Administer Admin and moderators
At the top of the admin panel are the commands for
modifying the administrator and adding/modifying/deleting moderators.
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Change Admin Login and Password
This allows you to change the Admin login name and the password associated
with it.
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Change Moderator Login and Password
This allows you to change the Moderator login name and the password
associated with it. From this screen you may also select whether or not
Moderators are allowed to delete users and/or messages.
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Regeneration and backup
The html pages, including the forum index page and individual message
files are generated from an index file (.msglist) and message data files
under the /postdata directory/. Sometimes, you may need to regenerate the
html files. For example, when you move a forum from one server to another,
the html files may have links referencing the old site, and you need to
recreate the pages to match the current site. You don't need the html files
under the posts directory, instead, just copy the postdata/ and archive/
directory, and you can regenerate the files under the posts directory.
AnyBoard does not regenerate individual messages by default, but you
can force it to do this by checking the first box in the above figure.
When you reconfigure the forum, AnyBoard only regenerates the index page,
to make existing messages reflect the change you made, you need to regenerate
the individual messages using this function. When you also check the "Delete
all files under posts" box, all existing message html files are deleted
first, this ensures that the posts/ directory is cleared up. The Date range
limit the number of messages to be regenerated. For a large forum, there
might be thousands of messages, regenerating all of them may take quite
a while, by limiting the date range, one can choose to regenerate part
of the messages.
The "Validate index" function is for verifying the consistency of the
index files for the active board and archive, and it can repair the index
file when you check the "remove bogus entry" box. Index corruption can
occur when an abnormal condition happens on your server, such as system
crash or out of disk space.
The recover function is for restore a board after a fatal operating
system failure which resulted in the corruption of the index file. In this
case, the index file may be totally lost, fortunately, the data files under
postdata/ directory contains redundant index information, and the recover
function uses this to recreate an index. Note, however, upon a recovery,
the posters' IP address will be lost.
Backup uses the archive command set in the script (default is zip) to
pack/compress the board files and return it to your browser, you should
save this file with zip extension.
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Deletion, archive and approval
of messages
The delete function remove messages and their associated files from the server,
deleted messages can't be restored.
The archive function compact and move the messages to the archive directory,
archived messages can't brought back to live discussion and can't be modified
(at least, not from AnyBoard).
If you check the "Private messages only" box on delete, then only private
messages are selected in the deletion screen.
When delete by subject or author, you can specify optionally a match
pattern for the subject/author and a thread depth to display. For a board
with thousands of messages, it is time consuming for your browser to render
a page with large and complex structures, by setting these restrictions,
you can reduce the size of the page for the delete form.
The delete by subject form looks like this,
to delete the unwanted messages, check the boxes left to the subject,
and then click the submit button (not shown). If the "include whole thread"
box is checked, then the messages and their replies are all removed, otherwise,
only the messages themselves are deleted. Once the form is submitted, a
window pops up with the detailed information about the messages that were
deleted.
The Archive message screens look similar to the figure above.
When you enable pre-moderation features (in the Forum Control configuration),
all posts must be approved before showing up on the forum. An additional
button, "Approve" will show up in the admin panel (you need to reload the
admin panel to see it). Clicking on this button brings you to a page similar
to the deletion pages, but with two choices, you can either delete or approve
messages from that screen.
Entering "Support" in the pattern box, and click on the "Approve.."
button, we get:
The delete by author form looks like this:
if you check the author's name and submit the form, all messages by that author
will be permanently removed.
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User management
The delete user function removes a user's registration entry from user
database, if the "Disable it" box is checked, then this user is added to
the .kill file under master configuration directory and is permanently
banned.
The change user's password function can set a user's password by the administrator.
If the "create if not exist" box is checked, and the user does not exist,
AnyBoard creates the user, this can be used by the administrator to control
the registration of users. A AnyBoard forum can be setup to require user registration
but does not allow user to register themselves, and the admin can use this
facility to manual register users.
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Administer online surveys
AnyBoard's integrated survey function allows you to conduct unlimited number
online surveys. A message forum, due to its high visit count, is a very
good place to conduct surveys. By using AnyBoard survey function, you can
take advantage of the user access control already setup in your forum configuration.
To add a survey, click on the "Add a survey button", a page like this
shows up:
You must enter a id for the new survey, which must be alphanumeric. Here we
choose id "ab". The choices of answers are entered in the format index=answer,
one per line. The "List this survey in index" check box determines whether
the new survey is listed on the polls/index.html page. After submitting
the form, a set of Java(tm)script and HTML files are created/modified, under the
polls/ directory of the forum.
| File name |
Purpose |
| ab.html |
survey html page |
| ab_res.html |
survey result page |
| ab.js |
survey javascript |
| ab_res.js |
survey result javascript |
| index.html |
survey & result html page for all listed surveys |
| index.js |
survey & result javascript for all listed surveys |
The HTML pages can be linked from other pages. The Java(tm)scripts are for
embedding the survey/result into another page. To embed the survey form
on a page, add the following code:
<SCRIPT SRC="http://your-site/your-forum-dir/polls/ab.js">
</SCRIPT>
If you don't see the voting booth, go to <a href="http://your-site/your-forum-dir/polls/ab.html">here</a>
Of course, the Java(tm)script only works on a Java(tm)script capable browser (such
as IE3 and Netscape 3 and up), for this reason, we also added a link to the
HTML survey page.
