forums >> Admin Forums in the left navigation.
Click on the perms link in the “Actions” section of the desired forum. The existing forums are located below the “Create New Forum” form.
Now, you can assign specific permissions for the groups you have created, as well as for the two default groups: Anonymous and Registered.

Note: The tiki_p_admin_forum is a “master” permission which automatically includes the other permissions for Forums.