UBB.threads 7 Administrator's Guide

Introduction

Welcome to the UBB™ Community

Congratulations on choosing UBB™ software, the most customizable PHP-based message board software on the planet. This Administrator's Guide will assist you with maintaining your software after installation. All operations outlined in this guide are performed using the browser-based control panel.

Where to Get Help

Almost anyone can administer a UBB™ message board, regardless of technical skill or knowledge. Most options are configured using simple drop-down menus, check-lists, or radio buttons.

If you would like some assistance with managing your message board, you may wish to visit the friendly community of message board administrators in our online support forums.

Advanced support is available from our development staff at the rate of $50 per half our unit. If you'd like advanced assistance, you can contact us via our support ticket system.

About this Guide

Unless otherwise specified, these instructions assume that you are starting in your control panel. To get there, log into the UBB™ board as an administrator, and click the Control Panel in the navigation bar at the top of the page.

Master Settings

The master settings section contains most of the initial setup information for your message board. We recommend that you go through each portion of the Master Settings and ensure that the available options are set to your preferences.

DB, Paths & URLs
The DB, Paths & URLs section contains the settings necessary for your application to understand where it is located on your server, and how it should connect to your database.

Database Connection Tab
Unless your database connection information changes after you've set up your message board, you will not need to change the details on the Database Connection table.

Paths & URLs Tab
The Paths & URLs tab contains the path to the location of the installation on your server and the URL on which your message board is configured to run. You will also find the options to set the path to ImageMagick's 'convert' and 'mogrify' if you have them installed on your server, which can be used for the CAPTCHA feature.

Primary Settings
Settings in this section include board-wide administrative options such as closing the board temporarily, censoring and numerous custom feature settings.

General Tab
The most general of the settings are configured here: the name of your community, opening and closing your board, Spider-Friendly URLs, and cookie settings.

Logging Tab
UBB™ offers logging functionality for various activities. Both admin and referer logs are stored in the database. If you'd like to log MySQL errors, this will take a manual step.

To enable MySQL Logging, you'll need to create a directory on your server in which the application will store the logs. Once you've created this directory, check the appropriate box on the settings page and add the path to the storage directory to the MySQL Error Log Storage Directory field.

You can view the MySQL Error Log from within the control panel. You will find a link to these logs when you first log in to your control panel. If you'd like to view these logs offline you can connect to your server via FTP, enter the log storage directory and view the corresponding file.

Censor Tab
The Censor function allows you to filter out specific words to be censored in posts made on your message board. To use this function, you must first enable it, by checking the Enable Censor checkbox. You can enter the words you wish to censor into the Censored Words field and even choose the Default Replacement Word.

To enter your words in the Censored Words field, enter one word per line, using on the Enter key - do not use spaces. To censor a full word, type the full word into the field. To censor any word that begins or ends with a certain string, use wildcard matching with the wildcard: (.*?) For example:

pa(.*?)cake would match "pancake" or "pattycake"
pan(.*?) would match any word beginning with "pan"
(.*?)cake would match any word ending with "cake"

Words in the Censored Words field will be replaced by the Default Replacement Word indicated. The default included is "[censored]" and will be used to replace all censored words posted. If you wish to replace a specific word with another word, follow it in the Censored Words field with an equal sign, then the replacement. For example:

pancake=waffles would replace "pancake" with "waffles"
pan(.*?)=waffles would replace any word begging with "pan" with "waffles"

Feature Settings
This section includes settings that are specific to certain features, including Search, Attachments, Active Text, Markup, Private Messages, Ratings, etc.

General Tab
The General Tab includes most of the "toggle" settings - enabling and disabling functions - as well as some of the more miscellaneous functions. Here, you can toggle images in posts and signatures, visibility of profiles and the member list, markup/html, voting in polls, flood check, editing posts, private messages, member ratings and calendar event creation.