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Other functions
The "Send test message" function allows you to test if email will work
(even for non-Gold versions).
The "View login records" function allows you to see the login activity
on your forum.
Sample admin login record
The "Upload" function allows the administrator to upload files to the
forum directory.
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Configurations
Configure board options
AnyBoard has a large set of configuration options, almost all these options
can be set independent of each other. Therefore, the number of configuration
AnyBoard can have is astronomical (2^300). The configuration is organized
in the following sections.
|
Section Name
|
Configuration affected
|
Examples
|
| Label |
Various fixed strings in AnyBoard, such as
the words "Post Message". In most cases, you can set them to a <IMG>
link to use graphic buttons instead of text. By changing labels to use
another language, one can use AnyBoard for that language. |
To use a small font for the "Post Message" label, put
<small>Post Message</small> |
| Fonts |
The font attributes of dynamic text, such
as message subject, message body, author name, posting date, etc. |
Set author name to small font in green color,
size=-1 color="green"
|
| Colors |
The background or text colors of various areas
in AnyBoard, such as the background of post message form. |
Set "Text color for the date of newly modified messages"
to red, enter
#ff0000
|
| Name
& file |
The filename of the index page, alternative
location of password files, etc. |
To use SSI, set "File name of the main forum page" to:
index.shtml
|
| Style |
This controls the overall style of the forum.
Options include whether to display the forum as a threaded message board,
whether to column justify fields, whether to use frame interface, etc. |
To always stick the whole thread together, check the box
for
"Always show the full thread"
|
| Presentation |
This section mainly controls the header/footer
sections of various pages. If you need to add banner ads to your pages,
this is the place to look at. |
To add a new line between each topics, set "Separator between
topics" to:
<br>
|
| Moods |
This is for you to set the icons for various
emoticons. |
To set the smile icon to an image,
<img src="/images/smiley.gif">
|
| Confirmation |
Setup the confirmation page which displays
after accepting a user's post. |
To say "Congratulations, your message has been added", change
"Thank you," to
Congratulations
|
| Error |
Standard error messages. Especially useful
for non English environment. |
Change this for another language. |
| Navigation
bar |
Configures the navigation bar for the main
index page and the archive index page. |
To hide the admin link from the nav bar, remove ADMLNK
from the layout configuration. More on this later. |
| Control |
General control options for the forum. |
To record posters' domain name, check the box for "Record
posters' hostname besides IP address" |
| Posting
policy |
Control how posting is restricted. |
To allow file uploading, but do not display the uploaded
file, check the box for "Enable file-uploading" AND the box for "Do
not show uploaded files in message". |
| Notification |
Control how email notification is used. |
If you want users to receive notifications, check the box
for "Allow registered user to choose to be in Notifiee list" |
| Chat |
Configure the chat room. |
To set the number of messages lines to 20, change the setting
for "Number of messages to display". |
The administrator can configure the board by selecting one category
and click on the Configure button. One can also reconfigure a forum using
one or all configuration sections of a template, such as the one for AnyBoard
support, included in the AnyBoard distribution.
The configurable parameters are entered in the following three types
of html form entries,
| Type |
General guideline
for data |
| Single line text field |
Labels, colors, fonts, sizes, etc. No single quotes (' )
allowed |
| Multi-line text area |
Usually used for html code. Any text data. |
| Check box |
Checked for true, not checked for false. |
For instance, a portion of the Colors configuration screen looks like
this
The Mood configuration looks like
This page
list all the configuration parameters, and their meaning are explained
in more detail below.
(The following is not a complete list, as new features are getting added frequently)
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Configure Control Options
The "Control" screen allows configuration of the following options:
Require
posters to enable Cookies:
When enabled, users cannot post if they do not enable cookies. AnyBoard
uses cookies for several functions, including registration, counting user
violations, allowing users to edit messages, tracking and exposure of posters
with multiple identities, and more.
Display Posters Aliases:
By tracking the IP Address of a user, AnyBoard can determine when a
user is creating multiple user accounts and "expose" the user. Tracking
still occurs even if this feature is turned off.
Auto fill E-mail address:
Automatically fill in the email address for registered users when they
post.
Do NOT show link to forum on login/register
form:
When this is checked, there will be no link to the forum on the login
and register form.
Enable user registration with name and
password:
Allows users to register so they can "claim" a particular User Name.
A registered user will have an (R) sign after the name.
Enforce user password registration:
This forces Users to register to be able post messages.
Enable moderation function:
Posts must be approved before showing up. When this is enabled, an additional
button, the Approve button will be displayed.
Require e-mail validation on user registration:
When enabled, an email with validation information will be sent to the
user when they register. A user account is not activated until he/she accesses
the activation link. You must setup the SMTP server information during
installation for this to work.
CC validation e-mail to admin:
CC the validation e-mail, which contains user's password in plain text
to admin.
Do not share user/password among different
forums:
If unchecked, user name and password are shared among all forums,
otherwise, a user has to register for each forum.
