The details are quite lengthy and will be broken down into separate messages in this thread.
CREATING CATEGORIES AND SUB CATEGORIES
When you create your new Forum, there will be two Categories already created. One is General Discussion and the other is the Trash Bin.
To create more Categories, go to Options > Category.
Before going any further, think of Categories as headings or subjects and Sub Categories as Message Boards.
To create a new Category, click on "Add a New Category" at the top.
Type in the name of the Category.
Before clicking on Submit, you may assign a Moderator now, or you can do it later. If you are going to create more Sub Categories (Message Boards) you may prefer to wait until you have finished, then you can assign a Moderator to several Boards at the same time. See the steps further down the thread on assigning Moderators.
You may also want to set your Permissions as you go along, or do them later. Again, if you are going to create more Message Boards, you may want to wait until you have finished them, so you can set all the Permissions at the same time. See notes on Permissions further down the thread.
The new Category will be placed below the existing ones but it can be moved later if you wish. The steps will be described later in this thread.
You MUST create a Sub Category otherwise you will have no Message Board. You will be prompted to create a Sub Category, as below.
Type in the name of your Sub Category (Message Board).
Review the options and decide which you want:
You may add an image by clicking on Browse and locate the image to upload it.
Type in a description if you want one.
Check the box if you want to approve Posts before they are submitted to the Board.
Then click on Submit.
If you require another Sub Category under the same main Category, click on "Add a new sub-category" at the top; then do the same as above. You can of course have more Sub Categories on the General Board. In fact you may have multiple Categories and Sub Categories.
After clicking on "Add a new sub-category" at the top, select the Category where you want it to go from the drop down arrow under "Add to category".
I always use CAPITAL LETTERS for my Categories and Lower Case (Initial Caps) for my Sub Categories and I tell my Members that they cannot click on anything in CAPS. This is entirely up to you of course, but I'm mentioning what works for my Forum. The way you prepare it in the Category section will also show in the mini menu at the top of the threads, so my members know that what is in CAPS in my Forum are not clickable. They can only click where the red arrows are indicated in the screenshot which I provided for my members.
You can rename the Category if required, as below.
You can Edit the Sub Category as below.
Update 17th February 2008
It is now possible to add a password to sub-categories. See Admin's screenshot below, where the red arrow is.
The new Category we've just created appears at the bottom, below the Trash Can. To move it up, click on the up arrow on the right hand side. Alternatively, you can simply change the 3 to 2 in the Order box. This is handy if you have multiple Categories or Sub Categories as with the arrow, you can only click one level at a time. By this I mean, you click on the arrow once and the screen flickers then the category has moved, then you click on the arrow to move it further. If you have numerous categories this would be a tedious job, so for this reason it's better to type in the position number you require and the others will be repositioned accordingly. For instance if your new Category was #19 and you wanted it to be the third from the top, you would change the number 19 to 3.
You will also see there is a Delete button. Be careful that you are not deleting a Category if you intend only deleting a Sub Category. We see many messages on the Help Forum that someone has accidently deleted their General Message Board and all the threads along with it. If this occurs, they cannot be retrieved. You can create a new General Board but the threads will be lost if you have deleted the original General Category, or in fact any Category.
COLLAPSING/HIDING SUB CATEGORIES
If you have multiple Categories and/or Sub Categories and you are only making changes to one area, you might want to click on the minus sign against the ones you are not working on. This will close the Sub Categories so that you don't get confused.
This is what they look like when they are all collapsed.
You can still rename and delete the main Categories from this view. For instance, you could click on Rename against any particular one, edit it then click on Submit.
You may find it easier to move your message boards to different positions in this view. There are not many in the example above but some Forums do have multiple boards/categories, so this is a useful feature which makes it easier to see what you are doing when the Sub Categories are not visible.
You can even add a new sub-category in this view. Click on the second tab at the top "Add a new sub-category", type in the information, then select the required main Category from the drop down menu "Add to Category".
Of course to view the Sub Categories again, you would click on the appropropriate plus sign. You could have one Category open and the others closed if you are working with Sub Categories in only one main Category.
MOVING A SUB CATEGORY
If you happen to create a sub category in the wrong area, or you later decide to have it elsewhere, you can move it. Click on Edit in the Sub Category area.
Click on the arrow under "Move to Category" and click on the required Board/Category from the drop down menu which appears.
You may want to assign a Moderator to certain Message Boards. You can do that as you are creating your Categories as mentioned above, or assign them at another time by going back to the Category section and following the steps described below.
You can access this function two ways.
Either (1) Go to Options > Category
Locate the required Category.
To assign your Moderator/s, click on "Click here to add".
OR (2) Options > Moderator
Either way, a screen similar to this will appear:
Click on "Mod Level" against the User Name and a list of your Categories will appear.
Click in each box against the appropriate Categories where you wish to assign this Moderator.
When you have checked the required boxes, click on "Make xxx Moderator".
If you wish to assign any other Moderators to certain categories, click on the drop down arrow as shown below to select another Moderator and do the same thing again.
You can set your Permissions as you are creating your Categories.
If you didn't do it then, you can do it later.
To do it later, go to Options > Permissions.
Click on Set Permissions in the required Category or Sub Category. If you choose the Category, you can include Sub Categories. See further down this message.
CATEGORY
SUB CATEGORY
In this example, I have chosen to Set Permissions in a Sub Category, as above.
Click on the required tab at the top. In the example below, Advanced Member is selected so it has changed to blue. Check the required bullets for Yes or No against each Permission for this level (Advanced Member in this case).
Your "Yes" and "No" columns will be further to the right but I had to doctor the image to fit into the screen.
You can set a Minimum score if you want to. This means Advanced Members (or whichever one you are doing) are required to post that number of messages before they are granted the selected Permissions.
When you have made your selections, click on the green Update button.
If you wish to do any more, click on the required tab at the top, ie Normal Member, Moderator, etc.
When you have finished, click on the green Return button, bottom right.
If you have more than one Category or Sub Category, you need to do the above for each one.
However, if you clicked on Set Permissions for the Category (rather than a Sub Category), ie, the one on the blue line at the top:
You would have the choice of including Sub Categories. There is only one shown in the example below, but if you had more than one Sub Category, they would all be visible here and you can check the box against the ones you wish to allocate the same Permissions.
"Apply to sub-category" appears at the bottom of the list. When you have made your selections (checked the appropriate boxes), click on Update.
If you get confused, it is probably wiser to do each Sub Category individually if you wish to grant different Permissions for each one.
Babs
Update 17th February 2008
It is now possible to add a password to sub-categories. See Admin's screenshot below, where the red arrow is.
