Knowledgebase

Reviewing the SMF Admin Center and Support Credits

This section will guide us through the process on how to review the Support and Credits information and what additional information for our forum we can find under the Administration Center section. In order to be able to access the administration section, you will have to login as the admin of your forum and the first page after the successful authentication is the Administration Center section. To check the Support and Credits page navigate to Administration Center>Support and Credits.

To understand how to review the SMF admin center, you will have to review these sections:

Step 1: Administration Center
Step 2: Support and Credits

Step 1 Administration Center

One of the first boxes that we are able to check right after login as administrator of the Simple Machines Forum is the Support Information box. From this box we are able to check the Version Information and Forum Administrators. If we click on the (more detailed) link we will be redirect to page where we can check in details the version of every file for the application. The other link we can click is the Administrator, this will redirect us to a page where we are able to check our profile as regular user.

Step 2 Support and Credits

On this page we are able to see several sections:

Support Information Here we are able to check again the SMF application version and server information such as MySQL, PHP and Alternative PHP cache version
Support Resources This includes links to the SMF wiki and a range of support boards to assist you with finding any information you may need to help you with any aspect of your forum
Common support & Issues This section contains information for your current version of the application
Credits This section serves as a thanking notice to all of the volunteers who have assist for the development of the application. Each of the members and their role is stated in this section

Further reading:

Manage Boards in SMF

Now, we learn how to to review the settings and features of the boards in SMF. In order to access the boards management page first you should login as administrator of your forum and then navigate to Administration Center>Boards.

Modify Boards

Edit your categories and boards here. List multiple moderators as "username", "username". (these must be usernames not display names!)

To create a new board, click the Add Board button. To make the new board a child of a current board, select "Child of..." from the Order drop down menu when creating the board.

Create New Category

On this page you can create a new category on your forum. Supply a name for the category, choose a placement for the whole category using the order listbox, and choose if it can collapse. Collapsing means showing only the category title, hiding any of the category's boards which would normally be displayed below the title. With collapsing enabled, clicking on the category title will toggle between displaying and hiding the category boards.

Settings

Membergroups allowed to manage boards and categories - Check the boxes for which groups you would like to have the ability to manage the boards and categories
Count child's posts in parent's totals - Checking this option will mean that posts and topics in a board child board (sub-board) will count toward its totals on the Board Index. This does not include grandchild boards (sub-subboards)
Enable recycling of deleted topics - Checking this will make it so your forum "recycles" deleted topics and posts. The relevant statistics are updated when posts are deleted and the deleted posts are no longer visible where they were before. However, these deleted posts can be viewed for reference in the board you specify in the setting directly below this one
Board for recycled topics - Select a Board you wish to store deleted posts in. Choose a board to act as the recycle bin. If this field is left blank, posts will not be recycled
Allow boards to be ignored - Checking this option will allow users to select boards they wish to ignore.

Further reading:

Manage Packages in SMF

Now we eamine how to browse, download, install, view the installed packages, file permissions and options. In order to access the package management menu you should log in as administrator of your forum and then navigate to Administration Center>Package Manager. On the following pages you can download and install modifications to your forum via easy to use interface.

Browse Packages

In the Browse Packages section of the package manager, you will see all of the packages that are currently downloaded on to your forum under the Browse Packages section. You can install/uninstall them, view details of a package, and delete packages.

Advanced Options

At the bottom of the Browse Packages section there is a link located on the right-hand side of the page. Clicking this will add an additional box to the page which allows you to emulate your version of SMF to another version temporarily. Just type exactly the version you want to emulate in the input box next to Emulate Version and click Apply. This is useful if a mod is set to only install for specific versions of SMF but you are certain the mod will still work with your version. Afterwards, use the Revert link to stop emulating another SMF version.

Download Packages

The Download Packages section of the package manager provides tools for loading and installing a package and for using the package server browser. To download a package is to obtain it from some place it is stored. In some cases, the package may be downloaded directly to your forum. In other cases, it must be first downloaded to your PC, then uploaded from the same to your forum.

Package servers

Selecting the Browse button next to a server in the package servers list allows the viewing of the available packages on the package server. If this feature does not work, uploading a package may be used. The Delete button is used to remove a package server listing.

Add server

To add a package server to the list, we should type in a server name (e.g. SMF Mod Site) and a URL (e.g.http://example.com/mods), then select the add server button.