Enable user login:
Once logged in, the user does not need to enter their user name again,
AnyBoard will enter it for them automatically. This can be enabled with
or without tuning on the registration function.
Require user to login first:
This option forces a user to Login before they can post any messages.
Require user to login first to read message:
As it says.
Allow user to search message body:
This option allows users to do text searches on the message content
and author's names. This is very handy for finding a specific post, or
for finding posts on a specific subject..
List of forbidden names separated by
|:
This text box is where you would the list user names that you don't
want to be able to Register, Login or Post. Applies to the "Subject" or
"Posted by" fields.
(For example, "Test|Make Easy Money|Make Money Fast!"
Disallow user after this many violations:
After this number of violations (using Forbidden Words), the poster
will be locked out from the message board. Setting this number to nothing
(leaving the field empty) will effectively turn this function off.
Automatic purge when number of messages is greater
than:
This number sets the maximum number of messages that will be kept. When
the number of messages is greater than this number, AnyBoard will delete
the excess messages automatically.
Archive purged messages:
Works in conjunction with "Automatic Purge". Instead of deleting excess
messages, AnyBoard will archive them.
Log errors:
Determines whether or not AnyBoard will record errors to a log file
for later viewing.
Enable file locking for maximum system integrity:
Most UNIX servers have file-locking capability (flock). This prevents
messages from being overwritten or merged if server traffic is heavy (or
if many users are all posting at the same time). ALWAYS use this
feature if your system supports it. AnyBoard will check for the availability
of file locking and return an error if it is not available on your server.
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Configure Posting
Policy Options
The "
Posting Policy" screen allows configuration
of the following options:
Disallow posting. Freeze the forum:
Just what it says. Nobody can post new messages when this option is
selected.
Disable follow-up:
Prevents posters from replying to messages, but allows then to post
a new top level message.
Disable message link threading:
Shows message links linearly, rather than threaded.
List of forbidden words/patterns, separated by | (or any Perl RE):
This text box is where you list any words or word patterns that you
don't want a user to be able to use in a post. If they do use any of these
words, a configurable message is displayed, warning the user. Each time
the user does this, it counts as a "violation" against them. Once the violation
count is met, the user is automatically banned from the forum. NOTE: "RE"
stands for "regular expression".
List of blocked IP addresses, separated by | (or a general RE):
This text box is where you list any IP Addresses that you do not want
to be able to use the forums. IP Addresses in this box will be "screened
out" and will not be able to access the message board.
Warning message when forbidden words are detected:
This is where you set the "Forbidden Words" error message you want displayed
to an offending user. HTML is allowed in this text box.
Warning message when failed admin login is detected:
Put some warning message here. Note: failed admin logins are logged.
Allow HTML in message body:
Sets whether or not user may embed HTML code in the message body. This
a very desirable feature for the advanced user, as it allows them to display
images, make selected text bold or italic, etc. With this set, any legal
HTML tag is allowed in the message body.
Do NOT carry subject line over in reply
By default, when user reply to a message, AnyBoard carries the original
subject over, prepended with "RE:", uncheck this box to disable this.
Quote original text when reply:
By default, AnyBoard does not quote the original text in the reply form,
checking this box enables the quoting.
Allow user to add link URL:
With this checked, the user is provided a text box at the bottom of
the "Post Message" screen, where they may enter a "clickable" URL that
will be available to anyone who reads the message. The URL could, for example,
lead to the posters home page or a web site of interest.
Allow user to add image:
With this checked, the user is provided a text box at the bottom of
the "Post Message" screen, where they may enter a URL to an image file.
Users that view this message will see the image specified in the URL.
Allow user to upload file:
With this checked, an additional text box appears at the bottom of the Post
form, which allows a user to select an attachment file to be sent along with
the message text. The uploaded file is stored in the uploads/ directory
for a forum. If the attachment is a GIF/JPEG file, it will be automatically
linked with a <IMG> tag.
Allow user to modify message body after posting:
If set, the user name on the main page will be linked to an "Edit message"
page, which allows the user to go back and edit the messages that they
post. This is an excellent feature for things like correcting spelling
mistakes, adding additional text to the message, etc. To use this feature,
you must also enable the registration feature, because the user must be
authenticated to modify his/her message.
Message can be modified only if posted by registered user:
If registration is optional on your forum, checking this box disallow
the messages posted by a unregistered user to be modified, even if the
user register the name later.
Allow user to delete message after posting:
When this is set, a registered user can delete his/her own posts.
Allow message body to be empty:
When checked, users can fill out the Subject line without having to
put any text in the message body itself. This is very handy for quick,
one line replies to a message or to ask a simple question that doesn't
require any explanation.
Allow user to disallow replies to his/her posts:
If checked, the user has the ability to make his/her message stand alone,
so that others can't post a reply for it.
Allow duplicated subject
By default, AnyBoard rejects a post which has identical subject line
with one of the last 20 posts (maybe the user posted the same message
twice?). Check this allows duplicated subjects, always.
Allow user to rate the posts:
When enabled, a user can rate the messages in 5 star rating scheme. AnyBoard
detects attempts by a user to rate the same article two or more times.
Show rating only after this many votes:
Don't display the average rating until this many votes have been received.