Search Tab
The Search Tab contains the settings to control the search function including whether guests are allowed to search, the minimum time between searches (for flood-checking purposes), the maximum search date range (for performance purposes), as well as the minimum length of a search word and the maximum results displayed.

Attachments Tab
The option to attach files to postings will not be displayed on the board until the Attachments function is fully configured. To do this, you must first create an attachment storage directory on your server, give it full permissions (0777 on Unix), and add the path to this directory to the Attachment Storage Directory field.

Then, include the URL to the directory in the Full URL to Attachment Storage Directory field. Defaults have been set for the Allowed Attachment File Extensions (note that these extensions are not accepted: .php, .php3, .php4, .cgi, .pl, .exe, .bat, .reg) and the Maximum Attachment Size, but you may wish to change these.

Active Text Tab
Active Text allows you to set certain keywords to be translated into something different. Unlike the censor, with which censored words are replaced upon posting, this function replaces the word when the post is displayed, meaning that changes to this list will be retroactive. An example of use for this would be to have certain terms turned into a link or an image, e.g. anytime the name of your business is typed, it could be hyperlinked to link to your homepage.

To make entries in your Active Text List separate the word you want to replace with the replacement with a pipe ( | ) like this:

UBBs|<a href=ì{$SITE_URL}î>UBB

Markup Panel Tab
The markup panel allows you to choose which fonts and font sizes are available to your users. To add another entry to a list, insert the entry on a new line.

Gallery Settings
This will allow you to configure the base settings for Gallery Forums, including which graphics library to use, the quality of the images created, maximum size, etc.

Display Options

Any setting that is directly related to display, including hiding features, can be found in the Display Options.

General

Primary Tab

The Primary Tab is home to the various non-specific display functions. These settings are organized by the page on which they would appear. Below is a brief description of each section:

General Options - these settings are board-wide and affect all or most pages.
Forum Summary Options - the Forum Summary page, also known as your Main Index, is the page on which your categories and/or forums are listed.
Forum Display Options - the Forum Display page is the list of topics you see when you enter a forum. The settings within this section are specific to this page across all forums.
Topic Display Options - the Topic Display page is the list of posts that you see when you click on a topic to read the content. The settings within this section are specific to this page in all topics across all forums.
Post/Reply Page Options - the Post/Reply page is the page displayed when you make a new post or a reply. Settings within this section are specific to this page across all forums. Who's Online - Using these settings you can control the timeframe for active user tracking as well as what search engines are to be recognized.

Date & Time Tab
As the administrator, you can control the default date and time displayed on your board, including the format in which these details are displayed and the time zone used. To learn more about formatting your date and time, it may be helpful for you to read about PHP's date() function as noted in your control panel.

Note: A user can change the format and time zone used for their own personal view of the forums in their user preferences. If you have changed your board's settings, but are not seeing the updated details, check your own preferences by visiting the message board and going to My Space>>Edit Preferences. Your own personal preferences may be overriding the board defaults.

HTML Includes Tab
Custom HTML can be used to customize the look and feel of your board, as well as to wrap your own website's header, sidebars, navigation and footer into your message board design. The HTML Includes tab has four fields into which you can add your custom HTML:

Body Onload field - this can be used for JavaScript you wish to include in the 'body onload' tag of your page.
Default Header - this field can contain the HTML you want to display above and to the left of your board. Note that to insert HTML to the left of your board, you must use HTML to place the board within a table, and insert your HTML in the cell to the left of the cell in which you place the board.
Default Footer - this field should contain the HTML you want to display below and to the right of your board. Note that to insert HTML to the right of your board, you must use HTML to place the board within a table, and insert your HTML in the cell to the right of the cell in which you place the board.
Header Insert - This field should only be used for HTML you need to insert between the 'head' tags of your page, such as meta tags.

Images & Icons
All of the images used by UBB™ can be controlled via the Images & Icons section.

