CONTENTS OF THIS FILE

• Introduction
• Installation
• Other configuration
• Credits

INTRODUCTION

Advanced Forum (http://drupal.org/project/advanced_forum) enhances Drupal's forum module to provide the look and, with the help of other modules, much of the functionality found in common forum software. Because it uses the core forum module, it uses the node and comment system built into Drupal and is completely integrated, not a bridge.

INSTALLATION

1. Enable all dependencies: Author Pane ( http://drupal.org/project/author_pane ), Forum,
   Taxonomy, Comment. (Optionally: Statistics)

2. Copy the entire advanced_forum project directory (not just the contents) to your
   normal module directory (ie: sites/all/modules)

3. Enable the advanced forum module at ?q=admin/build/modules

4. Visit the Advanced Forum settings page at ?q=admin/settings/advanced-forum

   General:

   • "Advanced forum style directory" Select the style you are using. See http://drupal.org/node/234042 for more information on this.
   • "Use graphical buttons for links" Check this if you want links to use graphical buttons (where available).
   • "Treat all site comments like forum comments" If you would like advanced forum to take over the theming of all comments, even those outside the forum, choose yes. # Forum and topic lists
   • "Hide the created column on the topic list" This option hides the created column on the topic list page, which can't be done purely in theming due to the header tablesort. If you hide this column, it is up to you to change the tenplate to display the information elsewhere.
   • "Get the number of new comments per forum on the forum list" Core forum shows the number of new topics. If checked, Advanced Forum will get the number of new comments as well and show it under "posts" on the forum overview. Slow query not recommended on large forums.
   • "Number of characters to display for the topic title" On the main forums page, the title of the last topic is shown. Because this is a narrow column, it is truncated. This option sets how many characters are shown.
   • "Number of hours before switching to date posted in displays" In the forum / topic listing, recent posts are shown like "1 day, 3 hours ago" and older posts will have the actual date. You control the cutoff here. # Topics
   • "Use topic navigation" Core forum gets the next and previous topics and shows links to them under the top post. This is turned off by default as the query has performance issues and the placement of the links is poor.
   • "User picture preset" You will only see this option if you have imagecache 2 enabled. If you choose a preset here, it will be used for the avatars in forum posts. This can be used to give a more uniform appearance if people have many different sizes for avatars. If you don't want to use a preset, just leave it blank.

OTHER CONFIGURATION

1. Forum settings ( ?q=admin/content/forum/settings )
   • Hot topic threshold: Up to you.
   • Topics per page: Up to you.
   • Default order: "Date - newest first" so the most recent posts are at the top of the topic list.
2. Select content types to use in forums ( ?q=admin/content/taxonomy )
3. Edit the forum vocabulary
   • Check all content types you want to use in forums.
4. Comment settings ( ?q=admin/content/node-type/forum ) [Note: do this for each content type used in forums]
   • Expand "Comment settings" fieldset.
   • Default comment setting: "Read/write"
   • Set Default display mode: Flat list - expanded. (Advforum is intended to be used flat. Using it threaded should mostly work but is unsupported and may have some issues.)
   • Default display order: Date - oldest first
   • Default comments per page: Up to you. (If you chose to have a threaded forum, setting this number to the maximum will reduce issues with pagination and threading.)
   • Comment controls: "Do not display" is recommended.
   • Anonymous commenting: Up to you.
   • Comment subject field: Up to you. If disabled, advforum will not display the Drupal default subject, which is the first few words of the comment.
   • Preview comment: Up to you.
   • Location of comment submission form: Up to you. Displaying below provides a non-ajax quick reply.
5. User settings ( ?q=admin/user/settings )
   • Signature support: Enabled
   • Picture support: Enable this for avatars in the forum.
   • Picture maximum dimensions: If you change this from the default 85x85, you will want to size it in either CSS or with imagecache to avoid breaking the forum layout.
6. Statistics settings ( ?q=admin/reports/settings )
   • Enable access log: Enabled
   • Count content views: Enabled - Needed for topic views count.
     

CREDITS

Developer and maintainer: Michelle Cox ( http://drupal.org/user/23570 )

Advanced forum was originally based on flatforum. Though there is little or no code left
from that module, its authors deserve credit for the idea.

The Naked styles, which are the basis of all the other styles, were created by
stephthegeek (http://drupal.org/user/47874). Previous theme work was done by eigentor
(http://drupal.org/user/96718) and jacine (http://drupal.org/user/88931)

Icons provided by paris (http://drupal.org/user/14747) and yoroy
(http://drupal.org/user/41502)