Maximum length of message subject:
Sets how many characters maximum the Subject line can contain.
Maximum length of author name:
Sets how many characters maximum the user's name can be.
Maximum length of message body:
Sets how many characters maximum the message body can contain. Use this
setting to prevent posters from pasting in 500K of text, for example.
Minimum time interval (in seconds) between two posts from the same IP:
Used for detecting "message bombing", where a malicious poster uses
a program to "flood" the board by sending (for example) 1000 messages.
A good base setting is in the range of 30 to 60 seconds. Set to 30 seconds,
an e-mail robot will only be able to send two messages a minute.
E-mail Admin if 20 messages arrived within less than this many seconds:
Sets the number of seconds that 20 messages can arrive in before AnyBoard
will notify you by email. This feature is used to detect a suspicious "flood"
of messages that suddenly begin arriving. (From a "posting bomb", for example.)
Allow user to view configurations of the forum:
Lets the users see how the board is configured, but does not allow them
to change any of the settings.
Physical path (not URL) to the forum usage agreement (rules) file:
Enter the physical location to your "Rules" file into this text
box. This is the file that AnyBoard will show to new users, who must view
and agree to the contents when the "email registration" feature is turned
on. (For example, "No flaming", no advertising", etc.)
The path is NOT an "http:" location, but is the server's
directory path to the file (for example, "/usr/home/yourdomain/newuserfaq.htm")
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Configure Navigation Bar
The navigation bar is enclosed in a table, and the command links are enclosed
in table columns. To allow maximum flexibility in configuring the navigation
bars, AnyBoard uses macro substitution for the various commands on the bar.
One uses the predefined macros for the commands to specify the layout. At the
page generation stage, AnyBoard replaces the macros with the appropriate html
code.
The following table describes the macros and their meaning:
| Macro Symbol (case sensitive) |
Meaning |
| POSTLNK |
Link to post message command |
| FINDLNK |
Link to search message form |
| OVERVIEWLNK |
Link to overview command |
| PREVLNK |
Link to previous page |
| NEWESTLNK |
Link to newest page |
| REGLNK |
Link to user registration page, and my forum page. |
| LOGINLNK |
Link to login page |
| OPTLNK |
Link to options display page |
| ADMLNK |
Link to admin login page |
| GOPAGEBTN |
The HTML code that shows the selection list of pages and
the go button. |
| MAINLNK |
Link to the main forum (on archive index page) |
| ARCHLNK |
Link to the archive page |
| CHATLNK |
Link to the chat room. |
The AnyBoard support forum's (the one used as example) navigation bar
is laid out as follows.
<td>GOPAGEBTN</td>
<td bgcolor=#99ddff align=center>POSTLNK </td>
<td>CHATLNK</td></td><td>FINDLNK OVERVIEWLNK NEWESTLNK</td>
<td bgcolor=#ffffcc align=center>REGLNK LOGINLNK OPTLNK </td>
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Configure Presentation
The "
Presentation" screen allows configuration of the following options:
Separator between topics:
May be set to an image of your choice, a horizontal rule <HR>, a
line of text, or may be left blank.
Depth of links on main page:
Sets how "deep" links will be displayed on the main forum page. Typical
settings are from 4 to 128.
Show subject in bold text:
Shows the "Subject:" line in bold text so it stands out more clearly.
Show dates in short format:
This makes the message link lines shorter.
Show size of message body:
Adds a small text line in the Subject line that indicates how big the
message body is.
Show number of follow ups to a message:
When set, a message topic has a +n sign to indicates that it
has n immediate follow ups.
Indicate on main page whether the user is registered:
If checked, a registered user will have a (R) sign after their name
on the front page.
Indicate if there is an image link in message:
Allows users to see if a particular message has an image link in it.
Ref:
img label in label configuration.
Don't show author's email address in message:
If checked, author's email address is not shown in the message. The
email information is still captured and stored, so the user can receive
notifications.
Show number of visits to a message:
Display number of visits to each message.
Show message which has more than this many visits as hot:
Messages has more this many reads will show the number of visits in
red color.
Show navigate/command bar at bottom:
Adds an additional Navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. Mainly
a convenience for users so they don't have to scroll back to the top of
the page.
Show forum name on nav bar:
If unchecked, the forum name won't show up on the navigation bar.
Show message less than this many minutes old as new:
Set the number of minutes a message is considered to be "new". Messages
marked as "new" have the time and date field shown in a dark green color.
Text color for the date of new messages:
Default color for new posts are dark green, but can be set to a different
color with this configuration.
Inline follow-up messages:
Put the contents of a message and the contents of its follow-up messages
into the same HTML file.
Inline all messages (like a guest book):
Put the contents of all messages into the main page of the message board.
Thread inline message text:
The inlined message text will be indented according to its depth just
like message links on the main page.
Adopt orphan message:
When you delete a message in the middle of a thread, you are breaking
the links to any messages above or below it. The message below the now
deleted one is "orphaned" and would normally become a top level message.
However, when this option is enabled, the orphaned message will be placed
under a "zombie parent", maintaining the threading.
Add link to URL in the message:
Automatically make a hyper link to URLs present in the message.