Posting Icons Tab
The posting icons are the little icons a user can choose when posting a new topic. The selected icon appears to the left of the topic's subject line in the Forum Display page. To change one of the uploaded images, use the corresponding Browse button to browse for a replacement image on your computer. For display purposes, it's a good idea to keep these images to about 15px by 15px in size. To delete an image, check the box to the left of the image and click the Update/Delete button at the bottom of the page. To add a new image, click the Add New Posting Icon button and browse for the icon you wish to upload.

Graemlins Tab
Graemlins are the smiley icons offered on the Topic/Reply page to allow users to convey emotion in their posting.

You'll see that, to the right of the image, you can modify the UBBCode and the Shortcut. A Graemlin's UBBCode is the text inserted between colons to insert the image into the post. When a user clicks the image on the posting page, the image is translated into it's UBBCode equivalent and inserted into the post. A smiley-face image might look like this: :smiley:

The Shortcut is the string of characters one might use that are automatically converted to an image, for instance: when we type in :) it's automatically converted to a smiley-face image.

To change one of the uploaded images, use the corresponding Browse button to browse for a replacement image on your computer. For display purposes, it's a good idea to keep these images to about 15px by 15px in size. To delete an image, check the box to the left of the image and click the Update/Delete button at the bottom of the page. To add a new image, click the Add New Posting Icon button and browse for the icon you wish to upload, choose the Markup String, and if you wish, a Shortcut.

Avatars Tab
An avatar is a small image that a user can select to represent themselves in their posts. The image will display to the left of the post, just under the user's display name. Several stock avatars are included for use by your users, but you can upload more using the Add New Avatar button at the bottom of the page.

If enabled, users also have the option to upload their own avatar to your server or to link to an avatar from another location on the internet. You can learn more about the avatar options in the Profile Settings.

Forum Images
Forum Images can be used to represent each forum's unique personality or to categorize your forums. The forum image, when in use, is displayed on the Forum Summary page, to the left of the forum name, and again on the Forum Display page, above the list of topics. Several stock images are included, but you can upload your own using the Add New Forum Image button at the bottom of the page.

Styles
UBB™ styles are controlled entirely using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). It is necessary to understand some CSS in order to edit the styles, but an Import Style function is also available to you, so that you can use additional styles without creating them yourself. Additional styles may be acquired through other UBB™ administrators. To import a style, click the Import Style button, browse for the CSS file on your computer, and click Continue. This will add the style to your control panel.

Styles Tab
The Styles Tab provides a snapshot summary of your existing styles. Use the available links to preview, edit, export or delete your existing styles.

Note: Because the style controls the entire look and feel of your site, it is recommended that you not delete your only remaining style.

Wrappers Tab
A wrapper is custom HTML that surrounds a block of content, which provides an easy way to customize the look of your message board. A wrapper can be created to vary the look of your style beyond the usual color and image definitions. One wrapper can be used throughout multiple styles.

Languages
UBB™ offers the unique capability to allow users to change the language in which the board is displayed. UBB™ is shipped with an English language pack, but you can translate the language of the board into any language you choose, or simply change a few words here and there to better suit the culture of your community.

Languages Tab
The Languages Tab will allow you to choose which language is your default language and also what languages are available to your users.

Language Editor Tab
The Language Editor function allows you to easily translate the language of the board, one complete language file at a time, or to search for specific strings of text you wish to edit. Use the Language dropdown to choose the installed language pack you wish to edit, and then use the next dropdown to Choose Specific Language File or enter the text you're looking for into the Search String field.

Note: changing the language of the board only changes the default text. It does not translate the content of users' posts.

Templates
UBB™ allows you to edit the templates - the HTML that shapes the pages of your board - via the control panel. However, you should understand before making any changes that we do not support modified templates. If you choose to modify your templates, and request support at a later date, we may ask you to remove your modifications before we can assist. Editing your UBB™ templates requires an intermediate knowledge of HTML.

Forums

The forums section of your control panel contains forum-specific settings and actions.

