eXo Platform 3.5

## Chapter 7. Organize Your Knowledge

In eXo Platform, you can manage your knowledge base easily through the Knowledge application. Knowledge includes 3 main portlets, including Forum, Answers and Wiki. With Knowledge, you can share information, seek supports through helpful answers and post your ideas.

This chapter covers the following topics:

- Build a wiki through the Wiki portlet. This application provides the content productivity to portal users as a tool to forge the unstructured knowledge. With Wiki, you can create and edit pages by using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG editor. Also, your company can use Wiki as an internal reference, such as work policy or a public wiki for a comprehensive product information. Wiki along with Answers and Forum will complete the ideal combination that helps users enhance their experiences on collaboration activities and build valuable knowledge center for clients.

- Build a forum through the Forum portlet. Forum is designed for the group discussion and user-generated content in which participants with common interests can exchange their opinions on a subject. While Answers is an ideal site for you to find answers quickly, Forum gives deep discussion through your posted topics.

- Build an Answers & FAQs system through the Answers portlet. Answers is a collaborative Question & Answer system similar to Yahoo! Answers or StackOverflow.com but for your own enterprise, where the collaboration is encouraged. With this application, you and your collaborators can post a series of common questions and find answers on a specific topic. Here, you can edit questions, provide answers and edit them. FAQs takes this content as input and publishes it in a clean and quickly browsable manner. You can point a FAQs portlet to one or several Answers categories. As a publishing portlet, it is impossible to edit questions and answers in FAQs.

## About user roles

Please note that each user group has different privileges to perform actions. Some actions can be limited to some specific user groups. Advanced users have the ability to control and assign functions or features that other users can and cannot do within the application. There are five user groups: administrator, moderator, regular user, banned user and guest.

- Administrator is an advanced user, who typically has the highest right when using Knowledge. The Administrator can manage user privileges and he has rights to perform all possible capabilities. For example, in Forum, an administrator can create categories, close/delete, lock/unlock forums; promote a regular user to moderator or create a category that is restricted to a specific user group.

- Moderator obtains a subset of administrator's rights. It means that he has certain allowed capabilities and may perform these advanced actions in a specific area only. For example, a moderator of a category in Forum can only perform advanced actions in the category that he is assigned as the moderator. The moderator role is assigned by the administrator.

- Regular user is defined as a logged-in user who can only use the basic features of Knowledge. The regular user can be promoted to the advanced user by the administrator.

- Banned user is a regular user, that abuses the forum functions or violates the forum rules and policies, cannot use the basic features of Knowledge. The role of the banned user is similar to an anonymous user's.

- Guest (anonymous user) is an unregistered/unlogged-in user who is often limited to a very few features only of Knowledge. For instance, a guest can view topics in Forum but he cannot reply or create new topics.

Notice that there will be no section dedicated to anonymous users. You can refer to the table that summarizes all the actions that different user roles can perform in each application.

## How to access knowledge applications

To access the Forum, Answers or Wiki applications of a space, do as follows:

Hover your cursor over My Spaces --> [Space name], then click the application that you want to access:

Or hover your cursor over My Spaces, then click [Space name] and click the application name on the Space navigation.

### Note

In case you do not see the Forum, Answers or Wiki applications, it means that they are not activated or not added to the current page or space. To use these applications, you need to add them to a page by dragging and dropping the applications from Page Editor/Edit Inline Composer --> Applications --> Collaboration --> Forum/Answers/Wiki to the main page. This can be done when creating a new page, editing an existing page or editing the layout of a portal. You can also configure the Answers portlet as in the edit a specific portlet section.

## Build a wiki

### Overview

This section provides you a guide to use all Wiki features and configure the Wiki application to make it work in your desired way. Before going further, you should know some basic concepts about Wiki. After accessing the Wiki application, the Wiki homepage will appear as below:

Details:

Item | Description
--- | ---
| The Breadcrumb which shows the page hierarchy.
| The Wiki administration area which allows administrators only to configure the space settings.
| The Search box.
| The pages tree view.
| The Page Control area which helps users take actions with the current page.
| The page content.
| The page information. You can click View Change to see changes in latest versions, click Attachment(s) and Revisions links to open the Attachments details pane and the Revisions pane respectively. These two panes can be collapsed by clicking the relevant links again.

#### The page hierarchy in Wiki

Wiki content is organized as a page tree in which each page may contain many sub-pages. The hierarchy is reflected on UI by the Breadcrumb and the page tree at the left pane. When a page is added, it is always defined as a sub-page to the current one. You can have wikis for portals, wikis for groups or users.

#### Wiki Spaces

A space is a set of pages, so the space partitioning means they are independent trees. This separation is to enable Wiki to provide knowledge spaces for different groups.

There are 3 space types:

- Portal wiki: wiki for the current portal site.

- Group wiki: wiki available for members of a group.

- User wiki: wiki for personal pages.

### Note

In this document, Spaces are referred as wikis, particularly portal wikis, group wikis and user wikis.

Any space which has an implicit root page is named Wiki Home.

### Work with Wiki pages

Pages are places where information in Wiki is stored and shared. Pages are stored within a spaces. Actions that a user can perform on a specific wiki page depends on permissions assigned by the administrator. See the Page Permissions for detailed permissions.

In a page, you can:

- Create a page with the simple markup language or the Rich Text editor.

- Edit a page.

- Delete a page.

- Move a page to another location.

- Watch a page.

- View page information.

#### Create a page

There are two ways to create a page:

The first way

In this way, you need to use the toolbar.

1. Go to a Wiki space in which you want to create a page.

2. Click Add Page and select Blank Page or click From Template... to add a page with a template.

If you select From Template..., a list of available templates will appear.

You can:

i. Click Preview corresponding to the template you want to see. The template preview appears.

ii. Click Select corresponding to the template you want to select for your new page. The selected template appears.

3. Enter the title for your page. The page title must be unique.

4. Enter the content of your page by using Wiki Markup or the WYSIWYG editor.

5. Optionally, click Preview to see how your page looks like.

6. Click Save to finish.

The second way

In this way, you need to use the undefined link in a page.

In the Wiki application of eXo Platform, you can add a link pointing to a page which you are going to create later. Such links are called undefined links. These links are often used to remind other Wiki users to create the page.

Add an undefined link for creating a page later

1. Add a link by typing the page title between square brackets '[[...]]' or '[.... ]' (depending on your selected syntax) into your page body.

For example:

Syntax | What you type | What you get
--- | --- | ---
Xwiki 2.0 | [[eXo User Guide]] |
Confluence 1.0 | [eXo User Guide] |

2. Click Save to save the page containing the link. The undefined link is colored in red with the underline.

3. Click this link will open the Add Page form.

4. Follow the steps stated above to enter the page title, content and save the page.

#### Edit a page

You can edit a page at any time if you have the edit permission on that page.

Edit a whole page content

To edit a whole page content, click Edit in the Page Control area. Your page will be switched to the Edit mode.

Now, you can rename the page and edit the page content. In view mode, hover your cursor over the page title and double click to edit page title. The toolbar in the edit mode will be changed to activate the following actions.

Details:

Item | Description
--- | ---
| Switch to the Rich Text (WYSIWYG) editor.
| Display the preview mode of the currently edited content. Previewing a page helps you verify the result of rendering the markup you just entered without saving.
| Open the Wiki syntax help pane.
| Show more syntax help.
| Input the edit reason if necessary.
| Save the current page and go back to the view mode. Changes will be sent to watchers via mail notification.
| Save the current page without sending notification to the watcher.
| Discard the current changes and go back to the view mode.
| The Syntax drop-down list. You can select your preferred syntax here.

Edit a page section

To edit only a section in the whole page content, hover the mouse over the title of the section you want to edit and click .

The selected section will be switched to the Edit mode.

### Tip

In the View mode, you can quickly edit the page title by double-clicking it and press Enter when finish.

#### Move a page to another location

1. Select a page that you want to move.

2. Click More in the Page Control area, then select Move Page from the drop-down menu.

The form to select the destination page appears.

3. Select the destination page.

4. Click Move.

### Note

The Move page action is not displayed when you are at the Wiki Home. You can only move pages inside a wiki space and not between spaces.

#### Delete a page

1. Open the page you want to delete and select More in the Page Control area.

2. Click Delete Page from the drop-down menu.

3. Click OK in the confirmation message to accept your deletion.

### Note

The Delete page action is not displayed when you are in the Wiki Home.

#### View page information

Viewing page information is accessible to users who have the View permission on that page. The page information provides details about related pages of the current page, the hierarchy structure of the current page, the page history and more.

1. Select the page you want to view the information.

2. Click More from the page toolbar, then select Page Info from the drop-down menu.

All information of the opening page, including page summary, related pages, page hierarchy, recent changes will be displayed.

##### Add a related page

This feature allows you to add pages related to your page. This function can be done in the Page Info view and is activated to users with the Edit permission.

1. Click Add More Relations in the Page Info view, then select the related pages in the Select a page window.

2. Click Select to add the selected page to the list of the Related Pages.

The related pages of the opening page are displayed in the side pane as below.

##### View a page history

To access the page history, just click View Page History in the Page Info view.

The History Page appears.

Details:

Area | Function
--- | ---
| Compare selected page versions.
| Allow you to select two versions that you want to compare.
| Allow you to specify the version labels of the page and link to view a specific version.
| The date and time when the page is changed.
| The authors who make changes of the page.
| The reasons why the changes are made (optional).
| Restore a page to the selected version.

#### Watch a page

Watching a page allows you to receive a notification message about any changes in the page.

Watch a page

1. Open the page you want to watch.

2. Click More in the Page Control area, then select Watch from the drop-down menu.

Stop watching a page

1. Open the page which you watch.

2. Click More in the Page Control area, then select Stop Watching from the drop-down menu.

### Work with attachments

Attachments are any files enclosed with your pages. The attachments may be images, documents, presentation or multimedia files.

In this section, you will know how to:

- View all attachments of a page.

- Add an attachment.

- Delete an attachment.

- Download an attachment.

#### View all attachments of a page

1. Open the page you want to view attachments.

2. Click Attachment(s) link in the Page info area.

The Attachment pane of that page will appear:

Delete an attachment

To delete an attachment, click corresponding to the attachment.

Download an attachment

To download an attachment, click the attachment name.

#### Add an attachment to a page

There are two ways to add an attachment to a page:

The first way

In this way, you need to open the Attachment pane of the page.

1. Click the Upload New File in the attachment list pane. The upload window will appear.

2. Select a file from your local device and click Open. The file will be uploaded automatically then.

The second way

You can use this method when editing the page content by WYSIWYG editor (Rich Text editor).

1. Select a page to which you want to add an attachment.

2. Select Edit at the Page Control area. For more details, see the Edit a page section.

3. Select the Rich Text editor on the page toolbar.

4. Click on the toolbar of the Rich Text editor, then select Attached File... from the drop-down menu.

The Link form is displayed as below.

5. Select a file to upload. Now you can choose to upload a new file or select from existing files.

- Upload a new file:

i. Double-click Upload new file or click Upload new file --> Select in the Current page or All pages tab.

ii. Click Browse to select a file from your local device, then click Upload.

- Select from existing files: Click the file, then click Select.

The form to edit the link parameters appears.

6. Provide the link label and tooltip.

7. Click Create Link to update the link.

#### Insert image

1. Click on the text editor, then click Insert Image...

2. Select an inserted image of the current page or click the All Pages tab to select an image attached to another page in the space.

3. Click Insert Image.

### Use the WYSIWYG Editor (Rich Text editor)

WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get. The WYSIWYG editor allows you to edit an wiki pages directly in wiki markup language. This has the advantage of being faster than the Rich Text Editor for some formatting tasks.

