Ch 4: Admin CP
Last Updated: 11/8/07Section 4.0 - ACP Security
When accessing the ACP, you will prompted to login to validate your access. When granted access, you have an hour to access the ACP. After an hour of use, you will be automatically logged out of the ACP. Please know that it will NOT log you out from the entire board.
Also as another form of security, all actions are logged(including failed logins and attempts to login under false pretenses).
Section 4.1 - Managing the Boards & Categories
Go to: Board Menu -> Board Setup
Here is where you can mange your whole board setup. You can add new cateories & board from here sa well.
To modify the board or category, just click on modify on the item you wish to modify. To delete, click on delete on the item you wish to delete.
Moving an item up or down, click move up to move an item up or down to move an item down.
Adding a new board
in the board setup click on Add New Message Board, then fill out the form to add a new board. On board settings, below is what all those options mean:
- Who can read this board - You may set it to allow everyone to read it, only admins & moderators can read it or no one can read it.
- Who can post in this board - Same as above it controls who can post in the board.
- Who can Reply to topics - Controls who can reply to topics.
- Who can vote on the polls - Controls who can vote on the polls.
- Who can create new polls - Controls who can create new polls.
- Who can edit topics - Controls to see if users can edit their own posts.
- Who can delete topics - Controls to see if users can delete their own posts.
- Who can post Important Topics - Controls who can post important topics.
- Who can post Attachments - Controls who can upload attachments.
- Allow post in board count towards user's post count - If set to On the user would not get any post points for posting on the board.
- BBcode - Some boards you may not want BBcode to work so you can that off for that board here.
- Smiles - same as above you may not want to have smiles work, that can be disabled.
- img tag - this will set whether or not you want to allow images on the topics.
In board setup, click on Add New Category.
Write in the name of the category and click on add category.
Pruning the boards
Go to: Board Menu -> Prune
Currently the pruning system is basic and will prune every board. Simply enter in the age that you want to remove. For example, if you want to remove post over a year enter 365 and all post & topics over a year will be removed. Also you then choose which board you want to prune.
Section 4.2 - General Setup
Settings are split into different groups:
- User Settings: Set settings that affect all users.
- Board Settings: General Settings for the board itself.
- Mail Settings: setup for SMTP
- Cookie Settings: This configs the board cookies
- Attachment Settings: This setup the attachment settings and allows you to manage the whitelist for file types.
Sending out a newsletter to board members
Go To: General Menu -> NewsletterHere you can give out a newsletter that you can use to give global notice to your board members. It's basically like sending out an email only you don't have to type in every username to send this out, just type in a subject and then the message and all of your members will get the email. You MUST have mail() or SMTP enabled on your server for this ferature to work.
Managing the smiles
Go To: General Menu -> SmilesThis is where you can add, edit, and delete smiles. When you add new smiles heres the way to add them.
Smile Code is the code you want the program to understand(ex: :), :smile:)
Smile Filename is the smile image name, theres no need at all to place a path to the smiles. doing so will cause errors.
Smile installer
Go To: General Menu -> Smiles
At the very bottom, if you uploaded the install file in /install/, the file will be listed here and simply click on the name of the file and follow the instructions listed.
Managing the censor system
Go To: General Menu -> CensorThis where you can add a word that you dont want to appear. by default, no words are entered in here. When adding a word to the censorlist, you have two options on what to do based on the use of the word.
- Ban Use of Word - This will simply just censor out the word with *'s.
- Mark as Spam - This halts the process of posting all together by flagging the post, preventing any spam-like posts from appearing.
warning: be careful what words you mark as spam as only one of the words listed are needed to flag a post and something as common as 'free' or 'download' should be avoided unless you feel it's a last resort.
Section 4.3 - Group Menu
Managing the groups
Go To: Group Menu -> Group Setup
Here is where you can see what groups are currently created. By default theres only two groups: Administrator & Moderator. These two CANNOT be removed, though you may rename them.Also you must have at least one admin group. This section will also allow you to create another group.
Currently you have 3 levels of access: Full, Limited, and Regular. Basically it's like moderator, administrator & Member.
You then have to choose a profile for the group. A group profile is a template of what the user can access, more on how to manage the group profile will follow later in this chapter.
Setting up board permissions.
Go To: Group Menu -> Group Permissions
Select the group and then there will be a list of the boards. You can either make the group a moderator or just give them access to the board. if you wish to ban a user check the section about user settings later in this chapter.
Viewing the pendinglist.
Go To: Group Menu -> Pending List
In order for any one to fully be a group member, the admin must approve the user first. Here is also where you can personally add a user to a group automatically.
Select the group you wish to check and it'll list the users that wish to be in that group. The user will not get notified either way so it is the administrator's duty to let that user know if they got approved or not.
Managing the group profiles
Go To: Group Menu -> Group Setup
then click on Manage Group Profile.
Here you can see all of the default profiles as well as any profiles you made yourself. The default templates cannot be deleted, but can be altered if desireds.
Below are the default profiles to choose from:
- Administrator: complete access of the board.
- Limited Administrator: minor access to ACP
- Moderator: access to MODCP
- User: full access to all user-based features
- Limited User: limited access to user-based features.
To create a new profile just select the type of profile you wish to make and then fill out the permission form.
Section 4.4 - Style Menu
Adding a new style.
Go To Style Menu -> Create
Here is where you can add the new style to the database. It's where you setup the paths to the files. To fully know how to modify the template files, refer to the Q & A chapter of this manual.
Style installer
Go To: Style Menu -> Manage
At the very bottom, if you uploaded the install file in /install/, the file will be listed here and simply click on the name of the file and follow the instructions listed.
Managing the Styles
Go To: Style Menu -> Manage
here is where you'll see the styles currently created. You may modify the styles and even delete the styles from here.
4.5 - User Menu
managing the Ban List
Go To: User Menu -> Ban List
This is where you can ban IP's & email addresses. Email addresses so far are the only item that can have a wildcard ban. A wildcard ban means banning a selection of items. Like if you wish to ban every hotmail account, then type in hotmail.com and set the match type to wildcard, that will ban any hotmail domain from being accepted. To delete an item fromt he banlist, just select the item from the select list, and click on the submit button.
Disallowing Usernames
Go To: User Menu -> Blacklisted Usernames
Similar look to the banlist, it allows you to blacklist usernames you don't want users to use. for example site-owner, admin are a few that you might not want someone to have as a username. Like the email banning, you may set a wildcard for the username, so any reference to admin for example could get blocked. And just like the ban list to delete an entry just select the item and click submit.
Running the user pruner
Go To: User Menu -> User-Pruning
Here is where inactive usrs can get deleted in bulk. Basically the pruner will delete any user who hasn't posted in a week. Please note that new users are also at risk so please inform them so that they can post at least one topic.
Managing User's Profile.
Go To: User Menu -> Manage
Type in a user's name and then you'll see their settings. You can edit their settings and even ban them or even delete them from here.
User Warning Log List
Here you can see what actions were performed by either you, a moderator, or by another administrator. You are able to revoke an action and even clear the list. When clearing the action list all actions will be final and cannot be revoked.
Managing the ranks
Go To: User Menu -> Ranks
Here is where you can modify & delete current ranks and also add in a new rank. These ranks has no special meaning to them.