Forum Settings
Each forum has it's own set of settings. The forums settings tab, a bird's-eye view of your board's current setup, allows you to make quick changes to the order in which forums appear, the categorization of your forums, and to enable or disable a forum. For more forum-specific settings, click the Details link for the forum you wish to modify. To create a new forum, click the Add New Forum button.

Forum Basics Tab
The Forum Basics tab includes the basic configuration of the forum including the name, description, categorization, status, stylesheet, forum image and view. You can also configure the forum as a Teaser forum or a Gallery Forum here as well. Teaser forums will always show on the main forum list page regardless of user permissions. Gallery Forums will hold photos instead of traditional topics.

Forum Permissions Tab
Certain actions can be enabled/disabled by forum. These actions, such as using HTML or UBBCode Markup, posting file attachments and polls, and using post moderation are controlled here. Additionally, group access for the specific forum can be set as well. If you have ImageMagick 6 or GD2 with FreeType support, you can also enable CAPTCHA for guest posting here as well.

Custom Inserts Tab
Additional text and/or HTML may be included on a forum-specific level. These inserts are stored on the Custom Insert tab. In addition to a forum introduction, you can also insert Custom Islands. Learn more about Custom Islands in the Portal section of this manual. You also have the option of using a custom HTML Header and HTML Footer for this forum that differ from your board-wide Header and Footer. To use a unique Header/Footer, check the appropriate box and add your custom HTML to the Header and Footer fields that appear. To learn more about the custom Header and Footer, see the Display section of this manual.

RSS Tab
RSS Feeds syndicate content from your UBB™ message board, which allows users to access your syndicated content quickly and easily. To learn more about RSS itself, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_file_format

You can create an RSS feed for the specific forum on this tab. Configure the various settings to your liking and then click Submit Changes.

To subscribe to the RSS feed, users will need to view the forum, click the Forum Options button, and then choose the name of the RSS feed. This will allow them to keep up on new content from your site with their favorite RSS reader.

Note: The content within RSS feeds will be available to anyone with the URL to the feed, so we do not recommend creating an RSS feed that queries content from a private forum.

Category Settings
The category settings section allows you to easily manage your categories, including a category's name, description and the order in which they appear on your board. To create a new category, click Add New Category.

Moderator Settings
Moderators can be a handy presence on the board. Users who have a good reputation, are capable peacekeepers and helpful to others usually make the best moderators. UBB™ allows you to control which moderator permissions your moderators receive.

Moderator Settings Tab
Each forum, by default, has it's own Moderator Group. Any user you add to a forum's Moderator Group will automatically have moderator permissions in that forum, and that forum only. If you wish for a moderator to have moderator permissions in multiple forums, he/she must be placed into each forum's Moderator Group. To add a user to a forum-specific Moderator Group, click the Add link that appears below the name of the forum. Search for the user, and then click the Add link next to their name in the search results. When you're finished adding users to your forum-specific Moderator Groups, click the Update Moderators button. To remove a moderator from a Moderator Group, click the Remove link below their name and then click the Update Moderators button. By adding a moderator here, the user will be granted the following permissions: Lock Topics, Move Topics, Delete Posts, Stick Topics, Approve Posts, Edit Posts.

Moderator Permissions Tab
The Moderator Permissions section is an overview of your current moderators and their granted permissions. Using this chart, you can grant and remove permissions to individual moderators, as well as demote them as moderators.

Note: Admin users that are assigned as moderators will not show up here because, as administrators, they have these powers by default.

Group Management
Groups provide an efficient method by which to grant permissions to your users. By grouping users who should have like permissions together, you can then grant a permission to a group, which is then applied to each user within that group. While each forum is created with a Forum Moderators Group by default, users within Forum Moderators Groups are modified in the Moderator Settings area. To learn more about Forum Moderators Groups, see the Moderator Settings section of this guide.