You can switch between the Source and WYSIWYG editors at any time by clicking or . In the Source editor, which is selected by default when you edit a page, you have to use the wiki markup language for text formatting, while the WYSIWYG editor enables the contents to be appeared during editing that is very similar to the published result. Thanks to available tools on this editor, you can format your content visually without using wiki markups.

### Note

If the final result is not similar to what you wish when editing a page by the WYSIWYG editor, you can go back to the Source editor and use Wiki markups to edit the content.

When using the WYSIWYG editor, examples of commonly used markup are displayed in a lateral panel with a link to the Full Syntax Notation page for more details.

To learn more about the WYSIWYG editor, you can refer to this guide.

- WYSIWYG editor user guide

### Syntax Help

If you do not know how to use a syntax, you can use the Syntax Help function. The Syntax Help is displayed by clicking from the page toolbar. When being clicked, a lateral pane slides beside the editing area will show all the information of the currently used syntax. The lateral pane can be hidden by clicking in the upper right corner or by clicking again.

You can click at the bottom of short Help Tips form to open the Full Syntax Notation page.

You can insert icons, emoticons to emphasize the content. The usage is described in the Full Syntax Notation page with example so you can easily remember and use them.

Example of Emoticons and icons:

### Work with Macros

By using macros, you can apply extra formatting, functionality and customization to your content. You can easily add macro tags by using the Rich Text editor.

1. Switch to Rich Text editor.

2. Click Macros, then select Insert Macros... from the drop-down menu.

The Insert Macros form appears.

The macro is classified into different categories: Content, Formatting, Navigation.

3. Select a macro category.

4. Select your desired macro from the selected categories list, then click the Select or simply double-click it. For example, if you select the Box macro, you will go to the Macro Parameters form.

5. Enter parameters into the corresponding fields for your selected macro. Click Insert Macro to perform your macro insertion or click Previous to return to initial Insert Macro form.

The following table describes specific functions of common macros.

Macro | Function
--- | ---
Excerpt | Create additional information for the current page and it can be set to "hidden" in the current page, but displayed to add more information as the summary about the page when it is used with the Page Tree macro.
Include Page | Include the content of another page in the current page.
Box | Draw a box around the provided content.
Color | Change the text color.
Code | Highlight code snippets of various programming languages.
Error Message | Display an error message note.
Float | Allow a content to 'float' on the left or the right.
Info Message | Display an info message.
No Format | Keep the content displayed like you type.
Note Message | Display a note message.
Panel | Embrace a block of text within a fully customizable panel.
Table Table cell Table row | Inset a table. Insert a table cell. Insert a table row.
Tip Message | Display a tip message block.
Warning Message | Display a warning message block.
Anchor | Create an anchor in a page.
Children | Display the children and descendants of a specific page in the current page.
Page Tree | Display the hierarchy of a page in the current page.
Related Pages | Render the related pages of the current page.
Table of Content | Generate a table of content for the current page.
Section & Column | Using the Section and Column macros allows you to write the content in columns.

### Work with page versions

When editing the content of a page, Wiki will automatically create a version of that page after it is saved. Thanks to the page versions, you can make changes to the page safely and rollback to an earlier version without worrying about messing things up.

In the Page History view, you can see all versions of a page.

Each version includes the following information:

- Revision numbers.

- Author making changes.

- Date and time when changes are made.

- Summary (if any).

In the Page History page, you can:

- View versions of a page.

- Compare page versions.

- Restore a page version to the current version.

### Note

All functions, including viewing, comparing and restoring, can also be done by clicking the Revisions link at the Page Info bar. One pop-up pane appears right under this bar, allowing you to do the same steps as described below.

#### View versions of a page

To view a specific version of a page, just click a version label in the Page History page. The selected version of that page will be displayed.

At a version of the page, you can do the following actions:

Item | Description
--- | ---
| Compare the current version with the selected one.
| Replace the current version with the selected version.
| Go to the Page History page.
Prev | View content of the previous version.
Next | View content of the next version.

#### Compare page versions

Wiki tracks histories of changes to pages by maintaining a version of the page each time it is modified. To compare two versions, select two checkboxes corresponding to each relevant version, then click .

A page which shows the changes between these two versions will be displayed.

The changes between two versions will be marked with colors:

- Words/lines which are red-highlighted with strike-throughs indicate that they were removed.

- Words/lines highlighted in green indicate that they were added.

### Note

Only two revisions can be selected at one time.

#### Restore a page version to the current version

When you notice that there are changes in the current page version that you are not satisfied, you can rollback to an older version of that page quickly.

To restore an older version, click corresponding to your desired version in the Page History page.

### Note

Restoring an older version will create a copy of that version. For example, if the [current version (v.2)] is restored to the [older version (v.1)], Wiki will create a new version (v.3) containing contents of v.1. The version v.3 will become the current version.

### Work with Spaces

Wiki provides permanent bookmarkable URLs to all wiki pages. Wiki will resolve wiki pages by inspecting the URL used to call it. URLs are in the following form:

    http://hostname/$CONTAINER/$SITE/$NAV_URI/[$OWNER_TYPE/$OWNER]/$WIKI_PAGE_URI

Item | Description
--- | ---
$CONTAINER$ | The portal container.
$SITE | The portal site (e.g,'classic').
$NAV_URI | The URI of navigation bound to a page containing the Wiki portlet.
$OWNER_TYPE | May be 'group' or 'user'.
$OWNER | The wiki owner which can be name of user or of group.
$WIKI_PAGE_URI | The URI inferred automatically from the wiki page name.

Any wiki page should be accessed by a friendly URL. For example:

- Portal wiki URL: http://hostname/portal/classic/wiki/eXo+Wiki+Specification.

- Group wiki URL: http://hostname/portal/classic/wiki/group/platform/Administrators/Admin+Guide.

- Personal wiki page URL: http://hostname/portal/classic/wiki/user/john/Sandbox.

### Search

In Wiki, you can search spaces, or pages in a space and attached files. There are two types of search in Wiki:

- Quick Search

- Advanced Search

#### Quick Search

1. Enter a key word in the search box.

2. Select your desired page from the drop-down menu. You will be redirected to the selected page.

### Note

If you are standing in the portal wiki, quick search will search on all wiki spaces, otherwise it will only search on the current wiki.

#### Advanced Search

The Advanced Search function allows you to search with a key word in a specific space. This mode helps you limit the search results.

1. Enter a key term into the search box and hit the Enter key.

The search results are displayed like the illustration below.

If no results matched with the key words, the search screen informs "there is no search result...!"

2. Click to select a space from the drop-down menu to define a scale where to search for the entered word.

3. Click Search.

### Wiki Administration

### Note

This section is for administrators only.

The administrator has the highest right in Wiki. The administrator can delete a page, change the space settings, set the edit permission for users and more.

#### Set up space settings

For each space, you can manage page templates and change the syntax.

Access the Space Settings page

1. Open a Wiki space.

2. Click Browse, then select Space Settings.

The Space Settings page appear.

Now you can:

- Manage permissions on spaces and pages.

- Manage page templates.

- Set up wiki syntax.

#### Manage Permissions

Wiki gives you the choice to make a space or an individual page to be open or restricted to specific users, groups or memberships. There are two levels of permissions in Wiki: Space Permissions and Page Permissions.

##### Space Permissions

Each space may have its own permissions. Space permissions determine which actions a user can do within the space. A permission can be assigned to any users, groups or memberships.

To change the space permission, open a space, click Browse and select Space Settings from the drop-down list. Click Permission in the Space Settings page that appears.

There are some permissions to a space as follows:

Permission | Description
--- | ---
View Pages | Specify who can view and watch pages of this space, its attachments and history.
Edit Pages | Specify who can edit pages of this space.
Admin Pages | Specify who have the administration rights on pages of this space.
Admin Space | Specify who can administrate the space permissions and settings

In the Space Permissions form, you can add or remove the space permissions of the users, groups and memberships.

###### Add space permissions

In the Space Permissions form, you can add permissions for individual users, groups of users or memberships.

1. Click to assign permissions to a user, a group or a membership respectively.

The form to select the user, the group and the membership appears.

2. Select a user, a group or a membership, then click Add.

3. Click the plus icon to add the selectors to the Owner column in the Space Permissions form.

4. Click the checkboxes corresponding to each permission you want to assign to the selectors.

5. Click Save to commit.

### Note

View, Edit, Admin Pages permissions are applied by default to any pages of the space unless specific page permissions are set. The super user has all permissions implicitly.

###### Delete space permissions

To delete the permissions of a user, group or a membership in a space, just click corresponding to a user/a group or a membership in the Space Permissions form.

##### Page Permissions

The Page Permissions allows you to set the view and edit permissions for a specific page of a space.

1. Open a page of the space that you want to set the permissions.

2. Click More and select Page Permissions from the drop-down menu.

The Page Permissions form appears.

Pages are viewable/editable according to the space permission. On each page, a user with the Admin Pages permission will be able to override the view and edit permissions on this specific page.

A Page Permissions action appears in the page action menu when the user has the Admin Pages permission.

You can add and delete the View Pages Permission or the Edit Pages Permissions for the page. Do the same as Add space permissions and Delete space permissions .

##### Manage a page template

When adding a new page, you are not required to write the content from scratch. You can start by selecting a page template which is actually a Wiki page with predefined contents.

In the Space Settings form, select the Template tab and the form to manage templates appears.

Details:

Item | Description
--- | ---
| Search for a template.
| Create a new template.
| Edit a template.
| Delete a template.

###### Search for a template

This feature allows you to find your desired template quickly from the existing list as follows:

1. Input a word included in the title of your desired template in the Search textbox.

2. Press the Enter key or click the Search button next to the textbox to start your search.

All matching results which contain your entered search term are displayed right below the textbox.

### Note

The Search function is only performed by the template titles and you must enter a complete word into the Search textbox. For example, to find the template whose title contains "daily report", you can input "report" rather than "repo", or "daily" rather "ly".

###### Create a new template

1. Click Add more... in the Spage Settings page and the sample template form appears.

2. Add the title for the template.

3. Write the description in the Description....

4. Write the content for the template.

5. Select the Syntax to write the content.

6. Click Save Template at the Page Control area. A message will inform your successful template creation.

###### Edit a template

1. Click the Edit icon corresponding to the template you want to edit.

2. Change the title, the description or the content as you want.

3. Click Save Template at the Page Control area.

###### Delete a template

1. Click corresponding to the template you want to delete.

2. Click OK in the pop-up confirmation message.

##### Set up the wiki syntax

By setting up the Wiki syntax, you can select the default syntax and allow user to choose syntax while writing a document or not.

1. Click Syntax in the Space Settings page.

2. Click the Default Syntax box and select a syntax from the drop-down menu. This syntax is set as the default for your document.

In case you want to use another syntax, tick the "Allow user to select other syntaxes" checkbox.

### Note

It is highly recommended that you should use such simple syntaxes, such as XWiki 2.0, or Confluence 1.0.

## Build a forum

The section provides you a guide to use all Forum features or to configure the Forum portlet to make it work in your desired manner.

In Forum, the role of each user group is clear and very important. Each role has a set of tasks that they can execute. Administrators and moderators are responsible for setting up and maintaining Forum. With the highest rights, the administrators are in charge of the entire management tasks, including form configurations, users management, permissions, categories, forums, topics and messages. With sub-sets of administrative permissions, the moderators will manage the respective sub-sets of the forum.

The user interface will indicate which features are available to you, based on your role.

