Documentation
3.3. Forum Admin
The Forum section offers the tools to manage your forums. Whether you want to add new forums, add new categories, change forum descriptions, reorder or rename your forums, this is the place to go.
3.3.1. Explanation of forum types
In phpBB 3.0, there are three forum types. A forum can be a normal forum where people can post in, a category that contains forums, or it can be a simple link.
- Forum
In a forum people can post their topics.
- Link
The forum list displays a forum link like a normal forum. But instead of linking to a forum, you can point it to a URL of your choice. It can display a hit counter, which shows how many times the link was clicked.
- Category
If you want to combine multiple forums or links for a specific topic, you can put them inside a category. The forums will appear below the category title, clearly separated from other categories. Users are not able to post inside categories.
3.3.2. Sub-forums
One of the many new features in phpBB 3.0 are sub-forums. Especially bulletin boards with a high number of forums will benefit from this. In the simple flat category and forum approach in phpBB 2.0, all forums and categories were listed on the forum index. In Olympus you can now put as many forums, links, or categories as you like inside other forums. (TODO: Diagram of a 2.0 / 3.0 comparison)
If you have a forum about pets for instance, you are able to put sub-forums for cats, dogs, or guinea pigs inside it without making the parent "Pets" forum a category. In this example, only the "Pets" forum will be listed on the index like a normal forum. Its sub-forums will appear as simple links below the forum description (unless you disabled this). (TODO: Screenshot)
This system theoretically allows unlimited levels of sub-forums. You can put as many sub-forums inside sub-forums as you like, or at least make sense. However, please do not go overboard with this feature. On boards with five to ten forums or less, it is not a good idea to use sub-forums. Remember, the less forums you have, the more active your forum will appear. You can always add more forums later.
Read the section on forum management to find out how to create sub-forums.
3.3.3. Manage forums
Here you can add, edit, delete, and reorder the forums, categories, and links. (TODO: Icon legend)
The initial Manage forums page shows you a list of your top level forums and categories. Note, that this is not analogue to the forum index, as categories are not expanded here. If you want to reorder the forums inside a category, you have to open the category first.