Group Editor Tab
The Group Editor tab allows you to manage your existing groups as well as create new groups. To add a new group, click the Add New Group button. You'll be prompted to designate a name for your new group and set applicable forum access permissions. To view the members within a group click on the hyperlinked number. This will take you to a search result listing the members of the group. Adding a user to a group must be done from the member's profile in the control panel. To learn more about this, see the Member Management section of this guide.

Membership

The Membership section of your control panel contains user specific settings and actions.

Registration Settings
Many of the functions revolving around registration can be controlled. All of these settings are stored in this area of your control panel.

Basic Options Tab
Settings listed here include suspending new registrations, toggling the moderation queue and email verification, display name settings and your board rules. If you have ImageMagick 6 or GD2 with FreeType support you will also find an option to enable CAPTCHA for registrations here as well.

Registration Screen Tab
This allows you to control which profile fields are displayed, hidden or required on the new user's registration page. Five custom fields have been made available for your use. You may title these fields to your liking. At this time, radio buttons and checkboxes cannot be added to custom fields.

Reserved Names Tab
It's likely that there are some usernames you wouldn't want to allow users to register - perhaps to avoid impersonation of authority figures or otherwise. You can designate reserved names to prevent users from using these as usernames or display names.

To enter your names in the Reserved Names field, enter one name per line, using only the Enter key - do not use spaces. To reserve a full name, type the full name on one line of the field - a space can be used to separate two pieces of one name (for instance: ìCommunity Adminî would need to have a space between the two, if you wanted to reserve the whole name with the space included). To censor any name that begins or ends with a certain string, use wildcard matching with the wildcard: (.*?) For example:

a(.*?)min would match "adminî
ad(.*?) would match any word beginning with ìadî
(.*?)min would match any word ending with ìminî

Age Verification Tab
The age verification function allows your site to prevent users under a certain age from registering. The Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) compliancy terms require parental permission for a child under the age of 13 to access a website. Certain sites may wish to require that users be over the age of 18 to access their content. The age verification tool will allow you to set the minimum age required to register, and determine whether or not you will allow users under a minimum age to register with a parental consent form.

Note: if you choose to allow younger users to register with parental consent, you will need to supply your own parental consent form.

If you'd like to learn more about Privacy and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, check out http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy/biz.htm

Profile Settings

Avatars Tab
An avatar is a small image that a user can select to represent themselves in their posts. The image will display to the left of the post, just under the user's display name. You can control the various settings regarding use of avatars here, including allowing users to upload their own avatars or to use remotely hosted avatars.

Stock avatar images have been included for use by you and your users, but you can also upload your own. You can learn more about uploading your own avatars in the Images & Icons section of this guide.

Member Titles Tab
Member Titles are granted to users according to post count. As a user's post count increases, he/she will be ìpromotedî in member title. Default member titles and corresponding post counts have been provided, but you may wish to modify these to suit the culture of your message board. Custom Member Titles can also be granted to users on an individual basis. These titles are modified in the user's profile in the control panel. To learn more about editing a user's profile from the control panel, see the Editing a User's Profile section of this guide.

Member Management

View/Edit Members Tab
To view or edit a member, you'll first need to search for them. The Basic Search Options section will allow you to search for specific users based on basic information, but you can build more complex search queries using the criteria available in the Advanced Search Options section.

Once your search is complete, you have the option of viewing or modifying user records from the search results screen. You'll see a snapshot view of relevant member information in the search results, but to view a user's profile, you can click on his/her hyperlinked display name. To learn more about the actions available to you by editing a member's profile from the control panel, see Editing a User's Profile in this guide.

Certain actions can also be completed from this screen, including deleting, banning, unbanning, emailing, and adding users to groups en masse. To perform any of these actions, select the users using the checkbox to the left, then select an action from the Action dropdown.

Registration Queue Tab
When registration moderation is enabled, new registrations will require an administrator's manual approval before being granted membership. To enable the Member Moderation Queue, toggle the setting on the Basic Options tab of the Registration Settings area of your control panel.