- As a regular user, you will have the User bar and Action bar with the basic actions.

- As a moderator, you will have the User bar and Action bar with a sub-set of certain capabilities.

- As an administrator, you will have the Administration bar which is basically the User bar with more administrative actions. You also see the Action bar with the advanced actions on forums and categories. Most of management tasks are shown via these bars.

To have an overall look of actions which users of each role can do in the Forum application, see the following table:

Features | Description | Administrator | Moderator | Regular user | Guest
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
View details of Forum | View categories, forums and many another information. |  |  |  |
Subscribe to RSS feeds | Provide the link to Forum for easy sharing. |  |  |  |
Attach a file | Upload attachments to a topic/post, preview and download attachments. |  |  |  |
Search | Do the simple and advanced search. |  |  |  |
Bookmark | Bookmark category, forum, topic. |  |  |  |
Add a post | Post reply, quote, private post, quick reply. |  |  |  |
Edit a post | Edit post, quote and private post. |  |  |  |
Delete a post | Delete post inside specific topic. |  |  |  |
Add a topic | Start a new topic. |  |  |  |
Edit a topic | Edit topic in a specific forum. |  |  |  |
Delete a topic | Delete topic inside a specific forum. |  |  |  |
Lock/Unlock a topic | Lock/Unlock topics inside a specific forum. |  |  |  |
Add a poll & Vote | Add a poll to topic and vote poll. |  |  |  |
Rate a topic | Evaluate a topic by rating star. |  |  |  |
Add a tag | Create new tags and tag a topic. |  |  |  |
Private message | Send or receive private messages. |  |  |  |
Watch | Subscribe to categories, forums, topics to receive notification mails of new posts or topics. |  |  |  |
User Settings | Change profile settings, personal forum settings. |  |  |  |
Stick/unstick a topic | Stick/unstick topics inside a specific forum. |  |  |  |
Lock/unlock a topic | Close/open topic inside a specific forum. |  |  |  |
Split a topic | Divide one topic into two separate topics. |  |  |  |
Merge topics | Combine two or more topics into one. |  |  |  |
Manage a poll | Create, edit, delete, close and reopen polls. |  |  |  |
Move a topic/post | Move one topic/post from a forum/topic to the other forum/topic. |  |  |  |
Approve a topic/post | Change new topics/posts from pending status to normal status so that guest, normal user can view. |  |  |  |
Uncensor a post | Allow a topic which has censored content to be displayed. |  |  |  |
Show/hide a post | Allow posts to be shown/hidden. |  |  |  |
Manage pending tasks | Manage all topics/posts waiting for moderation in one place. |  |  |  |
Manage a watch | Manage the subscription (watch). Edit and delete subscribed email. |  |  |  |
Ban a user | Ban users from accessing specific forums or categories |  |  |  |
Add a forum | Add a new forum to a specific category. |  |  |  |
Edit a forum | Change the title, description, moderator, permissions of a forum. However, moderators cannot set moderators for a forum. |  |  |  |
Delete a forum | Delete forums from a specific category. |  |  |  |
Lock a forum | Lock a forum so that it can be viewed only. |  |  |  |
Unlock a forum | Unlock a locked forum that allow doing basic action on unlocked forum. |  |  |  |
Close/open a forum | Close/open a forum. Closed forum are still manageable by administrator and moderators. |  |  |  |
Move a forum | Move forum from one category to the other category. |  |  |  |
Export a forum | Export a forum in the format of a .zip or .xml file. |  |  |  |
Import a forum | Import a forum from .zip/.xml file into the Forum application. |  |  |  |
Add a category | Add a new category. |  |  |  |
Edit a category | Edit a category and change properties. |  |  |  |
Export a category | Export categories in the format of a s.zip or .xml file. |  |  |  |
Import a category | Import categories from .zip/.xml file into the Forum application. |  |  |  |
Delete a category | Delete a category and all forum, topic, post inside it. |  |  |  |
Administrate Sorting | Sort forums, topics according to specific conditions. |  |  |  |
Administrate Censor | Define keywords that will be censored in forum. |  |  |  |
Customize the notification template | Define the content of the notification mails. |  |  |  |
Customize BBCode | Add, edit and delete the BBCode tags used in writing posts/topics. |  |  |  |
Add a topic type | Add topic types that help users easily know what topics are about at a glance . |  |  |  |
Set up auto-pruning | Set up auto-pruning to clean a large amount of obsolete and inactivate topics based on criteria. |  |  |  |
Ban IPs | Ban IPs on the whole Forum application (only administrators) and on only specific forums (both administrators and moderators). |  |  |  |
Manage users | Manage user's profile, promote users, ban users, view topic and post of a specific user. |  |  |  |

### Note

(*): Regular users can only edit/delete their own posts/topics.

Before reading, please notice that this document is divided into 3 parts which correspond to different user roles:

- Forum user guide for Regular users

- Forum user guide for Moderators

- Forum user guide for Administrators

### Administrator

With the highest rights, administrators are in charge of the entire management tasks, including configuring and customizing the Forum portlet, backing up data, managing users and granting permissions, managing categories and forums. Administrator has the global role.

`See also`

- Forum user guide for Regular users

- Forum user guide for Moderators

#### Set up the Forum portlet

After adding the application to your Space, you have to configure the portlet settings to make it work in your desired way.

1. Click --> Portal --> Pages.

The Page Manager page will be displayed.

2. Click that corresponds to the Forum page in the pages list.

3. Hover your cursor over the Forum portlet then click in the quick toolbar.

The settings form allows you to configure the Forum portlet in various aspects.

##### Specify the category scoping

In the Scoping tab, you can show/hide categories and forums in the Forum portlet by selecting or deselecting their respective checkboxes.

##### Enable/Disable Forum components

In the Panels tab, you can enable/disable some components in the Forum portlet.

Simply select/deselect checkboxes of the components that you want to enable or disable.

The following components can be enabled/disabled:

- Show Forum Jump

- Show Poll

- Moderators

- Show Quick Reply

- Show Icons Legend

- Show Rules

- Show Forum Statistics

Forum Statistics:

##### Enable/Disable a bookmarkable Forum URL

Before doing this function, you first need to have a knowledge of Ajax. Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is used in the Forum application, aiming at updating a whole webpage or a part of the webpage.

This feature defines how the links are generated in the Forum portlet. You can select to use Ajax or not.

- By not using Ajax, the Forum will generate plain URLs in the links. The added benefit will be bookmarkability and better SEO as the links will be permalinks.

- Using Ajax, the links will be Javascript based and generate Ajax calls. This makes your browsing faster because the whole page is not reloaded.

#### Manage categories

Only administrators can do categories-related management tasks. To manage forums better, the administrators usually build a good forum structure using categories. So, a category is a set of forums containing all discussions about the same subject. See the following diagram to learn about one typical Forum structure.

##### Add a new category

Only when you are assigned as an administrator, you can do this function. Normally, one category is created as public and it allows everyone to access without any restrictions. Meanwhile, one restricted category only allows specific users/groups/memberships to access. Also, you can assign moderators to your category and specify a set of permissions for members in the category.

1. Click on the Forum Administration bar. The Category form will be displayed.

2. Enter the category title into the Title field which is required. (Special characters are accepted).

In the Category tab, optionally you can also:

- Enter the order of category in the numeric format into the Order field.

- Give a brief description for your category into the Description field.

- Make the created category restricted by limiting the number of audiences via one of the following ways:

The first way

Enter names of users/groups/memberships that can access this category into the Restricted Audience textbox. The different values are separated by commas.

The second way

Use selectors next to the Restricted audience textbox.

i. Click to select a specific user from the groups list.

ii. Click to select all users with the specific membership in a group.

iii. Click to select a group of users.

Optionally, select the Permissions tab to specify the category permissions.

- Do the same ways as setting the "Restricted audiences" of a category.

3. Click Save to finish.

##### Edit a category

1. Select a category to edit from the Forum homepage then click on the Action bar when you are in the categories list.

2. Click Edit from the drop-down menu.

3. Make changes on the category properties.

4. Click Save to save your changes.

##### Delete a category

1. Select a category to delete from the Forum homepage then click on the Action bar.

2. Click Delete from the drop-down menu.

3. Click OK in the confirmation message.

### Note

When a category is removed, all its forums are also removed.

#### Manage forums

##### Add a new forum

When creating a new forum, you can also configure the forum notification settings and specify the permissions for members in that forum.

Add a new forum to a specific category

1. Go into the category to which you want to add new forum.

2. Click on Forum Administration bar or click on the Action bar and select Add Forum.

3. Enter the forum title which is required and description in the corresponding fields in the Forum form. The forum title must be less than 50 characters.

4. Click Save to finish.

The administrators and moderators of a forum may want to get updated of what is new in forums under their management. This can be done when creating a new forum.

###### Configure the moderation settings

When creating a forum, you can set moderation-related options as follows:

1. Select the Moderation Options tab in the Forum form.

2. Do actions in the relevant fields.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
Moderators | The username of the moderators.
Auto-fill the moderator's email | Check this option if you want the moderator's email is auto-filled. The email address will be taken from in moderator profile.
Email addresses to notify when there is a new post | Enter the list of email addresses which will get the notification if any new post is created. This field will be filled automatically if the Auto-fill the moderator's email is checked.
Email addresses to notify when there is a new topic | Enter the list of email addresses which will get the notification if any new topic is created.This field will be filled automatically if the Auto-fill the moderator's email is checked .
Moderate Topics | By default, new topics must be always approved and visible to everyone. If this option is selected, new topics will be pending for approval before being viewable.

##### Delete a forum

Only administrators can perform this action. When a forum is removed, all of its topics will then be deleted.

1. Go into the forum you want to remove.

2. Click on the Action bar then select Delete from the drop-down menu.

3. Click OK in the confirmation message to accept your deletion.

#### Manage users

To take this action, click on the Forum Administrator bar. The User Management form will be displayed.

Now, you can search for specific users to edit their profiles or remove them from Forum.

##### Promote a user

The administrator can edit profiles of members and promote any users to an administrator or a moderator.

1. Click on the Action bar. The User Management form will be displayed.

2. Click corresponding to the user you want to promote. The profile of this user will be displayed right below the users list.

To promote the user, you have to edit the Moderator fields in Profile tab.

Field | Description
--- | ---
Screen Name | The name displayed in Forum.
User Title | The title representing the role of user, by default. However, you can enter anything you want.
Forum Administrator | Grant the Administrator role to a selected user or not. The Administration role of the default administrator cannot be edited in the User Management form.
Moderator of Categories | The list of categories moderated by the selected user. Click to select a category.
Moderator of Forums | The list of forums moderated by the selected user. Click to select a forum.

##### Modify user's forum settings

You can modify the forum settings that users had set in their User settings.

Go to the Settings tab in the User Management form.

Now you can modify the forum settings that the selected user has set in their User settings. See User settings for the detailed descriptions in the User Settings form.

##### Ban users

There are other methods to ban users from the Forum application or specific forums and categories. In case you know the username of the user who violated your forum policies, you can search and ban this user quickly.

In the User Management form, go to the Ban User tab.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
Banned | Ban one user or not.
Duration | The interval during which the user will be banned. This field is only edited when you ban this user in the 'Banned' field. In the ban duration, the banned user only can view forums and topics but he/she cannot post replies or send messages.
Reason | The reason for banning this user.
Ban Count | The ban times of the user.
Bans Log | Other log information.
Ban Date | The date when the ban takes effect.

`See also`

- Ban IPs for moderators

- Ban IPs for administrators

#### Administrative tasks

All of administrative tasks can be reached via the menu that appears after clicking on the Forum Administration bar. You can select a desired action from the following drop-down menu.

