Quick start guide

Below you will find a Quick start guide to get your message board up and running instantly. For in depth documentation, please check out our detailed manual.

The administration control panel (ACP)

You manage your forum site from your Administration control panel.
Click the link 'Go to Administration panel' at the bottom of your forum. (You have to be logged in for the link to show up.) Before you enter the panel you have to re-authenticate yourself for security reasons.

Changing the name and description of your board.

You may want to edit the name and description of your forum. This is done from your administration control panels general admin section. Click: 'Configuration' in the left main menu. Your forum name and many other settings is changed from this page

Creating forum categories and individual forums

Forums are the sections where topics are stored. Without forums, your users would have nowhere to post! Creating forums is very easy. Your new forum has a default forum category called testcategory with one testforum in it. You most probably want to rename this test category and edit / add individual forums to it. In your admin control panel: Click 'Management' in the main menu. Most of the settings are easy and self explainatory.

Watch a short video tutorial of managing your forum categories (Opens up in a new window)

If you want, you can change the looks of your forum.

If you are not satisfied with the default skin template (called Subsilver) we offer you hundreds of different design templates to choose from.

To change to a different look:

2. In the Style section in the Admin control panel, click 'menu' and then click install on any of the templates.

3. If you want to make the style you just installed, the default style, just click 'Set default' in the menu. Your forum should now have a different style.
To check out the new look without leaving the admin panel, click "preview forum" in the main menu.

Uploading your own logo

If you want to, you can upload your own logo for your forum

Click logo in the menu (style section) and simply upload your logo image or link to an image on the web.

Q: Can I and my users have custom avatars?

A: Yes! Users may upload or link to a custom avatar or choose from the existing avatar collection. First you must "enable avatars" by logging into your admin control panel and click Configuration. Users may after that choose their avatar by clicking on their "Profile."

Q: What is the best way to promote my forum and get many members?

A: This is the golden question and there are many answers. Here are a few suggestions that might benefit your forum:

• Start off by making a few posts in your forum yourself and try to make it as interesting as possible.
  
  
• Tell all the people you think might be interested in your sites subject about your forum. Word of mouth is a powerful promotion technique.
  
  
• If you participate in other online discussion forums, make a signature at those discussions with a link to your forum. This can also work for email signatures.
  
  
• Be active. By being active in your own forum, you are helping to promote the discussions.
  
  
• If you have an email newsletter (ezine), use it to promote your forum.
  
  
• If you have have interesting text material in your forum threads that you want to share with the rest of the world, submit them to social bookmarking sites, such as Propeller.com, Digg.com, Del.icio.us or Furl.net. This can be a good way to draw visitors.
  
  
• Start small then grow.
  
  
• Keep your forum categories small (i.e. 2-3 categories) when first starting a forum. That way all the posts are concentrated in a small area, making it look like you have a lot of participants. As your forum grows, you can expand the categories.
  
  
• Link from articles. If you have a regular website with articles, add a feedback button (which says "What do you think?") that links to your forum so that people can post their opinion.
  
  
• Recruit moderators. Recruit some charismatic friends or visitors to become moderators. They will help keep the discussions lively and flowing.

In depth documentation & Video tutorials.

	Your forum has a lot of advanced options that are not covered in the quickstart guide above. You may also want to check out the detailed manual, which is an in-depth documentation of the phpBB forum system. In the in depth documentation you can find detailed instructions on how to manage users and groups, setting permissions and much more.
	We have also have provided a selection of short video tutorials on some key areas of managing your forums, for example setting forum permissions, managing users, groups, ranks, profiles etc. Watch them here.

If you have any technical issues you can contact our support.