If you have chosen to use registration moderation and users await approval in the queue, you have the option to approve or decline the user, as well as to re-send the verification email. Optionally, you can leave them in the queue by selecting the ìNo Actionî radio button.

Display Name Changes Tab
As administrator, you can determine whether or not users can make display name changes, and if such changes require administrative approval. When display name changes require an administrator's approval, requests will appear in the Display Name Changes queue here. To require administrative approval on display name changes, enable the Allow Display Name Changes? function in your Feature Settings>>General tab, choosing the ìYes, but all changes must be approved by an Admin.î option.

Ban Lists Tab
You may wish to ban certain IP addresses or email addresses from accessing your message board. To do this, enter the IP address or email address into the appropriate field. Place each entry on a separate line, using only the Enter key to separate entries - do not use spaces. You can use the % symbol as a wildcard in either IP addresses or email addresses. For instance, if I want to ban all IP addresses within a certain range, I could accomplish that with this:

65.124.%
This would effectively ban all IP addresses beginning with 65.124

Member Management
As an administrator, you have the ability to edit a member's profile from the Member Management area of your control panel. To edit a user's profile, use the View/Edit Members tab to search for the member you wish to edit. In the search results, click the hyperlinked display name of the user. This will open a new window of the control panel with the admin view of the member's profile.

Member Information Tab
From this tab, you can view and edit the basic user details, such as display name, email address and member title. Additionally, using the buttons below, you can delete the user, email the user's password to him/her, or become the user - which is especially helpful for troubleshooting problems a user is experiencing.

Permissions Tab
The Permissions tab allows you to control the user's access to your message board. Here, you can ban or un-ban a user, restrict how often he/she can post with a user-specific flood check setting, make him/her a moderator, move the user in and out of groups, etc. Note that when making a user a moderator via editing their profile, you must also choose which moderator permissions you will grant them.

Fields Tab
The details listed in the Fields tab are those found in the user's profile. Here, you can edit all of the fields displayed on this user's personal profile, including signature, avatar, etc.

Preferences Tab
The details listed in the Preferences tab reflect those set in the user's own preferences page. You can edit the details of user's preferences, which is especially helpful if a user is struggling with a certain function.

Portal

The Portal page function is a unique tool that allows you to build an introductory page to your message board using snippets of text and information from posts, users, etc. When enabled, the Portal is the main page of your message board, though a user can navigate to the Forum List from the Portal, and vice versa, at any time.

The Portal is comprised of islands, each island containing a kind of data. It is easy for you to customize the sort order and location of your displayed data by rearranging the islands.

Note: before the Portal will display on your UBB™, you must first enable it in the Portal Settings area of your control panel.

Portal Layout
The Portal is made up of three columns: the Left Column, the Right Column and the Main Column. Data pulled from your News Forum will be displayed in the Main Column. All other islands will be arranged in the Right or Left columns as you determine in the control panel.

UBB™ features eight default data islands. Here is a brief description of each type:

Search - the Search Island allows you to include a keyword search box on your Portal as well as a shortcut to the Advanced Search function.

Who's Online - Who's Online displays a list of users that are currently browsing your forums. You can control the interval at which the cache expires in the Portal Settings area of your control panel.

Newest Members - the Newest Members island displays a list of the five most recently registered users, as well as the total number of registered users.

Public Calendar - the Public Calendar island shows the community calendar. You can control the interval at which the cache expires in the Portal Settings area of your control panel.

Private Calendar - the Private Calendar island shows a list of your own private calendar entries.

Shout Box - Shout Box provides a fun opportunity for users to post a one-off message that doesn't necessarily have to relate to any conversation. All comments are stored inline, with a link to the author's name, and administrators and moderators can delete individual comments as necessary.

