Forum types and options

Forum types and options

When the content type Forum is selected while adding or editing a page, a dropdown menu appears on the left with three default forum types available. You can choose the forum type that is most suited to the type of information exchange that you want on that page. You can also Create custom forum types on the Administration panel.

The three default forum types are Discussion, Idea forum, and Q & A (question and answer). When you choose a different type of forum, the name of the button used to add a forum post is changed, as follows:

• Discussion: Add topic
• Idea forum: Add idea
• Q & A: Add question

If no specific forum type is chosen, the forum will default to Discussion forum type.

To edit a default or custom forum type, go to the Admin panel: Content section > Forum types page, hover over the forum type you wish to edit, and click the edit icon on the right.

Create a custom forum type

You can create custom forum types in addition to the three defaults for a customized form of discussion or information exchange.

1. Go to the Admin panel: Content section > Forum types page.
2. Click Add forum type on the top left. The Add forum type window will appear.
3. In the Forum type field, type your custom forum type name.
   
   
    
4. In the Button name field, type your custom "Add post" button name. This button is found above the forum posts.
5. In the Label name field, type the name for a forum post on your custom forum. This name shows with the number of forum posts in the forum statistics on the forum page. (Label names for the default forum types are: topics, ideas, and questions.)
6. In the Empty text field, type the text you want to appear if there are no posts in the forum, or if no results are found in the forum search. (eg. No topics found.)
7. Choose a Default sort order from the dropdown. (See Forum types and options for more information on sort order.)
8. If multiple languages are enabled, click the language icon at the bottom to open a dropdown menu. Select another enabled language, and fill in the fields described above for the other languages.
9. Click Save/OK.

To edit a default or custom forum type, go to the Admin panel: Content section > Forum types page, hover over the forum type you wish to edit, and click the edit icon on the right.

Forum sort orders

There are three sort orders available for how you view posts on a forum page: Recent, Popular and A-Z, or alphabetical. Recent and Popular sort options appear on forums by default. A-Z sort appears on forums only if enabled in the Administration panel. The recent sort has the most recently edited posts first. The first posts in the popular sort are determined by a combination of most replies, most likes, and most recent replies.

While you can choose any sort while viewing a forum page, each forum type has a default sort order that can be set from the Administration panel while editing a forum type.

Enable Alphabetical forum sort

A-Z (alphabetical) sort puts forum posts in alphabetical order by post title. A-Z sort only appears on forum pages if enabled in the Administration Panel. To enable A-Z sort:

1. Go to the Admin panel: Advanced section > Configuration settings page.
2. Type forum into the Search config settings field to narrow the config settings results.

   

3. Find the config setting

   forum.tabs.show.alpha.sort

4. Click in the Value column beside the config setting, and set the value to true.
5. Click Save.

Forum statistics

Forums have a Card that displays Forum statistics. By default, this Card is found directly below the page header, but it can be moved to any of the columns, or placed below other Cards. The Forum statistics Card shows the number of forum posts, replies, likes, and participants. Profile photos of the most active forum participants within a specified time period also show in the Card. The default time period is 14 days, but the time period can be changed via a configuration setting. If no one has been active in the forum in the specified time period, no profile photos will show.

Change forum "most active" activity time period

1. Go to the Admin panel: Advanced section > Configuration settings page.
2. Type forum into the Search config settings field to narrow the config settings results.

   

3. Find the config setting

   forum.summary.active.participants.timespan

4. Click in the Value column beside the config setting, and type in the number of days for the forum activity time period.
5. Click Save.

Change number of forum posts per page

If the number of posts added on a forum exceeds the maximum number of posts allowed per page, posts will display on multiple pages within the forum. Arrows at the top of the forum posts allow users to scroll between pages.

To set the number of forum posts allowed per page:

1. Go to the Admin panel: Search section > Search settings page.
2. Click on the Page Sizes tab.
3. Click in the number field beside Forum, and enter the maximum number of posts you want to allow on a page.
4. Click Save.

Change notification email summary length for forum topics

If you want to be able to view all of the content of a newly posted forum topic in the notification email, you can alter the email summary length with this config setting. By default the character limit for the summary is 256. To alter the character limit for email summaries for other content types, see Notification config settings.

1. Go to the Admin panel: Advanced section > Configuration settings page.
2. Type forum into the Search config settings field to narrow the config settings results.
   
   
    
3. Find the config setting

   email.forumTopic.summaryLength

4. Click in the Value column beside the config setting, and type in the character limit that you want for the forum topic. To set it to have no limit, enter -1.
5. Click Save.