Download a package by URL

Download a package by URL is a quick way to download a package from the web to a forum. URL - The exact URL of the desired modification package. Name of the file – This is an optional value. Should be used when the url does not end in the filename. For example: index.php?mod=5

Upload a Package

This feature is used to upload a package from your local PC to the forum. The Browse button is used to navigate to the package file on your personal PC and then upload it to the forum. After the uploading is successfully completed, we can immediately apply the package or to use browse packages to install it at a later time.

If you prefer you can upload the package or a directory full of package files to your Packages directory, using FTP.

Upload Files

There are two ways of uploading your files to the server - using an FTP client, following our FTP tutorial, or uploading directly through your cPanel account > File Manager, following our cPanel tutorial.

Installed packages

On this page we are able to view the installed mods and the files which are included in every mod. We can uninstall any mods that we do not want at the moment.

We can select the Delete Mod List button at the bottom of the page to clear the list of mods we have installed, however we do not recommend it.

File permissions

We can use this section to review the writable and readable status of important files and directories within the forum directory. Change File Permissions

We can apply individual file permissions settings which we have selected from above.

Options

Settings for FTP Server, Username and Port are used by SMF to make an FTP connection in order to complete certain package installations. The Create Backup versions of replaced files with a tilde (~) on the end of their names checkbox instructs SMF to save a backup version of any file that is changed or replaced during installation.

Further reading:

How to Manage Newsletters and Announcements in SMF

We now look at the options and settings of the news and newsletter section in Simple Machine Forum application. In order to access the news and newsletter section you should login as administrator of your forum and then navigate to Administration Center>News and Newsletter. Please place one news item per box. BBC tags, such as [b], [i] and [u] are allowed in your news, as well as smileys. Clear a news item's text box to remove it.

The “News” page

This feature provide us with the ability to display a short news message. When the SMF is installed by default there is a SMF - Just Installed message. You can create your own message, just click on the Click here to add another item after you write the message press the Save button under the section.

The “Newsletters” page

This feature is very suitable if you need to send an email to a some or all members of your forum. You can check to whom you would like to send email from the checkboxes under the Membergroups. After we are ready with the selection of members we can proceed to the Advanced section of the Newsletters page. On this page we are able to see several options:

Email Addresses - Here we can add additional email addresses to send them the newsletter too
Members - We can add additional members to receive the newsletter
Excluded Groups/Members - Here you can select groups or members that absolutely can not receive the newsletter under any condition
Override Notification Settings - Send this to members even if they have chosen not to receive announcements

The “Settings” page

On this page the administrator of the forum can change the settings and permissions related to news and newsletters.

Groups allowed to edit news items - Select a groups that you would like to allow to add and edit news items
Groups allowed to send out forum newsletters - Select a groups that you would like to allow to send newsletters
Enable XML/RSS news - Allows people to link to the RSS feeds of recent posts made on your forum
Maximum message length - Here you can specify the maximum amount of characters to show for each RSS feed item.

Further reading:

Create Paid Subscriptions in SMF

Paid subscription is a method to give forum benefits to your users in exchange for a monetary donation or payment. With this function, you can choose the name of the donation, amount, and a membergroup that will be automatically assigned to the subscribed user, as well as other options.

Once you have set up subscriptions, your forum members will be able to buy the subscriptions from Profile ? Actions ? Paid Subscriptions.

Enabling the Paid Subscriptions

The subscriptions must be enabled first. This can be done by going to to Administration Center ? Configuration ? Core Features and selecting the Paid Subscriptions option.

Payment Service

PayPal is currently the only payment service supported by SMF.

It is not necessary to enable Instant Payment Notification (IPN) in your PayPal account for paid subscriptions to work. Your forum sends a notify_url, which contains the return url, when it posts a payment to PayPal. This overrides the account IPN settings, and PayPal will send an IPN to your forum regardless of the account settings. If you enable IPN, you will receive an IPN when any payment is made to the account for any reason. If the forum receives an IPN for a payment unrelated to paid subsciptions, it will generate an error, and send an error email to admins if notification is enabled.

Send Notification Emails - Inform the admin when a subscription automatically is paid or changes
Email for Correspondence - Comma separated list of addresses to which email notifications are sent in addition to other forum admins
Select Currency - Selects the currency USD, EUR, GBP, etc.
Enable test mode - This puts the paid subscriptions into "test" mode, which will, wherever possible, use sandbox payment methods in PayPal, Authorize.net etc. Note: The "test" mode must be disabled to make real payments
Paypal email address - The email address which that links the PayPal account. Leave blank if you do not wish to use paypal. Primary PayPal email address - If different for business account.

Further reading: