Before using a message board, configure it to your needs. First, open the
Message Boards app in your scope’s Site Administration menu, as described
earlier.
To open the message board’s configuration screen, click the message board’s
Options menu
() and select Configuration.
The below sections cover these tabs.
General Setup
The General tab contains general settings:
Allow Anonymous Posting: Choose if users can post anonymously. Use this with caution—anonymous users tend to be mean.
Subscribe by Default: Choose if users are subscribed automatically to threads in which they’ve posted.
Message Format: Define the markup language of users’ message board posts. You can choose BBCode or HTML. When creating posts, the type of WYSIWYG editor presented to users depends on which option is enabled. Both editors have a Source button that lets users view a message’s underlying BBCode or HTML. Users can compose messages using either the WYSIWYG or Source view and can switch between views during message composition by clicking the Source button. For security reasons, BBCode is preferred.
Enable Report Inappropriate Content: Choose if users can report content as inappropriate. This sends a message to administrators so they can take action.
Enable Ratings: Choose if users can rate posts.
Thread as Question by Default: This automatically checks the Mark as question box in the new thread window. Threads marked as questions display waiting for an answer. Replies to the original message can be marked as an answer.
Show Recent Posts from Last: The Recent Posts tab shows posts from the following timeframes you define here:
- 24 hours
- 7 days (default)
- 30 days
- 365 days
After the allotted time has passed, the post expires from Recent Posts, but is still accessible everywhere else in the message board.
Email Setup
Use these tabs to configure how the Message Boards app handles email notifications:
Email From: The name and email address that sends email notifications.
The default administrator account’s name and email address are from the
admin.email.from.name and admin.email.from.address
portal properties. These were set in the Basic Configuration Wizard when
installing Liferay DXP. Make sure to update this email address to a valid one
that can be dedicated to notifications.
HTML Format: Support HTML in these emails.
Definition of Terms: Shows variables you can use in the email templates you’ll define next.
Message Added Email: Create a template for email users receive when a message is added to a topic they subscribe to.
- Enabled: Whether automatic emails are sent to subscribed users.
- Subject: Choose a prefix for the email’s subject line. This lets users set up message filters in their email clients for these notifications.
- Body: The message body content. Use the variables defined in Definition of Terms to customize this content for users.
- Definition of Terms: Shows variables you can use in the email templates.
Message Updated Email: This tab is identical to the Message Added Email tab, except it defines the email that users receive when a post is updated.
Thread Priorities
The Thread Priorities tab defines custom priorities for message threads. This lets privileged Roles tag a thread with a certain priority, which highlights it for users. Three priorities are defined by default:
- Urgent
- Sticky
- Announcement
To define a thread priority, enter its name, a URL to its image icon, and a priority number. Threads with a higher priority are posted above threads with a lower priority.
Thread Icons
| Icon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Urgent | |
| Announcement | |
| Sticky | |
| Question |
The localized language field lets you name the priorities in each locale. You can select the locale, update the priority names for it, and save your updates.
User Ranks
The User Ranks tab ranks users by the number of messages they have posted. Default ranks from 0 to 1000 are provided, but you can set custom ranks here as well.
You can also use this to define message boards labels that appear on user profiles. For example, you can use the message boards label Moderator for anyone who is a part of any of the Message Boards Administrator groups: the Site Role, the Organization, the Organization Role, the regular Role, or the User Group:
Moderator=organization:Message Boards Administrator
Moderator=organization-role:Message Boards Administrator
Moderator=regular-role:Message Boards Administrator
Moderator=site-role:Message Boards Administrator
Moderator=user-group:Message Boards Administrator
As with thread priority names, the Localized Language field localizes rank names.
RSS
Message board threads can be published as RSS feeds. The RSS tab enables/disables RSS subscriptions and defines how the feeds are generated:
Maximum Items to Display: The number of items to display in the feed.
Display Style: The feed’s appearance. You can publish the full content, an abstract, or just the thread title.
Format: The feed’s format: RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, or Atom 1.0.
Once you’ve finished configuring your message board, make sure to Save your changes.