User Instruction Manual

From Another Web Company

Note, the information on this page might be out of date.
If you try something and it does not work, create a thread in the forum and i'll try and help you out.

I (AWC) would just like for people to take notice of the history tab for this page.

HTPCnz is the one who started this, has done a great job and contributed so much which i think should be recognized. Thanks alot.

This is the making of the User Instruction Manual...

Feel free to add your own contributions, and make comments via either the forum thread, or discussion page located here, in regards to what you think should be included, or/and the format/layout of such a document

[edit] Installation

[edit] Fresh Install

Installing And Un-installing

[edit] Quick-Start

Instructions provided here are to help with a quick setup of the AWC Forum, so to be usable and have the basic presentation taliored to the site.

[edit] Initial Setup

The first things to be setup and changed are:

The forum title
Creation of categories and forums

[edit] Forum Title

The default title of the AWC Forum after installation is 'Welcome to MediaWiki's Forums', this can be changed. Required steps:You must be logged in as Admin:

Go to your `Admin Control Panel`
Click on the `General Options` link under `Forum Config Settings`

Here you can change the Forums title and Sub-title
You will see |$| in the current forum title field, if you leave those symbols they will automatically be replaced with the name of your wiki.

[edit] Adding new Categories and Forums

Categories are what holds the forums, used to group similar forums together. To add categories, take the following steps:

You must be logged in as Admin:

Go into the 'Admin Control Panel'
Select 'Add/Delete Category'
In the boxes provided, include the following:
1. Title - recommend something descriptive but brief of all the forums to be contained within
2. Order - not required but does allow the categories to be put in order of your preference
3. Permission - by default it is set to 'everyone', but this can be set to only allow those with the correct permissions to be able to view the category
4. Description - recommend something descriptive of all the forums contained within, in more detail than the title
Select the 'Submit' button
Done, check the forum main page to see the result

Note: A category will not show unless it has at least 1 forum within, to do this, follow the steps provided below for making a forum

Forums are what hold the threads, threads that are generally within the scope of the subject highlighted in the forum title. The setup of forums are identical to that of setting up categories.
To add forums, take the following steps:

Go into the 'Admin Control Panel'
Select 'Add/Delete Forum'
In the boxes provided, include the following:
1. Title - recommend something descriptive but brief of all the threads to be contained within
2. Order - not required but does allow the forums to be put in order of your preference
3. Permission - by default it is set to 'everyone', but this can be set to only allow those with the correct permissions to be able to view the forum
4. Description - recommend something descriptive of all the threads contained within, in more detail than the title
Select the 'Submit' button
Done, check the forum main page to see the result

[edit] Editing Categories or Forums

After the forum is first installed you will see one test category and one test forum section.

You must be logged in as Admin:

1. Click on the asterisk (*) and you will be brought the to editing fields.

[edit] Member Permissions

[edit] Admin

Like all other software, the Admin has full control over all settings and options, including:

Adding, Editing and Deleting of forums and categories
Locking, Pinning, Moving and Announcing threads
Limits: thread titles, signature length, number of threads to display in forum, etc.
Forum tag control
Adding, Editing or Deleting of text displayed in forum - language packs

Full list of Permission settings can be found here.

[edit] Moderator

A forum moderator is a user who has been given additional permissions by the wiki Bureaucrat, giving them the ability to carry out moderation tasks, including:

Sticky Threads
Lock Threads
Move Threads
Delete Posts
Delete Threads
Edit Posts

Mod options can be found here.

[edit] Member

A normal member is one that by default, has limited permissions, including:

Start new threads (depending on permissions)
Post in threads (depending on permissions)
Edit their own thread (depending on permissions)
Have their own avatar (depending on permissions)
Have their own signature
Have their own avatar
Control if signatures or avatars are shown within threads
Control how often a signatures is shown with-in a thread

MemCP options can be found here.

[edit] Displaying forums in the wiki

There are three methods to place AWC forum information and links into your Mediawiki site, which create better integration.

Forum Tag. Allows you to display a list of the discussion threads in virtually any part of any page on your wiki. You can configure which forums to include, how many threads, and how much information you want displayed.
Poll Tag. If you have a poll on your forums, this will display the poll and the results the wiki page of your choice.
Menu Tag. A nice little menu link system for your Mediawiki navigation menu.

[edit] Displaying wiki pages in the forum

The Wiki tag allows you to insert a page from your wiki into a post on AWC forum. This is useful when discussing a certain article or topic in the forums, or if you want to have a focused development of a certain article. See Wiki tag for usage details.

[edit] Missed Posts

[edit] Search

[edit] Quick Search

[edit] Full Search

[edit] More info

[edit] Anonymous posting

Without IP logging.

There is a simple workaround to for this, but might be not suitable for everyone.

Locate index.php in your mediawiki's directory and

AFTER

<?php

WRITE

$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] = '127.0.0.1';
$_SERVER['REMOTE_HOST'] = 'localhost';

This will make the whole mediawiki anonym, so every guest's and member's IP addresses will be "127.0.0.1", therefore IP ban and similar functions will not work after this. If you have problems with spam, or have a huge site and unregistered users are allowed to edit, don't use this workaround.

Locate perm.php in your AWC forum's directory and set

$wgGroupPermissions['*' ]['awc_Post'] = true;

This will allow unregistered users to post on your forum's. (more info on perm.php)

This info will work its way back to this page, would like to format it a little differently.

Whos here now: Members 0 Guests 0 Bots & Crawlers 1

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