In this section, you are going to learn how to perform all of these administrative tasks and customizations:

- Set up Sort Settings

- Define censored keywords

- Customize email notification template

- Customize BBCode

- Customize the topic types

- Set up Auto-pruning

- Ban IPs

- Back up Category/Forum

##### Set up Sort Settings

Click on the Forum Administration bar and click Sort Settings from the drop-down menu. The Sort Settings form opens. Now, you can set properties for how forums and topics are sorted in Forum.

- Sort Forums by: Sort forums by several criteria: name, order, lock status, creation date, modification date, topic count and post count.

- Direction: Sort forums in the Ascending or Descending order.

- Sort Topics by: Sort topics by name, lock status, creation date, modification date, date of last post, post count, view count, attachments count.

- Direction: Sort topics in the Ascending or Descending order.

##### Define censored keywords

Censored keywords are those which are specified as inappropriate in the Forum application. If any topics or posts contain censored keywords, they will be hidden until being verified by Administrators or Moderators. Click on the Forum Administration bar and click Censor Keywords from the drop-down menu. The Censor Keyword form will be displayed.

Enter censored keywords in the Censored Keywords field. Keywords are separated by commas.

##### Customize an email notification template

If there are new posts in the category or topic that a user has watched, the user will receive the email notification like this.

This section will describe how to create and edit the email templates that can be used to send notification emails to users.

Click on the Forum Administration bar and click Notifications from the drop-down menu to open the Notifications form.

The Notification form consists of two tabs:

- New Post Notification: allow you to customize the template of the notification email when there is a new post/topic in categories/forums/topics that users are watching.

- Moved Notification: allow you customize the template of the notification email when a category/forum/topic/post that is being watching is moved to another location.

Details:

- Notification Subject Template: The template for the notification subject.

- Add a prefix to notifications: Tick the checkbox to add a prefix to the email notification.

- Content Notification: The template content of the notification email of new topics/posts that can be modified with the built-in Editor.

The followings are variables which can be used in the template:

The common variables for both tabs:

- VIEWPOSTLINK: Will be replaced by the public link referring to the new topic/post.

- $VIEWPOST_PRIVATE_LINK: Will be replaced by the private link referring to the new topic/post.

- $REPLYPOST_LINK: Will be replaced by the private link referring to the topic and a form to reply will be automatically opened.

The variables used in the New Post Notification tab:

- $OBJECT_WATCH_TYPE: Will be replaced by the watched object type (category/forum/topic).

- $OBJECT_NAME: Will be replaced by the name of the watched object (category/forum/topic).

- $ADD_TYPE: Will be replaced by the newly added object type (topic/post).

- $ADD_NAME: Will be replaced by the newly added object name (topic name/post name).

- $POSTER: Will be replaced by the topic/post owner.

- $POST_CONTENT: Will be replaced by the topic/post contents.

- $TIME: Will be replaced by the time when the topic/post was added.

- $DATE: Will be replaced by the date when the topic/post was added.

- $CATEGORY: Will be replaced by the category name.

- $FORUM: Will be replaced by the forum name.

- $TOPIC: Will be replaced by the topic name.

The variables used in the Moved Notification tab:

- $OBJECT_PARENT_NAME: Will be replaced by the forum name (if moving topics) or the topic name (if moving posts).

- $OBJECT_PARENT_TYPE: Will be replaced by the type of the moved parent object, such as forum (if moving topics) or topic (if moving posts).

- $OBJECT_NAME: Will be replaced by the name of the moved object (topic name/post name).

- $OBJECT_TYPE: Will be replaced by the type of the moved object (topic/post).

These variables are used to load the content dynamically. Thus, you should not edit them. In case the template is changed unexpectedly, you can go back to the default template by clicking . You can use the text editor to format the template as you wish.

##### Customize a BBCode

By default, there are some default BBCode tags that are initialized via plugins: "[B]", "[I]", "[U]", "[FONT]", "[HIGHLIGHT]", "[IMG]", "[CSS]", "[URL]", "[GOTO]", "[QUOTE]", "[LEFT]", "[RIGHT]", "[CENTER]", "[JUSTIFY]", "[SIZE]", "[COLOR]", "[CSS]", "[EMAIL]", "[CODE]", "[LIST]", "[WIKI], "[SLIDESHARE]". You can add, edit or delete the BBCode tags.

Click on the Forum Administration bar and click BBCode from the drop-down menu to open the BBCode Manager form.

Here, you can do the following actions:

- Add a new BBCode.

- Edit a BBCode.

- Delete a BBCode.

- Activate/Deactivate a BBCode.

###### Add a new BBCode

1. In the BBCode Manager form, click Add BBCode to open the Add BBCode form.

2. Input values into the Add BBCode form.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
Tag | This is the text for BBCode, which goes inside the square bracket.
Replacement | The HTML codes that replace the user-entered BBCode.
Description | The brief description about this BBCode tag.
Example | The sample of the BBCode in use.
Use option} | Allow BBCode tag to have option or not.
Preview dialog | Preview the rendered BBCodes.
| Click this icon to see descriptions of each field.

3. Optionally, click Preview to preview your created BBCode tag.

4. Click Save to finish or Reset to clear all input fields.

###### Edit a BBCode

1. Click corresponding to the relevant BBCode tag in the BBCode Manager form.

2. Make changes to the BBCode tag.

3. Click Preview to preview the BBCode tag after being edited, or click Save to finish your changes.

###### Delete a BBCode

Simply click corresponding to the BBCode you want to delete in the BBCode Manager form and then select OK in the confirmation message to accept your deletion.

###### Activate/Deactivate a BBCode

Any BBCode can be activated/deactivated.

- To activate an existing BBCode tag, tick the relevant checkbox.

- To deactivate an existing BBCode tag, simply deselect the relevant checkbox. The entered BBCode will be displayed as the plain text.

##### Set up auto-pruning

The pruning allows you to clean a large amount of obsolete and inactivate topics based on criteria.

1. Click on the Forum Administration bar and click Pruning from the drop-down menu to open the Auto Prune form.

2. Click corresponding to the forum you want to set the prune settings.

3. Specify the criteria.

4. Click to check how many topics will be pruned.

5. Click Save to accept settings.

After setting the prune successfully, the auto-prune will be run automatically on the forum that has been set to check for the inactivate topics.

##### Create a topic type

The topic type is the visual indication for other users to know what is topic about at a glance. When creating a new topic, users can select the topic type that they are going to start. The administrator can define these topic types.

Click on the Forum Administration bar and click Topic Types from the drop-down menu to open the Topic Type Manager form.

The Topic Type Manager form lists all topic types and allows you to add new topic types, edit or delete the existing ones.

Add a topic type

1. Open the Topic Type form via one of two following ways:

- The first way

Click Add Topic Type in the Topic Type Management form.

- The second way

Click next to the Type field in the Option tab of the New Topic or Edit Topic form.

(Note that only administrators can see .)

2. Enter the topic name in the Type field then select an icon for this topic type.

3. Click Save to accept adding your new topic type. You will see the new topic type added.

- To edit the topic type, click

  .

- To delete the topic type, click

  .

##### Ban IPs

Administrators can ban IP addresses used by users who abuse the forum functions or violate the forum rules and policies. All banned IPs cannot be used to add posts to all forums in the Forum application. Any users who use banned IPs to add post, will be recognized as the banned user. As the result, the banned user can only view in Forum.

Click on the Forum Administration bar then click Banned IPs from the drop-down menu. The Banned IPs form appears.

- To ban an IP, simply enter the IP address into the IP textboxes and click [Add]. All banned IPs will be listed in the banned IPs table. You can view all posts which are posted from the specific banned IP or delete them from the banned IPs list.

- To view all posts submitted from a specific IPs, click the [Posts] link of the respective IPs. These posts can be viewed and deleted by the administrator.

- To remove banned IPs from the banned IP list, click the [x] icon of the respective IP.

Besides, you can also filter the banned IPs if there are so many banned IPs.

To filter banned IPs, enter a part of the IPs address into filter text box, all IPs matching with filter term will be displayed.

##### Back up a category & forum

The Export function is a best way to back up data in the Forum application. This function allows you to export categories and forums in the Forum application into the .zip or .xml file. When a category/forum is exported, all of its forum, topics, posts and properties are also exported. This exported file can be used to import into the Forum application.

###### Export a category

1. Click on the Forum Administration bar.

2. Click Export from the drop-down menu to open the Export Categories form.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
File Name | Enter the name of the exported file.
Export All | Check this option to export all data in Forum, such as all categories, user profiles and forum statistics.
Only Categories | Check this option to export the selected categories only.

3. Select categories and enter the file name into the File Name field.

4. Click Save.

###### Export a forum

This function is used to export forums and all topics inside the Forum application into the .xml or .zip file.

The first way

1. Go into a forum and click on the Action bar.

2. Click Export Forum from the drop-down menu to open the Export Forums form.

3. Input the file name.

4. Tick the Compress checkbox to export the file into the .zip file or leave it blank to export into .xml file.

5. Click Save to get and store the exported file in your local device.

The second way

1. Go into a category containing the forum you want to export.

2. Click on the Action bar then click Export Forums from the drop-down menu.

3. Select a forum you want to export by ticking the relevant checkbox.

4. Select the Compress checkbox to export the file in the .zip format or leave it blank to export in the .xml format.

5. Click Save to get and store the exported file in your local device.

###### Import a category

1. Click on the Forum Administrator bar then click Import from the drop-down menu to open the Import Category form.

2. Click Browse... or the Upload Files field to open the File Upload form. Browse and select the file to import.

3. Click Save.

###### Import a forum

1. Go into one category then click on the Action bar.

2. Click Import Forum from the drop-down menu.

3. Browse and upload the selected file in the Import Forum form.

4. Click Save to accept importing.

After being imported successfully, the forum and topic data will be displayed properly in the Forum homepage.

### Regular users

This section describes actions that a regular user can perform in the Forum application of eXo Platform.

`See also`

- Forum user guide for Moderators

- Forum user guide for Administrators

#### View details of the Forum application

Once clicking Forum on the Administration bar, you will be directed to the Forum homepage. Here, you can see categories of Forum, forums in each category, forum statistics as shown below:

##### Search

Like in Answers, you can do either of two search types (Quick Search or Advanced Search) anywhere in the Forum application, right on the homepage or inside each specific forum or topic that makes it easy to find the expected information.

###### Quick search

With Quick Search, users can directly type a search term in the textbox. All the categories, forums, topics and posts that have the keyword matching the search term will be quickly displayed in the Search Result form.

For example:

- The Search function on the main bar to search for items related to categories, forums, topics and posts.

- The Search function inside one specific forum to find topics and posts in the forum only.

- The Search function inside one specific topic to find posts related to the topic only.

Do a quick search

1. Enter a search term into the relevant search textbox.

2. Click or press the Enter key to perform your search, or click the Search button if you want to search in one forum or topic.

Depending on your selected object, the results which contain the matching keyword will be displayed in the Search Result form.

`See also`

- View details of the Forum application

- Advanced search

###### Advanced search

The Advanced Search allows users to make a search with particular criteria corresponding to the object you want to find.

To perform the advanced search, do as follows:

1. Click at the top right of the Forum homepage when being in the Forum application or in the search pop-up or in the Search this category/Search this forum/Search this topic/ on the Action bar of each selected object.

Basing on where you want to search: category, forum or post, the search criteria will be changed accordingly.

2. Enter the search criteria.

3. Click the Search button to do search or Cancel to quit. Also, click the Clear Fields button to reset the inputted values.

Matched results will be shown in the Search Result form. There will be an alert message when there is no object matching with the search criteria.

Find in categories

- To find in categories, select Category from the Search in drop-down menu.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
Terms | The keyword related to your desired categories.
Scope | The search scale. With the 'Full' option, returned results are those matching both title and content containing the entered keyword. With the 'Titles' option, only results matching the object's titles are returned.
Username | The name of the category creator. Input the name manually or click to select users from a specific group.
Created between - and | The created date interval for searching. You can input the date manually or click to select a date from the mini calendar.
Moderator | The name of the category moderator. Input the name manually or click to select users from a specific group.

Find in forums

- To find in forums, select Forum from the Search in drop-down menu.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
Terms | The search keyword.
Status | The status of the forums.
State | The state of the forums.
Posts | The interval of forum's posts number you want to search. Simply click and drag your cursor on the slidebar to define the post interval.
Topics | The interval of forum's topics number you want to search. Click and drag your cursor on the slidebar to define the topic interval.
Moderator | The name of the forums' moderators.

Find in topics

- To find in topics, select Topic from the Search in drop-down menu.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
Terms | The search keyword.
Type | The type of the topic specified by the topic type name and its icon. It can be selected from the existing list.
Status | The status of the topics.
State | The state of the topics.
Created between - and | The created date interval in which you want to search for topics. You can input the date manually or click to select a date from the mini calendar
Last Post between - and | The last post's created date interval in topics in which you want to search. You can input the date manually or click to select a date from the mini calendar
Posts | The number of the topic's posts interval in which you want to search for those topics. Simply click and drag the cursor on the slidebar to define the post interval.
Views | The mumber of the views interval of topics in which you want to search. Simply click and drag the cursor on the slidebar to define the views interval.

Find in posts

- To find in posts, select Post from the Search in drop-down menu.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
Term | The search keyword.
Scope | The search scale to search. With the "Full" option, returned results are those matching both title and content. With the "Titles", the results only match the post titles.
Created between - and | The created date interval in which you want to search for posts. You can input the date manually or click to select a date from the mini calendar

`See also`

- View details of the Forum application

- Quick search

#### Topics

##### Start a topic

1. Go into the forum where you want to start a new topic.

2. Click .

3. Enter the topic title, content. The title must be less than 100 characters (special charaters are accepted). You may set other optional properties if you want.

- Click the Attach files link to attach files to your message. The max size for the attachment is 20Mb. Click the trash icon next to the attachment to remove it.

- Use BBCodes to format text, or to insert images, videos and links.

4. Click Preview to see before submitting or Submit to finish your topic.

### Note

In a forum that enables moderation, new topics will need reviewing and approving by moderators before being published.

When creating a topic, you can also add extra properties to this topic:

- Select a topic icon.

- Set the topic options.

- Control who can view or post in your topic.

###### Select a topic icon

When posting a new topic, you may also assign an icon to the topic for the quick visual identification.

1. Go to the Icon tab in the New Topic form.

2. Select an icon category and click your desired icon in the right pane. The selected icon is surrounded with the red border with its name shown below.

###### Set the topic options

Go to the Options tab, you can select status, state, type of the topic and more.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
Type | Type of the topic specified by the topic type name and its icon. You can select it from the existing types. The administrator can add a new one by clicking the icon (Note that only administrators can see icon.
Posts Moderation | Check this option if you want posts to be moderated before being viewed.
Posts Notification | Check this option to enable the notification email when there are new posts in your topic.
Sticky | Check this option to stick the topic. A sticky topic will be located at the top of the topics list. A sticky topic will not fall down in the list if any new posts are added.

###### Set topic permissions

Go to the Permissions tab, you can set rights to view and post on your topic for another users. By default, all users can view and reply on a topic.

To set the permission to certain users, you can enter usernames manually or:

- Click

  to select users.

- Click

  to select users defined by specific roles.

- Click

  to select groups.

##### Edit a topic

Regular users can only edit their own topic.

1. Click on the Action bar. For regular users, this button is only shown when you are the creator.

2. Click Edit from the drop-down menu to open the Edit Topic form.

3. Make changes to your desire. Also, leave the reason in the Reason field if needed.

4. Click Submit to finish.

##### Create a poll

Each topic may have a poll question with pre-defined options for users to select. As a regular user, you can only add a poll question to your own topic. Meanwhile, administrator and moderator can add the poll to any topics.

1. Go to the topic you want to add a poll.

2. Click on the Action bar and select Add Poll from the drop-down menu.

3. Enter the poll question and options.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
Poll Question | Question raised for polling that is required.
Poll Options | Brief content of the poll.
Close Poll After | Period after which the poll is closed.
Users may change their votes | Allow users to change their votes or not.
Allow Multiple Choices | Allow users to vote for multiple options or not.

4. Click Submit Poll to complete. After adding a poll to the topic, is then displayed in the topics list.

To perform further actions on this poll, simply left-click More Actions on the Poll pane to open the drop-down menu. Here, you can edit, close/reopen or remove the poll by clicking the relevant button.

##### Rate a topic

The Forum application provides an intuitive rating experience through a five-star scale. Your choice of five stars means the highest rating for the topic.

1. Go to the topic you want to vote.

2. Click on the Action bar.

The Rate This Topic form will appear.

3. Rate the topic by clicking the star. The number of selected stars will be changed from grey into yellow.

### Note

Each user can only vote for a topic once. The function is disabled in closed topics and with banned users.

##### Tag/Untag a topic

This function is for all logged-in users. Tags are keywords which are used as labels to describe or categorize the topic contents. One topic may have several tag names. Using tags allows you to categorize topics based on the actual content. Even, it can be a better way to find a specific topic than a full-text search.

Tag a topic

1. Click on the Action bar.

An input text box will pop up.

2. Enter a tag name or multiple tags separated by a space or select existing tags in the suggestion list that appears when typing.

3. Press Enter or click Add Tag.

Tags assigned to the topic appears as follows.

Untag a topic

The first way

- Simply click

  next to that tag.

The second way

This way allows you to untag one or multiple topics.

1. Click the tag name to be directed to the tags management page.

2. Ticking your desired topic checkboxes from the topics list.

3. Click on the Action bar then select Untag from the drop-down menu.

#### Post

To post a reply, select the topic you want to reply to. You can reply to any topic as long as it is not closed and restricted. While you are viewing the topic, you can reply to it via either of the following ways:

- Type a message in the Quick Reply box at the bottom of the topic.

- Click the Post Reply button which is on the top or bottom of the topic.

- Post a private reply, or reply with other post quoted.

##### Post a quick reply

You can post a reply quickly with plain texts without taking into account its format.

1. Scroll down to the bottom of the topic to see the Quick Reply box.

2. Enter you message. Use BBCodes to format text insert images, videos, or links.

3. Optionally, click Preview to view your reply before submitting it.

4. Click Quick Reply to send you message.

After posting your post, it will be highlighted so you can notice it easily.

`See also`

- Edit your post

##### Post an advanced reply

You can post a reply with the full editor as follows:

1. Go to the topic you want to post a reply.

2. Click on the top or bottom of the topic.

3. Enter your message in the textbox. Use BBCodes to format texts, or insert images, videos and links.

Optionally, you can:

- Attach files to the topic by clicking the Attach files link. The max size for the attachment is 10 Mb by default.

- Select an icon or smiley for the post in the Icons and Smileys tab.

4. Optionally, click Preview to view your reply before submitting it.

5. Click Submit to finish.

If your post is the last one, its information will be shown at the Last Posts column of the forum.

The icon in the topic title allows you to jump to the last read post in that topic.

`See also`

- Edit your post

##### Post a private reply

You can send a private reply in a topic, which only allows the responded user to view the message content.

1. Go into the topic you want to post the reply.

2. Click under the post to open the Private Post form.

3. Enter your message and send your messages as described in the Post an advanced reply .

### Note

Private posts will not be checked for approval when it is posted in a topic that has the 'Posts moderation' enabled. Private posts are displayed with the label 'private!'.

##### Reply with a quote

You can include a quote from the previous message in your reply to a specific post. This may substantially increase the readability of the discussion topics when it is used correctly.

1. Click under the post you want to quote.

This will bring up the "Quote" form, with the previous message already quoted in the textbox.

2. Enter your message. Edit the quotation if necessary.

i. In the Content tab, the quoted content is wrapped between BBCodes tags [QUOTE][/QUOTE] which is automatically generated. Add your message content before or after this quoted content. You can create a quoted content manually by clicking from the WYSIWYG editor toolbar:

This will generate the quotation BBCodes tag for your message. After getting the quotation tag, enter your quotation between [QUOTE] and [/QUOTE].

ii. In the Icons and Smileys tab, select an icon for your reply here.

3. Click Submit to finish.

##### Edit a post

After submitting your post and you want to change it, you can do as follows:

1. Click under the post you want to edit.

2. Make changes on the post then click Submit to accept your changes. When you edit a post, you also have the opportunity to upload an attachment, or delete an existing one.

##### Delete a post

1. Click under your post that want to delete.

2. Click OK in the confirmation message.

#### Use BBCodes

BBCodes (Bulletin Board Codes) are special tags in bulletin boards to help users enrich their posts with formatting and inclusions. They are useful to provide guarded formatting capabilities to the forum users without the risk of breaking the html markup of the page. BBCode itself is similar in style to HTML: tags are enclosed in square braces "[" and "]" rather than "<" and ">" and it offers greater control over what and how something is displayed.

Depending on the BBCode template customized by administrators only, you may find it very easy to add BBCodes to your posts through a toolbar above the message area on the posting form. You can either type the BBCode tags manually or use the toolbar in the posting form. To easily get the BBCode tags without typing them, simply click on the respective icon which is shown in the toolbar above the message area.

Click on the tool bar to get the full list of build-in BBCode explanations and examples.

#### Public user profile

Every forum member has a publicly viewable profile. This includes information provided by the member, either during the registration process or later via the User settings.

Whenever you see a member's name in a topic, you can view his public profile quickly by clicking his username or avatar and select View Public Profile in the drop-down menu.

The View User Profile form will be displayed.

#### Private messages

This function is for all logged-in users who want to send messages to other users privately. These messages will not be moderated and only viewable to the recipient.

##### Send a private message

1. Click the username or avatar of the user you want to send message then select Send Private Message in the drop-down menu.

The Private Messages form will appear.

2. Enter the username of the recipients and type your message title and contents.

3. Click Save to send the message.

##### Receive a private message

When you have received a private message, there will be a notification on your User bar.

Click Private Messages to open the Private Messages form.

Details:

Tab | Description
--- | ---
Inbox | All received messages which can be viewed and deleted.
Sent Messages | All sent messages which can be forwarded and deleted.
Compose New Message | Where to compose new messages.

#### Bookmarks

In the Forum application, the Bookmark function is to collect links to a category, forum or topic you have visited, so that you can return to that category, forum or topic directly. Bookmarks can be created and managed by yourself.

##### Add a bookmark

This function is for all logged-in users to save links to categories, forums or topics into the Forum Bookmark.

1. Go into the object (category, forum or topic) you want to bookmark.

2. Click on the Action bar or right-click the object title and select Bookmark in the drop-down menu. The bookmarked link will be added to your bookmarks list.

##### View bookmarks

To view bookmarks, click on the Action bar. This will bring up the My Bookmarks form, with the list of your bookmarked links. To view the bookmark, click a desired bookmark title from the list.

##### Delete a bookmark

Simply click corresponding to the link that you want to delete.

The selected bookmarks will be removed from the bookmarks list.

#### Subscribe to RSS feeds

This function is for all users to subscribe to a specific category, forum, topic. If there are any changes, the feed of the subscribed category, forum or topic will be updated. To get the RSS feed, click on the Action bar.

Or right-click the item you want to subscribe to.

The detailed information of the category/forum/topic is displayed on another tab. Depending on which browser you are using, this page may look different. The browser used in this example is Firefox 8.0.

The following illustration demonstrates the RSS feed subscription using the Firefox Live Bookmark:

- Category feeds contain all posts from all topics in all forums in a category. The category feeds shows the title (title of the category), description (category description), link (permalink to the category), pubdate (creation date of the category).

- Forum feeds contain all posts in all topics in a forum. The forum feeds show title (name of the forum), description (description of the forum), link (permalink of the forum), pubdate (creation date of the forum).

- Topic feeds contain all posts in a topic. The topic feeds show title (title of the topic), description (the content of the topic's initial post), link (permalink to the topic), pubdate (the creation date of the topic).

#### Watch

This function is for all logged-in users to keep track of changes in categories, forums or topics via notification emails. Whenever there are new changes, such as new categories, topics, posts created, you will receive a notification.

To watch a desired object, go into the object (category, forum or topic) click on the Action bar or right-click the object title and select Watch from the drop-down menu:

The watched objects are also listed in the My Subscriptions tab in the User Settings form. When being unwatched, they also have been existed in this list.

You will receive the notification message of the successful watching. You will receive the email notifications about new posts/replies of the forum that you are watching as well. In the notification email, you will be provided links that help you go directly to the topic or go to reply to the post. After clicking this link, the new posts in your watched topic will be highlighted.

### Note

Once a category/forum or a topic has already been watched, the Unwatch option will appear in the right-click menu or on the Action bar, so you can unsubscribe from the object.

#### Permanent links

This function is for all users to view and copy the link to a specific forum/topic and share it with others.

1. Go to forum/topic which you want to share link.

2. Click Permalink label at the right corner.

### Note

The page link you want to share is displayed in the address bar of the web browser. You can copy and share it to others.

#### User settings

You may configure your settings yourself, such as personal profile, forum settings and subscriptions.

Click on the User bar to go to the Settings form. Once you opened the Settings form, you can control your personal settings, options and preferences via the following actions:

- Edit your profile.

- Change your avatar.

- Change the watch settings.

- Change forum settings.

- Edit your subscriptions.

##### Edit a profile

By selecting the Profile tab, you can see your personal information and other preferences.

Here, you can:

- Edit your screen name and title displayed in forums in the Screen Name and User Title fields.

- Edit your signature which will be displayed at the bottom of your post. Enter your signature in the Signature textbox. Tick/Untick the Display Signature checkbox to enable/disable your signature.

- Change your avatar by clicking the Update link. Tick/Untick the Display Avatar checkbox to show/hide your avatar.

- Follow your created topics by selecting the Watch topics I start checkbox. You will receive email notifications when there are any new posts added to your topics.

- Follow topics which you have posted by ticking the Watch topics I post in checkbox. You will receive email notifications when there are any new posts added to your created topic.

##### Change forum settings

Go to the Forum Settings tab in the Settings form. You can change preferences, such as time zone, date and time formats and other display options.

Check/Uncheck the Show Forum Jump if you want to show/hide the Forum quick navigation at the bottom of the Forum page.

##### Edit a subscription

Go to the My Subscriptions tab in the Settings form, where you can update or delete existing subscriptions.

- In the RSS column, you can subscribe or unsubscribe your subscriptions by selecting/deselecting the respective checkboxes then click Save. The selected objects (categories, forums, topics) will be updated to the Your personal feed URL is field. You can use this link to view the content of your subscriptions.

- In the

  column, you can edit or delete your subscription email. Select an email then click the trash icon to delete. Enter a new email address into the Your watches are sent to field. Click Update to add your entered email addresses in the

  column.

- Click

  to remove your watched category, topic, post. After being removed, you will no longer receive any email notifications of the removed object.

Next, click Save to accept your changes.

### Moderator

Moderators in Forum are responsible for managing contents of posts and replies before and after they are posted to the category where they are assigned as moderators.

`See also`

- Forum user guide for Regular users

- Forum user guide for Administrators

#### Moderate forums

Moderators can manage all the forums inside their assigned category. If you are a moderator of any category, you can do the following actions:

- Edit a forum

- Lock/Unlock a forum

- Close/Open a forum

- Move a forum

##### Edit a forum

1. Go to the relevant forum.

2. Click on the Action bar then click Edit from the drop-down menu.

3. Edit the forum properties.

4. Click Save to save all the changes.

##### Lock/Unlock a forum

Locking a forum will prevent all members from creating new topics and posting replies in this forum. All topics in a locked forum will be locked also, but their contents are still viewable. Moderators can only lock/unlock the forum that they manage.

1. Go to the forum.

2. Click on the Action bar then click Lock/Unlock from the drop-down menu.

##### Close/Open a forum

Closed forums are invisible to regular users. To administrators and moderators, the contents in a closed forum are still viewable, but creating topics and comments is disabled. Moderators can only close the forum that they are assigned to manage.

1. Go into the forum you want to close or open.

2. Click on the Action bar then select Close or Open from the drop-down menu.

##### Move a forum

You can move a forum into another category as follows:

1. Go into the forum you want to move.

2. Click on the Action bar then select Move from the drop-down menu.

A list of existing categories will appear. Select a destination category to which your selected forum will be moved.

#### Moderate topics

The followings are actions that a moderator can execute on topics:

- Approve a topic

- Edit a topic

- Move a topic

- Delete a topic

- Close/Open a topic

- Lock/Unlock a topic

- Stick/Unstick a topic

- Merge topics

- Split a topic

##### Approve a topic

Moderators can approve pending topics in forums that enable the 'Moderate Topic' option. All new topics added to these forums will be pending for approval. It means that nobody can view these topics except administrators and moderators of the forums. Pending topics are only viewable when they are approved.

The administrator and moderator will know the total number of pending topics at the right corner of their Forum Administration bar and User bar:

Moderator can view the list of topics to be moderated. See View all pending moderation tasks for more details.

Approve topics

The first way

1. Select topics by checking their relevant checkboxes then click on the Action bar if you are in a list of topics.

Or if you are in a topic, simply click on the Action bar.

2. Click Approve from the drop-down menu.

The second way

1. Click on the Action bar and click Approve from the drop-down menu. The Waiting for Approval form opens.

2. Select checkboxes corresponding to the posts you want to approve. You can preview the post when hovering your cursor over the post title.

3. Click Approve to accept your approval. Approved posts are shown normally for regular users to view and take some actions.

##### Edit a topic

1. Select a topic to edit by ticking its respective checkbox.

2. Click on the Action bar.

3. Click Edit from the drop-down menu that appears.

4. Edit the topic as you wish. Leave the reason for the editing in the Reason field if needed.

##### Close/Open a topic

Only administrators and moderators can perform these actions. Closed topics will be invisible to regular users. Moderator can only close or open topics in the category that he manages.

1. When you are in a topics list, select a topic by checking its corresponding check-box then click on the Action bar.

When you are in a topic, click on the Action bar.

2. Click Close or Open from the drop-down menu that appears.

The icon of the closed topic will be changed to automatically.

##### Move a topic

Only administrators and moderators can perform this action. This function is used to move topics from a forum to another one. Moderator can only move topics between forums that he manages.

1. Select a topic by checking its corresponding check-box then click on the Action bar when you are in a topics list.

Or, if you are in a topic, click on the Action bar.

2. Click Move from the drop-down menu.

3. Click to select a destination forum to move.

### Note

The moderator of a forum will be checked for permission. The moderator cannot move topics to:

Closed/locked forums that he does not manage.

Forums to which he does not have the right to add topics.

Forums which are in categories that he is restricted.

Therefore, only the forums which the moderator can move topics are shown in the list of destination forums.

##### Delete a topic

Delete a specific topic

1. Select topics by checking their corresponding checkboxes then click on the Action bar when you are in a topics list.

Or, if you are already in a topic, click on the Action bar.

2. Click Delete from the drop-down menu then click OK in the confirmation message.

Delete topics of a specific user

1. Click the username or avatar of the poster.

2. Click All Topics By [User name].

All topic posted by the selected user will be displayed.

3. Click corresponding to the desired topic then click OK in the confirmation message.

##### Lock/Unlock a topic

This function is for administrators and moderators only to lock inappropriate topics. All posts in a clocked topic are still viewable, but posting reply will be disabled.

1. Select a topic by checking its corresponding checkbox then click on the Action bar when you are in a topics list.

Or, click on the Action bar when you are in a topic.

2. Click Lock or Unlock from the drop-down menu that appears.

##### Stick/Unstick a topic

This function is for administrators and moderators only to stick topics which will be located at the top of the topics list. The topics will not fall down the list if any new posts are added.

1. Select a topic by ticking its corresponding checkbox then click on the Action bar when you are in a topics list.

Click on the Action bar if you are already in a topic you want to stick/unstick.

2. Click Stick or Unstick from the drop-down menu that appears.

You can see the sticked topic in the top of the topics list.

When creating a new topic, you can also make this topic sticked by ticking the Sticky checkbox in the Options tab.

##### Merge topics

When there are two or more related topics, you may want to merge these topics into one as follows.

1. Go to the topics list.

2. Select more than two topics to be merged by checking their checkboxes.

3. Click on the forum Action bar.

4. Click Merge from the drop-down menu that appears. The Merge Topics form opens.

5. Select a destination topic which will be the main entry of the merged topic from the list of the existing topics. Give one name for the new topic in the New Topic Title field if you want.

6. Click Save to accept. After being merged, selected topics will be joined into one topic. All posts of the other topics are displayed as posts below the main entry.

##### Split a topic

A topic with more than two posts can be split into separate topics.

1. Go into the topic you want to split.

2. Click on the Action bar and select Split from the drop-down menu. The Split Topic form opens.

3. Enter the name for the new topic in the New Topic field.

4. Select posts by checking their respective checkboxes.

5. Click Save to complete.

The new topic will be displayed in the topics list with the new name. The last selected post will become the main entry of the new topic.

#### Moderate posts

As a moderator, you have some specific rights on a post. To moderate a post, you need to select that post first by checking its relevant checkbox.

Next, click on the Action bar and select a desired action from the drop-down menu. All the moderation actions will be reached via this menu.

The followings are actions that a moderator can perform on a post:

- Approve posts

- Move posts

- Delete posts

- Hide posts

- Show posts

- Uncensor posts

##### Approve a post

All posts in a topic that requires post moderation will not be viewable before approval. This function is to approve posts which are pending for approval.

You can select to approve a single post or multiple posts at the same time. The moderator can view the list of tasks to be moderated. See View all pending moderation tasks for more details.

The first way

1. Select the posts to approve.

2. Click on the Action bar and select Approve from the drop-down menu.

The second way

1. Click on the Action bar and click Approve in the drop-down menu. The Waiting for Approval form opens.

2. Select checkboxes corresponding to the posts you want to approve. You will see the preview of the post when mouse over the post title.

3. Click Approve to accept your approval.

Approved posts are shown normally for regular users to view and take some actions.

##### Delete a post

The first way

1. Click on the Action bar and click Show in the drop-down menu.

2. Click OK in the confirmation message.

The second way

1. Click under the post you want to delete.

2. Click OK in the confirmation message.

##### Move a post

You can move posts to a topic of your choice.

1. Select the post that you would like to move.

2. Click on the Action bar and select Move from the drop-down menu.

3. Select a destination topic in the topics list that appears.

The moderator will be checked for moving permission. He can only move post inside the forum that he manages. Therefore, at the destination topics list, only the topics which the Moderator who have the move permission, are listed for moving.