Replace new line with <br>:
If a user's PC sends a "new line" character, AnyBoard will change it
to the HTML "<BR>" tag. This box would normally be left "checked".
Indent the follow-up links/texts:
Pushes replies to a message "in" from the left edge so they can be easily
distinguished from the parent message This box would normally be left "checked".
Width of the message area:
With the message links area in percentage or absolute value.
Color Selection Settings:
The following items are all color selections, their meaning should be
obvious. All are set with an RGB-hex format number tag, such as "#00FF00"
for pure blue, or "#FF0000" for pure red.
Play with these settings to give your message board a unique look, with
your own personalized color scheme. Remember, that in general, dark text
on a light background is easiest on the eyes. Try to avoid garish or contrasting
color combinations that will give your users headaches.
Background color
of next topic header (This
one may be set to empty)
Background color
of topic header
Text color of topic
header
Text color of next
topic header
Background color
of follows:
Background color
of follows of next topic
Background color
of the navigation bar
background color
of the follow up links in message
Background color
of the post message form
background color
of the command forms
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HTML Code Boxes
The following text boxes allow you to place HTML tags in the AnyBoard screens.
This is where you can really customize the look and feel of the message board.
Any legal HTML tag is allowed. This means you may put text, images, tables,
or any other HTML formatting you want on to the AnyBoard screens listed. The
first three are grouped together- think of them as the "beginning" and "ending"
location where your HTML code goes.
Forum header html, starting from <html>
Html between top navigation bar and message list
Html between message list and bottom navigation bar (if
present)
Forum footer html
Message header html, starting from <body>
Message footer html, ending with </body> </html>:
Post form header html, starting from <body>
Post footer html, ending with </body> </html>
Separator between message header and message body: (Typically
set to a horizontal rule <HR> or to nothing.)
Delimiter at the end of message body
Appears at the bottom of the message text. This is often set to a horizontal
rule <HR>.
Number of message links per page
Controls the maximum number of links that will fit on the Main Forum
page. Older messages go on separate pages, accessed from the "Previous"
link.
Use frame interface
As it says.
Frame set attribute
Attributes of the frameset. Default is COLS="40%, *", for a two
column frameset. Change COLS to ROWS for horizontal frames.
URL of the welcome page
Url of the right or bottom frame. Default is about:blank.
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Forum Font Configuration
This section allows you to set font attributes for various texts.
Suppose you enter the font attribute as
size=-1 face="Arial"
AnyBoard will wrap the affected text with the tag
<font size=-1 face="Arial"> </font>
The following font settings are available
-
Font attribute of the message subject:
-
Font attribute of the author name:
-
Font attribute of the posting date:
-
Font attribute of the posting size:
-
Font attribute of the visit count:
-
Font attribute of the message body:
-
Font attribute of the forum name on the nav bar:
-
Font attribute of the message title (in message file):
-
Font attribute of admin name when posting:
The last font setting allows the admin/moderators to have a different font
in their names, so their posts stand out.
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Configure Label Options
The
"Label" screen allows configuration of the
text on the links or command labels that the users will see. Note that some
of these labels/links may be used in more than one place in the message board
screens.
Any of these labels may also be set to display a graphical image (like
a button) by using the <IMG SRC=...> tag, referencing an existing
image file on your server. The image URL you provide should be an absolute
URL to the image file, for example http://site/images/image.gif
or simply "/images/image.gif".
Alternatively, labels and their associated links may be hidden by simply
deleting the text in the corresponding text field.
"(N)" next to a command label indicates that this command link
appears (or could appear) on the Navigation bar.
"(P)" next to a command label indicates that this command link
appears (or could appear) in the Post Message screen.
"(R)" next to a command label indicates that this command link appears
(or could appear) in the Read Message screen.