Top Posters - the Top Posters island displays a list of the users with the highest post counts. You can control the interval at which the cache expires and the number of users displayed in the Portal Settings area of your control panel.

Forum Stats - the Forum Stats island presents a list of statistics about your message board including the number of forums, registered users, total number of topics and posts stored and the date and time at which the board had the most people online at one time. You can control the interval at which the cache expires in the Portal Settings area of your control panel.

UBB™ allows you to create up to ten Post Islands and ten Custom Islands. As you create these islands, they will become available in the Portal Layout area of your control panel. To learn more about these island types, see the Post Islands and Custom Islands sections of this guide.

UBB™ also offers you the ability to use any of the portal islands outside of your Portal. To do this, click the External Use link for the island you wish to use and follow the instructions for placing the island elsewhere on your website. If you wish to use an island on your website, but not on the Portal Page, choose to Hide them from both columns, and then check the Always Build option. This will cause the application to create the island for use elsewhere, without displaying it on the Portal Page. Note: The Private Calendar is not available for use outside of the portal.

Portal Settings
The basic setting toggles for the Portal function are stored here. To enable the Portal page on your site, you'll need to first toggle the Enable the Main Portal Index page? setting and select a forum to act as a news forum, from which the Portal will draw announcements and other important info. You may specify multiple forums from which to pull news and announcements for the main page.

Note: The Portal ignores user groups, so anyone will be able to read the items displayed regardless of their permissions.

The Portal Settings page also gives you the option of allowing users to turn off the right or left column displayed on the portal page. This ability is especially helpful to users using a lower resolution.

Post Islands
In addition to the default data islands, UBB™ allows you to create up to ten post islands. Each individual post island will display a list of posts according to criteria you determine in the island's settings. If you wish to use an island on your website, but not on the Portal Page, check the Always Build option. This will cause the application to create the island for use elsewhere, without displaying it on the Portal Page.

Once you've created the post island, you can arrange its display on your Portal Page in the Portal Layout section of your control panel. Alternately, you can include the island on other pages of your website. To learn more about this, see the Portal Layout section of this guide.

Gallery Islands
In addition to the default data islands ane Post Islands, UBB™ allows you to create up to ten Gallery Islands. Each individual gallery island will display recent thumbnails of images according to criteria you determine in the island's settings. If you wish to use an island on your website, but not on the Portal Page, check the Always Build option. This will cause the application to create the island for use elsewhere, without displaying it on the Portal Page.

Once you've created the gallery island, you can arrange its display on your Portal Page in the Portal Layout section of your control panel. Alternately, you can include the island on other pages of your website. To learn more about this, see the Portal Layout section of this guide.

Custom Islands
In addition to the default data islands, UBB™ allows you to create up to ten custom islands. Unlike post islands, which contain posts pulled from your message board, custom islands contain custom HTML that you enter. These islands are especially effective for including announcements, forum rules, tips, ads (like Google AdSense) etc. If you wish to use an island on your website, but not on the Portal Page, check the 'Always Build' option. This will cause the application to create the island for use elsewhere, without displaying it on the Portal Page.

Once you've created the post island, you can arrange its display on your Portal Page in the Portal Layout section of your control panel. Alternately, you can include the island on other pages of your website. To learn more about this, see the Portal Layout section of this guide.

Content Management

Content Management is an essential part of a successful community. Moving topics to proper forums, archiving and pruning can all help to keep your forums in tiptop shape. These tools have been provided to help you manage the content of your message board community.

RSS Feeds
RSS Feeds allow you to syndicate content from your UBB™ message board, which allows users to access your syndicated content quickly and easily. RSS feeds can be created to display topics and posts of a single forum or multiple forums. To learn more about RSS itself, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_file_format

Single Forum RSS Tab
Single Forum RSS feeds can be created in the Forum Settings section, under the Details option for each forum, but you can see an overview of your current single-forum RSS feeds here. To create or modify any RSS feed, locate the appropriate forum and click Edit. This will take you to the RSS Tab for the forum settings section of this forum. Here, you can edit the settings of the RSS feed. Configure the various settings to your liking and then click Submit Changes.

To subscribe to the RSS feed, users will need to view the forum, click the Forum Options button, and then choose the name of the RSS feed. This will allow them to keep up on new content from your site with their favorite RSS reader.

Note: The content within RSS feeds will be available to anyone with the URL to the feed, so we do not recommend creating an RSS feed that queries content from a private forum.

Approve Posts
When a forum has been configured to use Post Moderation, administrative approval will be required before content goes live. To enable moderation in a forum, navigate in your control panel to Forums>>Forum Settings and click the Details link for the forum you wish to edit. On the Forum Permissions tab, check the Enable Full Post Moderation? option.

When content is awaiting approval, it will not display in the forum unless you have administrative or moderator rights. Pending content can be approved in the Approve Posts area of your control panel. Select the appropriate action for each item, and click the Submit button.

Move Topics
Topics can be moved from one forum to another to allow for better organization. Using the Move Topics function, you can search for content that meets certain criteria, and then move it to a different forum. You can create a selection list of topics from one, many, or all forums, searching by date or by user number. If you include a user number, only topics started by this user will be returned. Note that the date range entered refers to the date of the last post in a thread.

To move the results of the search automatically to the new forum, uncheck the Manually select topics? box. Otherwise, UBB™ will return a selection list from which you can choose the topics to move.

Prune Topics
It's a good idea to prune away older or unnecessary content for performance reasons. Using the Prune Topics function, you can search for content that meets certain criteria, and then delete it from your forums. You can create a selection list of topics from one, many, or all forums, searching by date or by user number. If you include a user number, only topics started by this user will be returned. Note that the date range entered refers to the date of the last post in a thread.

To prune the results of the search automatically, uncheck the Manually select topics? box. Otherwise, UBB™ will return a selection list from which you can choose the topics to delete.

Tools

These extra tools are available to you to facilitate the administration of your UBB™ message board.

Database Tools
UBB™ includes several database tools to allow you to perform common functions without the need for a database manager.

Information Tab
The Information Tab displays a list of the UBB™ tables currently in your database, as well as basic information about the tables.

SQL Command Tab
The SQL Command Tab allows you to execute a SQL command on your database, and store that command for future use. Note: using this function requires knowledge of SQL. If you do not have a working knowledge of SQL, please back up your database tables first.

Backup Tables Tab
The Backup Tables function offers you the ability to back up your UBB database tables individually or to back up all of the UBB tables at once. Before the list of database tables is available to you, you must configure a storage directory for your backup files. To do this, create a directory on your server, outside of the webroot, where you'd like to store the backups. Give this directory full permissions (0777 on Unix). Add the path to this directory to the Backup Storage Directory field. When the test passes (use the link below the field to test), click the Submit button. Upon refreshing, the list of tables will be displayed. Always close your board before running any backup actions on your database. To close your forum, toggle the Close Board? setting on the General tab of your Primary Settings section. To backup a table, select the table and click Submit. To backup the entire database, select All Tables and click Submit. This may take a while: don't click the button twice.

Clear Cache
UBB™ relies on the caching of certain data for performance improvement. Clearing your cache is not normally necessary, as the cache is set to expire at regular intervals. If the need arises to expire your cache manually, you can do so using the button here.

PHP Info
At times during your use of UBB™, it may be necessary for you or for UBB Support to review your PHP configuration file. The PHPInfo tool will allow you to easily view the contents of the file from your browser. This tool will show you the details of the current version, memory allocations and configuration of PHP running on your server.

Additional Resources

If you are new to HTML and CSS, it may be helpful to learn more about these tools. Several free resources are available to you on the internet. The popular website w3schools.com provides information and tutorials on numerous tools. For HTML, we recommend: w3schools.com/html and for CSS: w3schools.com/css