##### Hide a post

When a post is hidden, only administrators and moderators can view and mange it.

To hide a post, select on the Action bar and click Hide from the drop-down menu.

After being hidden, the hidden post is marked by 'Post Hidden!' label and regular users cannot view it.

##### Show a post

You can show a single or multiple hidden posts at the same time:

The first way

- Select the post to be unhidden and click

  on the Action bar then click Show in the drop-down menu.

The second way

- Follow this method to show multiple posts.

1. Click on the Action bar and click Show from the drop-down menu.

2. Select hidden posts by selecting its checkboxes.

3. Click Show.

##### Uncensor a post

The administrators and moderators can censor all topics, posts containing censored keywords. These censored keywords are specified by Administrator. All topics and posts containing these keywords will labeled with 'Pending and Censored' (for post).

The first way

- Follow this method to uncensor a specific post/topic.

1. Select hidden posts/topics by selecting its checkboxes.

2. Click the Moderation on the Action bar and select Show from the drop-down menu.

The second way

- Follow this method to uncensor posts/topics in the list of existing hidden posts/topics.

1. Click Moderation on the Action bar and select Show from the drop-down menu. A list of hidden posts appears.

2. Select hidden posts by selecting the respective checkboxes.

3. Click Show.

#### View all pending moderation tasks

Administrators and moderators can manage all pending tasks in Forum easily. The total number of pending topic/posts that need to be moderated are shown right on the User bar/Forum Administration bar.

To open the list of pending tasks, click Pending on the User bar.

The pending topics and posts are shown in the Waiting for Approval form.

This form lists all the pending topics, posts and the created dates. From here, you can approve or delete topics/posts.

Approve a pending topic/post

1. Click the topic/post title in the list.

2. Click the Approve button to accept approving topic/post.

Delete a pending topic/post

To delete pending topics/posts, simply click the Delete This Topic/Delete This Post button. The pending topic/post will be removed completely from the pending list and its forum.

#### Ban IPs

This function allows banning IPs that may be used by users who abuse the forum functions or violate the forum rules and policies.

This function is similar to the Ban IPs tool used by administrators. However, the Ban IPs tool used by administrators can ban IP from the whole forum, while moderator can only ban IP in a specific forum only.

Ban IP on a specific forum

1. Go to the forum you want to ban IP.

2. Click on the Action bar and select Banned IPs from the drop-down menu. The Banned IPs form opens.

3. Do the same actions as the Ban IPs section of Administrators.

## Build an Answers & FAQs system

### Administrator

The administrators have the global role and take care of the entire management tasks.

#### Set up the Answers portlet

### Note

In case the Answers portlet has not been activated yet, you need to add it to a page by dragging and dropping it from Page Editor/Edit Inline Composer --> Applications --> Collaboration --> Answers to the main pane. This can be done when creating a new page or editing an existing page or editing the layout of a portal. You can also configure the Answers portlet as in the sect-User_Guide-Dashboard_Portlet-Edit_Specific_Portlet section.

When adding a portlet to a page, you have to configure this portlet to make it work in your desired way.

Configure the Answers portlet

1. Open the page edit mode via one of the following ways:

- The first way

i. Click --> Portal --> Page on the Administration bar.

ii. Click that corresponds to the page containing the Answers portlet in the Page Management page.

- The second way

i. Select a portal that contains a page with the Answers portlet, then open the page.

ii. Hover your cursor over Edit --> Page, then click Layout.

Now, you should be in the page edit mode.

3. Hover your cursor over the Answers portlet, then click on the quick toolbar that appears.

4. Make changes in the Answer Portlet form.

In this form, you can:

- Change the display mode

- Customize email notification template

- Enable the "Discuss in Forum" feature

##### Change the display mode

In the Display Mode tab, you can set all the default display properties of the Answers application, including:

- Display: Display all entries in the Answers application for administrators and moderators..

  - All: All entries, including approved and unapproved entries/questions, are displayed in a list when administrators and moderators view.

  - Approved: Only approved entries are displayed in the list when administrators and moderators view.

- Order by: The order to display all questions in the Answers application.

  - Created Date: Entries in the list are displayed to the entries's created date order.

  - Alphabet/Index: Entries in the list are displayed to the alphabet order.

The type of sorting entries in the list may be: Ascending or Descending.

- Enable Votes and Comments: Enable votes and comments to be available in Answers. If this checkbox is selected, users can comment and vote in Answers. If not, these functions are disabled.

- Anonymous users may submit questions: Enable anonymous users to submit questions in Answers or not. If this checkbox is selected, anonymous users are entitled to submit questions. If not, they cannot submit questions.

- Enable Automatic RSS: Enable the RSS feeds function to be available in Answers or not. If this option is selected, users can get RSS information in Answers.

- Display Avatars: Enable avatars to be viewed in Answers or not. If this checkbox is selected, the avatar of eXo members are shown in Answers.

- Allow users to post questions in the root category: Enable users to post questions in the root category or not.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Customize the email notification template

- Enable the "Discuss in Forum" feature

- Define the default category for discussions

##### Customize the email notification template

When there are new questions or answers in the category or topic that a user has watched, the use will receive the email notification. In the Email Notifications tab, change the content of the email notification manually or edit the template for each email notification.

- New Question tab: The content of the email notification.

- Edit/Answer tab: The content of the email notification that has been answered or edited.

- Move Question tab: The content of the email notification that notifies about the question that has been moved to another category.

The followings are variables that you can use in your template:

&categoryName_: will be replaced by the watched category.

&questionContent_: will be replaced by the content of the new questions.

&questionResponse_: will be replaced by the content of the new questions' reply.

&questionLink_: will be replaced by the link for going to new questions.

&answerNowLink_: will be replaced by the link for going to new questions and open pop-up form Answer question.

These variables are used to load the content dynamically. Thus, you should not edit them. In case the template is changed unexpectedly, you can go back to the default template by clicking . You can use the text editor to format the template as you wish.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Change the display mode

- Enable the "Discuss in Forum" feature

- Define the default category for discussions

##### Enable the "Discuss in Forum" feature

In the Discussion tab, enable/disable the Discuss in Forum function in Answers and set the default forum for this function by selecting/deselecting the checkbox.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Change the display mode

- Customize the email notification template

- Define the default category for discussions

##### Define the default category for discussions

1. Click next to the Select the forum field to open the Select a forum form in the Discussion tab.

2. Click a specific category/forum title to select it.

3. Click Save to accept saving changes in the Discussion tab.

Select the category scoping

In the Category Scoping tab, show/hide categories in Answers. The hidden category is not displayed in Answers.

To hide/show any category, simply deselect/select its checkbox and click Save.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Change the display mode

- Customize email notification template

- Enable the "Discuss in Forum" feature

#### Set up the FAQ portlet

The FAQ portlet can be added to a page for users to view questions and answers quickly and easily.

The Edit Mode of the FAQ portlet allows you to set the properties to display questions and answers in the View mode.

Configure the FAQ portlet

1. Click --> Portal --> Pages.

The Page Manager page will be displayed.

2. Click that corresponds to the FAQ page in the page list. Now, you should be in the page edit mode.

3. Hover your cursor over the FAQ portlet and click in the quick edit toolbar that appears.

i. In the Display Category tab, you can control what categories will be displayed.

ii. In the Edit Template tab, you can use CSS to customize the FAQ template.

This is an example of the FAQ template after applying the new style.

iii. In the Preference tab, you can enable or disable the bookmarkable URLs in FAQ.

By not using Ajax, the FAQ will generate plain URLs in the links. The added benefit will be bookmarkability and better SEO as the links will be permalinks. Using Ajax, the links will be JavaScript-based and generate Ajax calls. This should make browsing faster because the whole page is not reloaded.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Set up the Answers portlet

### Moderator

Moderators in Answers manage the content of questions and answers before and after they are posted to a moderated category. The Moderator can read new contents (editing or removing if necessary), approve or activate answers, and more. The moderator has the category-specific role.

#### Manage categories

Moderators can only manage categories that he moderates.

In this section, you will learn how to manage categories. With a category, you can group all questions of a specific subject into one place.

To perform an action on a category, you can select one of these approaches:

The first way

1. Right-click a category from the categories list.

2. Select an appropriate action from the drop-down menu.

The second way

If you are already in a category that you moderate, you can perform all actions on this category by clicking on the Action bar, then select an action from the drop-down menu.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Add a new category

- Edit category properties

- Delete a category

- Move a category

- Export/Import a category

##### Add a new category

Notice that only administrators can initialize Answers by creating first categories and assigning to moderators for each category. Moderator can only add new sub-categories in a category that he moderates.

Add a new category

1. Click Category on the Action bar, and select Add Category from the drop-down menu. The Add Category form will be displayed.

Details:

Field | Description
--- | ---
Asterisk (*) | This mark next to each field means that it is required to enter values in the field.
Category | The name of the category
Order | The order of the category which must be in the numeric format.
Restricted Audience | Select specific users/groups to be restricted from the category.
Moderate New Questions | Check this option if you want moderate all newly posted questions before they are viewable.
View Question Authors | Check this option if you want information of the question poster to be shown.
Moderate Answers | Check this option to moderate all answers before they are viewable.
Moderator | The moderator of the category.

2. Do the same as the Step 2 of adding a new category in the Forum application.

3. Click Save to complete.

##### Edit category properties

1. Follow one of the approaches described in Manage categories.

2. Select .

3. Edit the properties.

4. Click Save to save all changes.

##### Delete a category

1. Follow one of the approaches described in the Manage categories section.

2. Select from the drop-down menu and click OK in the confirmation message.

##### Move a category

1. Follow one of the approaches described in Manage categories to open the drop-down menu.

2. Select .

3. Select the destination category from the list.

##### Export/Import a category

Both functions can be executed on all categories and questions in the Answers home or a specific category in Answers.

Export categories and questions

1. Click to open the Export form.

2. Input the file name to export.

3. Click Save to accept exporting all categories and questions.

The exported file is in the .zip format and it can be used to import to Answers or keep it as backup.

Import categories and questions

1. Click to open the Import form.

2. Locate the file to import, then upload the selected file.

3. Click Save to finish.

After being imported, all categories and questions will be displayed in the Answers homepage.

#### Moderate questions

In this section, the following topics are covered:

- View all questions

- Edit a question

- Approve/Disapprove a question

- Activate/Deactivate a question

- Delete a question

- Move a question

##### View all questions

Each question may be displayed in different ways, depending on the preset properties when creating or editing these questions. To view all posted questions, click on the Action bar to open the Manage Questions form. Here, you can have the overview of all the posted questions in the category you manage.

##### Edit a question

1. Select on the Action bar to view all the open questions.

2. Click next to the question that you want to edit and scroll down to see the Edit Question form.

3. Make changes to your question.

4. Click Save to save all changes.

##### Approve/Disapprove a question

In a category that requires question to be moderated, any new questions will be in the unapproved status and need to be approved before being published.

There are two options when approving/disapproving answers:

- All: all approved and unapproved questions are displayed and visible for all users.

- Approved: only the approved questions are displayed while the unapproved questions are hidden.

If you select Approved, the Moderate Question function will determine the unapproved questions to display or not.

Approve/disapprove a question

The first way

1. Right-click the question title and select Edit from the drop-down menu. The Edit form will be displayed.

2. Select/Deselect the Approved checkbox.

The second way

1. Right-click the question title and select Answer Question from the drop-down menu. The Answer form will be displayed.

2. Select/Deselect the Approved checkbox.

The third way

1. Click on the Action bar. The Manage Questions form will be displayed.

2. Click or to approve or disapprove the respective question.

##### Activate/Deactivate a question

When a question is activated, it will be displayed and visible to all users. If not, it will be hidden and invisible.