|
Command Label
|
Affected Item
|
| Label for Post Message (N) |
Sets the text in the Navigation bar for the "Post
a new message" function |
| Text for Reply (R) |
Sets the text in the link for the "Reply to message"
function |
| Label for Register (P) |
Sets the text in the link for the "Register"
function so the user can get a password |
| Label for Login (N) |
Sets the text in the Navigation bar for the "Login"
function |
| Text for Re |
Sets the text for the "Reply To" field in a message |
| Text for Star used in rating: |
This is used to show the stars for
the rating of a message. By using a <IMG> tag, you can make it look
very nice. Default is *. |
| Text for the label that indicates image presence |
Default is img in red color. Change it
to a small icon may be cool. |
| Text for Rate: |
The label for the rating command. Default is
"Rate it" in small font. |
| String for Posted by (R) |
Sets the text for the "Posted By" field in a
message |
| Text for Post button (P) |
Sets the text for the Submit button used for
submitting a post to the message board |
| Text for Reset button |
Sets the text on the Reset button of the Post
Message form |
| Text for Submit |
Sets the text on the Submit button of other forms
such as the configuration screens |
| Text for Reset |
Sets the text on the Reset button of other forms
such as the configuration screens |
| Text for E-Mail label (R)(P) |
Sets the text that indicates an e-mail address
field in a message or reply screen |
| Text for name label (R)(P) |
Sets the text that appears before the "Name"
field in a message or reply screen |
| Text for password label (P) |
Sets the text that appears before a password
box (for login, post, etc.) |
| Text for Subject (P) |
Sets the text used in the message and reply screens
for the "Subject" line |
| Text for Message (R)(P) |
Sets the text used in message and reply screens |
| Text for Message body |
??????????????? |
| Text for Link (P) |
Sets the text in the Post Message screen "Link"
field (if used) |
| Text for URL (P) |
Sets the text in the Post Message screen "URL"
field (if used) |
| Text for Title |
Sets the text used in message and reply screens |
| Text for Original |
Sets the text in the link that takes you to the
current messages |
| Text for Image (P) |
Sets the text in the Post Message screen "Image"
field (if used) |
| Text for Main Forum link (R)(P) |
Sets the text for the link to go back to the
Main Forum |
| Text for link to earlier messages |
Sets the text in the link to previous messages |
| Text for Overview (N) |
Sets the text in the Navigation bar that "collapses"
the Main Forum screen to show only top level Subjects (see "Newest message
link") |
| Text for Find (N) |
Sets the text in the Navigation bar for the "Search"
function |
| Text for Options (N) |
Sets the text in the Navigation bar to allow
users to view the board's configuration settings |
| Text for Newest message link (N) |
Sets the text in the Navigation bar that expands
the Main Forum screen to show Subjects and all Replies (see "Overview
link") |
| Text for Follow ups |
Sets the text in the message screen that indicates
replies to the currently displayed message |
| Text for Admin (N) |
Sets the text in the Navigation bar for the Admin
Login screen. (You may want to hide this text or use a transparent ..gif
file so users don't see the command link.) |
Top of Page
Configure Notification
Options
The "
Notification" screen allows configuration of the email Notification
settings.
Enable e-mail notification on new message:
Sends an email to the addresses in the "List of e-mail addresses" text
box every time a new message is posted. This can be useful when your message
board is for technical support (notify support), or for work discussions
(notify people in a mailing list).
Let user decide whether to send notification (if enabled):
Gives the user the option of whether or not AnyBoard will send e-mail
notification. This option is only seen when e-mail notification is turned
on.
Message telling user choose notification admin
As it says.
Include full message body in notification:
When selected, the entire message is put into the notification e-mail
that is sent.
Inform posters about notification email delivery status:
When enabled, lets posters know their message has been delivered.
List of e-mail addresses to be notified, separated by comma:
Enter the e-mail addresses to be notified in this text box. (For example:
joesmith@somedomain.com,billjones@anotherdomain.com,
programmers@internal). Entries must have a comma separating
them or no mail will be sent.
E-mail address from which notification is sent.
Notification e-mails will have this as the return address. This is also
used as the FROM address of validation e-mails to the users when e-mail
registration is turned on.
Allow user to choose to receive e-mail notification of responses (suggest
use only if e-mail validation is set)
When a user posts a new message, he/she can check a box to indicate
that e-mail notification of replies to the message is requested. Note,
if the user is registered, she/he does not need to input an email address,
as AnyBoard can take the email from his/her profile, however, if an email
address is specified in the post, it is the one that will be used.
Allow responding author to send e-mail notification to original author
This allows a replying user to optionally notify the author of the message
which is being replied to.
SMTP server for sending email (override script setting):
This allows the admin to specify a SMTP server name different from the one
set in the script.
Top of Page
Configure Name Options
The "
Configure Name" screen allows you to set the forum name that appears
on the left side in the navigation bar.
Note that HTML tags are NOT allowed
in this field. It also sets the file name of the main forum page (default
is index.html), and the extension of all other html pages.
For instance, if you want to add SSI (server side includes) tags into
the pages, you should use shtml for the file extension.
Top of Page
Other Administration Options
"Reconfigure With … Options"
Resets the message board with the stock options.
"Delete User" (and "Disable?")
This button does just what you'd expect- it deletes a user account,
when the Disable box is checked, the user is banned forever. Note: This
feature is disabled in the distribution version of AnyBoard.
"Show User List"
This allows you to view the user list, you can enter an optional regular
expression to display only users that match the pattern.
"Delete Message By: Subject Pattern (*) Depth (*) Date IP Author "
This option allows you to selectively delete messages based on the Subject
line, reply depth, the date of post, IP Address or author. If "Subject"
is selected, all current messages will be shown, you can limit the number
of messages displayed by supplying an optional match pattern and an optional
limit for the depth of the links.
"Archive Message By: Thread Date IP Author"
Allows you to archive all messages that meet the criteria selected,
such as a specific thread, or by date, IP Address or author. Note: This
feature is disabled in the distribution version of AnyBoard.
Regenerate forum
In some case, you need to manually regenerate the forum from data and
index files. For example, when you change an inline option, you need to
regenerate both the main page and individual messages html files.
Recover from data files
The indexes from which main page is generated are stored in a separate
file, this function allows you to regenerate the index from the individual
data files. For example, if you had a operating system crash and the index
is lost, you can recover using this function.
Please note, some of the features are disabled in the AnyBoard distribution
version downloadable from the Netbula site. The rating, moderation, delete
user, and archive functions are not available.
Top of Page
There are many message board programs out there, why
did you create AnyBoard?
We used to use a very popular message board, but that one crashes frequently,
and it is almost impossible to recover from the corrupted file. We also
looked at other message boards, but they lack the features/look we need,
so we decided to write our own.
Why the name AnyBoard?
It means it can be configured as any style message board and works perfectly.
What distinguish AnyBoard from others?
Total access, total control, total configuration, total integrity...
for both administrators and users.
What are the system requirements?
Perl 5 and http server compliant to the CGI standard.
Note: IIS is not compliant to the CGI standard, we have a special
code to handle it.
I am using Windows NT and IIS server? Does AnyBoard
support them?
IIS has a broken CGI implementation, the normal installation procedure
won't work for IIS. Follow the IIS
installation instructions.
How did you make it reliable?
When two or more users are trying to post messages at the same time, they
will be updating the main forum page simultaneously. If this is not
handled properly, the message board will be corrupted. Message boards like
WWWBoard suffer from such problems. Whenever two people are modifying the
WWWBoard at roughly the same time, the whole board will be corrupted and
the information on the board becomes inconsistent or totally lost.
AnyBoard is designed to be robust under race conditions. In addition,
on systems with flock, AnyBoard uses flock to protect all critical sections.
With our superior design, even on systems which do not have flock, the
risk of corrupting the whole message board is also zero (though individual
messages may get corrupted). AnyBoard has built-in triple fault tolerance
and error recovery. Even if you delete the crucial index files by accident,
it can still recover.
How do you make it fast?
AnyBoard is designed and written by software engineers who have in-depth
knowledge of operating systems, networking, and Perl 5. It does things
as fast as possible. Firstly, don't be scared by the size of the AnyBoard
script. When AnyBoard is executed, not all of its near 5000 lines of code
is compiled by Perl. Instead, the code is compiled as needed. You can time
the compilation time by doing a dry run of the script on the command line,
it is fast. Secondly, AnyBoard uses very efficient algorithms to do things.
Is AnyBoard mod_perl compatible?
Starting from version 6.2, AnyBoard is mod_perl compatible. mod_perl
allows the perl script to be compiled once and reused by the http server,
thus greatly improve performance. Note, however, most ISPs do not provide
mod_perl support.
How do you make it secure?
AnyBoard uses the UNIX password checking mechanism: passwords are one
way encrypted. All vital operations are authenticated with user names and
passwords before they are performed. Passwords are sent using a cookie,
which makes the authentication process transparent. The cookie is destroyed
upon the end of your browser session.
I want to edit the script to change some look & feel, can I do that?
You are strongly discouraged from doing that. 1) Almost every aspect
of AnyBoard can be configured from the admin page. 2) Editing the code
can easily break the program.
I installed AnyBoard, but got an "internal server error" from my http server.
The internal server error could be caused by syntax error in the script
or missing modules. Make sure that Perl 5 is used and that there are no
simple typos in editing the script. If you have command line access at
the server, run the script on the command line, and see what errors Perl
reports.
Netbula can install the script for you at a small cost (to be determined).
I want to download the passwords anyboard stored, but I can't access the
files.
This problem is caused by the fact that your system's CGI is running
as a user different from your ftp/shell login. To solve the problem, write,
install and then run a one line CGI script to change the permissions. Example:
#!/bin/sh
chmod 777 a_file_or_directory
What is the meaning of the URL
"http://site/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi/dir1/dir2/?cmd=log ?"
Here, the /dir1/dir2/ is merely an additional parameter passed
to the script. It is called PATH_INFO. AnyBoard uses this to identify different
message boards.
How do I setup a list of forbidden words or names?
The exclusion pattern must be a Perl regular expression. If you want
to disallow a list of words, you must separate them by |. You can use other
Perl expressions that will allow you to exclude groups of words without
entering each one. \sex.* for instance, will exclude sex and any word starting
with it, like sexy, sexual, etc.
I changed the inline message options in the Presentation settings, but
I can't access the old posts.
AnyBoard only regenerates the main forum page on configuration changes.
You need to let it regenerate forum pages AND individual messages.
What does "Require posters to send Cookies" actually do? I know what cookies
are, but what purpose are they used for with AnyBoard?
When enabled, people can't post if they do not enable cookies. AnyBoard
uses a cookie for several functions, registration, editing, exposure of
multiple identities, and more.
What does "Disallow user after this many violations" do? What exactly is
a violation? Can this be turned off?
It means that AnyBoard will lock out any user that has used banned words
as specified in the forbidden words list, after a predetermined number
of times. You can simply set that number to a large number or leave the
field blank to turn it off, in effect.
How can I tell if my system can use the "Enable file locking" feature?
AnyBoard will try to see if it is possible to enable file locking, and
will return an error message if it can't. If it can't, you're probably
missing the "Fctnl" module. Ask your system administrator to fix
or install it, as this is a standard module on most UNIX systems. You
should ALWAYS use file locking if it is available on your server.
If my system does not have flock or I do not enable flock, will AnyBoard
crash?
NO! AnyBoard will not crash. Without flock, it is possible that the
some individual html files or even the main forum page get corrupted, but
that is not the end of the world, since these files are merely products
from the data files. You can regenerate them easily: just login to the
forum and click the regenerate button.
I changed the inline message options in the Presentation settings, and
I can't access the old posts.
