Here's the big section of general administration. In this section, shown in Figure 56.1, you'll configure all of the Forums module's most important settings:
Domain Name. This is your domain name, such as www.mysite.com.
Server Port. This is your server's HTTP port. About 99.999 percent of the time, the default value of 80 will be correct, and you shouldn't change this unless you know darn well what you're doing. Entering an incorrect value can make your Forums module inaccessible.
Script Path. Leave this at the default of /modules/Forums unless, again, you know darn well what you're doing.
Site Name. This should be the same as your domain name, unless you'd like to provide a more English-looking name. For example, if your domain is named luv2binfl.com, you might name the site Love To Be In Florida, since that's clearer. Do not leave this at the default MySite.com because it can prevent your Forums from working correctly and result in access deniedtype errors for your users.
Site Description. Enter anything you like here in the way of a brief description of your site.
Disable Board. This option allows you to disable the Forums module for maintenance. Only administrators will be given access.
Enable Account Activation. Leave this set to None; PHP-Nuke handles user account activation.
User E-mail Via Board. I recommend leaving this at Disabled; turning it on allows users to send e-mail to one another via the Forums module, which can be a kind of security risk. Users could potentially spam other users via your site, which isn't something you want to allow.
Flood Interval. Some users will attempt to automatically post topics to your Forums; often these posts are for mortgages, pornography, and other spam-related messages. Spammers often use software to post these messages; the Flood Interval can curb their effectiveness by requiring users to wait a specified number of seconds in between posts. A real user would never be impacted by the default of 15 seconds because it would take them that long to read a post and formulate a reply; automated software, on the other hand, will have yet another speed bump in the way of spamming your site.
Topics Per Page and Posts per Page. These settings govern how many topics or posts are displayed at a time; the defaults create a good screenful of information for your users.
Posts for Popular Threshold. This is the number of posts a topic must receive to be considered "popular" and receive the special Popular icon in the topic listings.
Default Style. Don't change this option; PHP-Nuke governs the theme of the Forums module. Note that the Forums module does use a different set of theme files than the rest of PHP-Nuke, but a PHP-Nuke theme can include these theme files (many do).
Override User Style. Leave this at Yes to prevent users from selecting their own theme for the Forums module.
Default Language. This simply affects the default display of the Forums module; it doesn't translate posts. PHP-Nuke ships with language files for several languages.
Date Format. The default of D M d, Y g:i a displays dates as "Mon Jan 02, 2003 3:02 p.m." You can change this format; refer to http://us2.php.net/date for the various letter codes you can use and for a description of what they display. For example, to display dates and times as "01/02/2003 15:02," you would use d/m/Y H:i instead.
System Time Zone. Indicate the time zone that your server is in. If your server is hosted by someone, ask for the appropriate setting here.
Enable Forum Pruning. Set this to Yes to enable autopruning, which I discussed in the previous topic. The default, No, prevents old topics from ever being removed from the database.
Cookie Domain. This should match your domain name.
Cookie Name. Don't use the default; doing so can create login issues for your users. I recommend setting this to your domain name, without any leading "www" or any trailing "com," "net," "org," or whatever.
Cookie Path. Leave this at the default of /.
Session Length. This governs the number of seconds a user can be inactive before the Forums module realizes they've gone away. This contributes to the display, on the main Forums module screen, of how many users are online at once. The default, 1 hour (3,600 seconds) is usually fine.
Private Messaging. I recommend setting this to the same setting as the Private_Messages module in PHP-Nuke itself.
Max Posts. These three settings control how many posts a user can have in their Inbox, Sentbox, or Savebox within private messaging. Lower these from their defaults of 100 to help conserve database space.
Max Poll Options. Users can attach polls to their forum posts; this controls the maximum number of options the poll can have. These are totally separate from the PHP-Nuke Surveys module.
Allow HTML. I recommend setting this to No; see Topic 65 for details. Allowing HTML can open certain security vulnerabilities that are best left closed; users can still use special BBCode tags instead of HTML to format their messages.
Allowed HTML. If you allow HTML, list the tags (separated by commas) you'll allow users to post. The default of b,i,u,pre allows HTML tags that are functionally the same as the BBCode tags provided in the Forums module.
Allow BBCode. This alternative to HTML allows users to perform simple formatting on their messages; it is recommended over HTML.
Allow Smilies. If this is enabled, the Forums module will provide some built-in emoticons, or smilies, that users can add to their posts.
Smilies Storage Page. Leave this at the default to use the smiley graphics that come with PHP-Nuke.
Allow Signatures. Users can define a standard signature, which the Forums module inserts at the end of their posts, if you allow signatures.
Maximum Signature Length. If you allow signatures, limit them to 255 characters or less, to keep posts from becoming bloated with oversize signatures.
Allow Username Changes. Set this to No; PHP-Nuke doesn't deal well with username changes, although the phpBB software that makes up the Forums does allow the option.
The next few settings cover avatars, which I explained earlier. You can enable various types of avatars; I recommend allowing gallery and remote avatars, but not allowing avatar uploading. That being said, you can leave everything else at the defaults to use PHP-Nuke's built-in avatar gallery.
The COPPA settings aren't used by PHP-Nuke; this functionality is included in the basic phpBB software so that minors have a way of submitting parental approval to use a set of forums. However, because user registration is accomplished through PHP-Nuke, not phpBB, this functionality isn't available to you.
Finally, the E-mail settings aren't critical. Fill in the Admin Email address, and leave everything else at the default; most of this functionality in phpBB is overridden by PHP-Nuke, which you configure elsewhere.