The first way

1. Edit a question to open the Edit Question form.

2. Select/Deselect the Activated checkbox.

The second way

1. Go to the Answer form.

2. Select/Deselect the Activated checkbox.

The third way

1. Click on the Action bar.

2. Click or to activate or deactivate the respective questions.

##### Delete a question

There are several ways to delete questions:

The first way

- Right-click your desired question and then select Delete from the drop-down menu.

The second way

- Click

  on the Action bar, and then click

  corresponding to the question you want to delete.

The third way

- Click your desired question and click the delete icon. There will be an alert message, click OK to confirm.

##### Move a question

1. Open the Move Question form by following one of two ways:

The first way

- Right-click your desired question and then select Move to from the drop-down menu.

The second way

- Select your desired question and click

  .

2. Select the category to which you want to move your selected question.

### Note

Only the Administrator can move questions to any areas in Answers.

The Moderator will be checked for permission when moving questions. The Moderator can only move questions to the category where he is also the moderator.

A notification will be only sent to the creator of the question that has been moved.

#### Moderate an answer

In this section, the following topics are covered:

- Approve/Disapprove an answer

- Activate/Deactivate an answer

- Delete an answer

- Promote a comment to answer

On the top right of an answer, you will see icons that represent actions you can do on that answer.

##### Approve/Disapprove an answer

Click / on the top right of the answer content to approve/disapprove that answer.

### Note

The approved answer is visible to regular users while the unapproved question is invisible.

##### Activate/Deactivate an answer

Click / on the top right of the answer content to activate/deactivate that answer.

### Note

The deactivated answer is hidden to the regular users while the activated question is shown.

##### Delete an answer

To delete an answer, click the trash icon on the top right of the answer content, then click OK in the confirmation message.

##### Promote a comment to answer

This function enables users to log in and give comments on specific questions.

If the comment is considered as the best answer for the question, it can be promoted to the answer.

Leave a comment

1. Follow one of the following two ways:

The first way

- Click the question you want to leave comments and select

  .

The second way

- Right-click a specific question and select

  from drop-down menu.

2. Enter your comment in the text-input field.

3. Click Save to finish.

To promote a comment as an answer, click on the top right of the comments panel.

### Note

Comments can be written in different languages. If a question is posted in multiple languages, it can also have comments in multiple languages.

### Regular user

#### View details of Answers

After accessing Answers, the left pane is hidden by default. To toggle the left panel, click on the Action bar. To view details of a category, simply left-click it to open its details in the right pane.

Here, you can view all activated questions of this category, some basic information of questions, such as authors, scores, number of answers.

To view details of a question, simply click it to open its details, including its content, answers and comments, uploaded files, preview the attached image, or download the attached files.

`See also`

- Search

- Print

#### Submit a question

The Answers application allows you to raise your questions on any issues and helps you find the best answer.

1. Right-click the category/sub-category where you want to submit your question and then select from the drop-down menu

or go into the category that you want to submit questions, then click on the Action bar.

The Submit Question form appears as below.

2. Type your question into the Question field.

In this form, you can also:

i. Give details to your question into the Details field.

ii. Select your desired language in the Language drop-down list.

iii. Enter your email in the valid format, such as: username@abc.com, into the Email form.

iv. Attach different-typed files to your question by clicking the Attach a file link. The max size for the attachment is 20Mb. To remove the attached files, click the corresponding Remove link next to the file attachments.

3. Click Save to complete submitting your question.

A message will appear informing that your question has been added successfully. If the moderation option was ticked when your selected category was created by the owner, there will be a message informing that your question needs to be approved before being displayed in that category.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Edit a question

- Answer a question

- Comment on a question

- Send a question to others

- Discuss a question in forum

- Rate a question

##### Edit a question

Regular users can only edit their own questions.

1. Open the Edit Question form by following one of these ways:

The first way

- Right-click the question that you want to edit and then select Edit from drop-down menu.

The second way

- Click a question, then select

  as below.

2. Make changes to your question. You can add more or remove the language options, attach files, approve or disapprove the question and its answers.

3. Click Save to save all the changes.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Submit a question

- Comment on a question

- Send a question to others

- Discuss a question in Forum

- Rate a question

#### Answer a question

A question may have multiple answers and each can be moderated separately.

1. Open the Answer form by following one of these approaches:

The first way

- Right-click the question you want to answer and select Answer Question.

The second way

- Open a question, then click Answer.

2. Enter your answer into the Answer field.

3. Select/Deselect the Approved and Activated checkboxes if you want to approve this answer (optional). If this answer is in the category that requires moderation, the Approved checkbox will be selected by default.

The Activated option enables your answer to be shown or hidden. By default, an answer is always shown.

4. Click to link the question to reference entries (optional).

5. Click Save to submit your answer.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Submit a question

- Edit an answer

- Vote for an answer

##### Edit an answer

Regular users can only edit their answers.

1. Click on the top right of the answer that you want to edit.

2. Make changes to your selected answer.

3. Click Save to save all the changes.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Answer a question

- Vote for an answer

#### Comment on a question

You can leave comments on a question when you are not sure about the answer, or want to give your ideas. Then, the moderator can promote your comment to answer if necessary.

1. Follow one of these following ways:

The first way

- Click the question you want to leave comments, then select the Comment button.

The second way

- Right-click a specific question and select Comment from the drop-down menu.

2. Type your answer in the text-input field.

3. Click Save to finish.

### Note

Comments can be written in different languages. If a question is posted in multiple languages, it can also have comments in multiple languages.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Submit a question

- Answer a question

- Send a question to others

- Discuss a question in Forum

- Rate a question

#### Send a question to others

When you find a question interesting, you can share it with others easily. Regular users cannot send pending questions.

1. Follow one of these following ways:

The first way

- Right-click the question that you want to send and select Send from the drop-down menu.

The second way

- Click your desired question and select

  .

2. Enter the receiver's email address into the To field.

3. Select the display language for the question content. English is set by default.

4. Click Send.

### Note

Add CC/Add BCC allows you to send this message to multiple receivers. Use Add CC if you want all receivers to refer to this message. Use Add BCC if you want all receivers to get this message but cannot see email addresses of other receivers.

If the submitted question has been existing in another language, you can select your desired language from the Language drop-down list. If you change the language, the question's subject and the message content will be changed accordingly.

The users with email addresses in the To, CC and BBC fields will receive this message. The receivers can click the here link in the content of the message to view the question in details in the Answers application.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Submit a question

- Answer a question

- Comment on a question

- Discuss a question in forum

- Rate a question

#### Discuss a question in forum

This feature is not enabled by default. Only Administrators can activate this feature.

When you want further discussion on a question rather than getting quick replies from Answers, you can make that question posted in Forum as a new topic. The topic created in Forum will have the same title and content as your question in Answers. All the comments will become posts in that topic. Once there is a new reply in that Forum topic, your question in Answers will be updated correspondingly.

Discuss or view the question discussion

The first way

- Open the question and click

  on the top right of the question pane.

The second way

- Right-click a specific question and select Discuss in Forum.

The topic posted in Forum needs to be approved by the administrators or moderators before you can view it. To go to that topic, right-click the question title and select Discuss in Forum from the drop-down menu again.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Submit a question

- Answer a question

- Comment on a question

- Send a question to others

- Rate a question

#### Rate a question

If you want to evaluate the quality of the question, you can use the intuitive rating feature provided by Answers to the five-star scale with the ascending level from the left to the right.

1. Open the question which you want to rate.

2. Click the star on the top left of the question content.

After being rated, the vote statistics will be updated.

3. Click OK on the confirmation message.

### Note

Each user can only rate a question once. Rating is not available to anonymous users.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Submit a question

- Answer a question

- Comment on a question

- Send a question to others

- Discuss a question in forum

#### Vote for an answer

You can vote for an answer that you find interesting and useful.

If you think the answer is good, click the thumb-up icon. If you think the answer is not good, click the thumb-down icon.

### Note

You cannot vote for an option twice but changing your voting is possible.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Answer a question

- Edit an answer

#### Watch/Unwatch a category

The Watch feature allows you to keep track of all changes in specific categories. You will get all the updates via mail notifications if you enable the Watch function on a category.

To watch a category, right-click a category in the categories list and select Watch from the drop-down menu. For the administrator/moderator, the watched category will be marked with .

If you do not want to receive any email notifications about the watched categories, right-click your desired category in the Categories pane, then select Unwatch from the drop-down menu.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

#### Subscribe to RSS feeds

You can get the latest questions in a category by getting the corresponding feed links, then use your favorite RSS client to read.

Get the RSS link of a category

1. Click the category you want to get the RSS feed.

2. Click the RSS button on the Action bar.

The RSS information page will appear on another tab. Depending on the browser you are using, this page may be displayed differently. Use the RSS link provided in this new page to put in the RSS reader of your choice.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

#### Edit user settings

When going to user settings, you can change how Answers will display the entries, manage your subscriptions and change your avatar here.

Change your user settings

Click on the Action bar. The Settings form will appear.

Now you can:

Change the display settings

You can select to display entries by created date/alphabetical order and sorted by ascending/descending type or by popularity.

Manage watches

1. Click to open the User Watch Manager form.

2. Click the category title if you would like to view details or click to unwatch the corresponding category.

Change your avatar

1. Click the Update link to open the Upload File form.

2. Locate and upload your desired file.

3. Click Save to save the changes.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

#### View public user profile

The function is for all users, even when you are not logged in (guest). To view a specific user's profile, click his username. The profile of that user will be displayed.

This form shows the selected user's profile, including the join date and the last login time.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

#### Search

With the Search function, you can find your desired item, such as categories, questions, answers, or comments easily. In the Answers application, you can do your searches to specific search conditions easily through two types: Quick search and Advanced search.

##### Quick search

You can do quick searches easily by entering specific keywords into the Search area. All items containing the text matching your search term will be returned in the Search Results form.

1. Enter a keyword into the Search field at the right corner of the breadcrumb.

2. Click , or press the Enter key to perform your search.

The Search Results window will open with all matching categories and questions.

Details:

Item | Description
--- | ---
| The question has been answered.
| The question has not been answered.
| The category containing your entered keywords.
| Click this icon to go into a question or a category.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Advanced search

##### Advanced search

The Advanced search allows you to do a search with multiple criteria corresponding to the object that is expected to be found. Using the advanced search, you can find questions/categories more exactly.

1. Click on the Search area.

2. Define some search criteria in the Advanced Search form. The criteria may vary, depending on where you want to search.

- Search in both categories and entries/questions by deselecting the categories or entries from the "Search in" drop-down menu. This form is set by default.

- Search in categories by selecting Category from the drop-down menu. You will do a search with some specific criteria to find expected categories. Search results will only include categories.

- Search in entries/questions to find your expected questions, answers or comments by selecting Entries from the drop-down menu.

3. Click the Search button to launch the search. All items matching your criteria will be listed in the search results pane below the Search form.

`See also`

- View details of Answers

- Quick search

#### Print

Print all questions with their answers of a category and its sub-categories

1. Select one parent category from the Categories list on the left pane.

2. Click the Print button on the action bar under the selected category.

3. Click the Print button to accept printing or Close to quit the Print Preview form without printing.

Print details of a question

1. Click your desired question.

2. Click on the top right of the question pane. You will see the question and its details as below:

3. Select the Print to start printing.

`See also`

- View details of Answers