AnyBoard only regenerate the main forum page on configuration changes.
You need to let it regenerate forum pages AND individual messages.
How does a moderating message board work?
When you enable the moderating feature, a new message is placed in a
queue for review before showing up in the message board, the administrator
can then click the "Approve" button to view and approve the pending messages,
or click the "Delete" button to delete unwanted messages.
Regarding "Physical path (not URL) to the rules file"- What is a rules
file? What is it for and what does it do?
When you enable the "email validation on registration" feature,
an email will be sent to the user with a validation link. The user needs
to click on the link to activate his or her account. After the user clicks
on the link, they will be taken to a page that has the "Rules file" in
it. These are the conditions for participating on the board (whatever you
want them to agree to). The user must check a box indicating that he or
she accepts the rules, and only then can the account be activated.
If you do not want the email validation/activation, then this will not
come into play (default).
What is the format of the "Rules" file?
It can be a text file, or a file containing html tags, but not
the <html>...<body> header and the corresponding closing tags. AnyBoard
simply copies the whole file and displays it in an html page.
AnyBoard can't send email notifications, it got error XXX.
1) check if Socket module is there.
2) check SMTP server setting
3) check Notifier email address, SMTP servers do not allow email to
be sent from an outsider.
4) If got "550, relaying denied", ask your sys admin for help...
In "Overview" mode, the background image does not appear as it does in
"Newest" mode where you see all the messages. Is there a way to set this?
You must specify an absolute URL (start from / ) for the image.
When reading the actual messages, is there a way to set the background
image or color of these pages?
Use the message header configuration. Since it starts from <body>
you can specify everything like color, font, background image, link color,
etc. The same applies to the main page and the post message form.
How do I detect a "posting bomb"?
Set the minimum interval between two posts from the same IP address
to some number, for example, 30 seconds. If set to 30 seconds, a posting
robot can only post 2 messages a minute. You can also let AnyBoard send
an alarm e-mail if new messages arrive too fast.
How do I ban a user?
You can ban users by user ID or IP address.
What are the names shown in parentheses after the poster's name?
Those are the names he or she used in the past. You can disable this
by unselecting the "Display aliases" feature.
How do I use image icons for the labels (such as Post Message)?
In the Configure Label section, set the labels to a <img src="...">
tag.
How do I remove the "Admin" link on the front page?
In the configure Label section, set the "Admin" label to empty.
How do I upgrade to a new version of AnyBoard?
You DON'T need to go through the installation procedure again. Simply
edit the new anyboard.cgi file to set the few variables (perl path, master_cfg
dir, etc.) specific to your configuration and replace the existing anyboard.cgi
with the new one.
Where is the configuration stored? When I upgrade AnyBoard, does the configuration
remain unchanged?
The configuration is stored in a file named .forum_cfg under the forum
directory. AnyBoard tries to maintain backward compatibility as much as
possible, therefore the configuration will be mostly kept on upgrade. To
be sure, backup your configuration files, and test any upgrades with a
test board before upgrading your existing forums.
I created a forum with a good set of settings. How do I duplicate it instead
of creating new forums afresh?
Simply copy the existing forum (with all its sub directories) to another
directory and regenerate the forum main page for the new forum. You can
do this by logging in to the new forum using the URL
http://site/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi/new_forum_virtual_path/?cmd=log
then configure the forum name. The forum pages will be regenerated.
How do I make my cool configuration show up as a optional setting for other
forums?
Copy the .forum_cfg file to the master configuration directory, rename
it to a file with extension .conf. For instance, if you name it blue-fancy.conf,
then blue-fancy will show up as a stock configuration for all forums
to choose.
Can you explain the purposes of the directories for a forum?
postdata/: directory that keeps the posted data, from which html
pages are generated.
posts/: directory that contains the html pages for individual
posts, these are generated from data files, therefore, you can delete all
the files in this directory and have anyboard reproduce the forum main
page and individual pages.
archive/: directory that contains the archived pages. The archived
pages no longer have their corresponding data files, and one cannot respond
to posts in the archives. If you delete the files in archive, they are
gone forever, unlike those in the posts/ directory, which can be regenerated.
uploads/: directory that holds the uploaded files.
Where are passwords stored?
They are stored in the .fYz directory under the master config directory
or the forum directory, depending on whether passwords are shared among
forums. By default, there are 32 password files, a hashing algorithm is
used to decide which file is used to store a user's password and profile.
This hashing is needed to reduce the size of each password file and improve
performance. For example, if a forum has 3200 users, then each file would
contain 100 entries only.
I lost the admin password, what can I do?
Don't panic. You can manually edit the .forum_cfg file to nullify the
admin password. Afterwards, you can login (without a password) and then
add a password for admin. (more detailed instruction will be provided on
request).
How do I make file X (or directory X) inaccessible from the Internet?
Most web servers provide you with the mechanism to protect a page or
directory. Consult your web server manual or service provider.
Top of Page
To obtain the Gold or Platinum Editions of AnyBoard, you must register
and purchase the respective license. Only the Silver version can be downloaded
directly.
In all cases, the licensee must retain the program's CGI file base name
(anyboard) to allow users to identify the program.
