Registration & Login
Depending upon how Community Server is installed you may be required to create an account before posting. Community Server supports anonymous contributions, but this option must be enabled by an administrator. To take advantage of all the features offered by Community Server, such as setting your own avatar, tracking post counts, emailing users, private messages, access private forums, and many other you will need to have an account. It only takes a few seconds to register, and it is recommended you do so.
To create an account you will need to visit the Registration page and complete the form for creating a new account. Here you will specify details such as your login name and email address – depending upon how Community Server is configured you may also be asked to specify a password. If you are not asked to specify a password, one will be emailed to you after successfully registering.
After successfully registering you should have a username and password. You can then visit the login page and enter your username and password to login.
When logging in if you do not check the ‘Remember Me’ option you will be automatically logged off after an administrator-defined length of inactivity, usually 20 minutes. If you would like the site to always log you in automatically, please check the ‘Remember Me’ checkbox.
If you forgot your username and/or password you can visit the Forget Your Password page and have both your username and a new password emailed to you by entering the email account you're registered with. You will be sent a new password since we store your password encrypted and have no way of retrieving the original value. Once you receive your username and new password you can login and change your password.
If you’ve registered and can’t login, check to ensure you have a valid username and password. If you are sure the username and password are valid, but still can’t login you may either require account activation or your account may be on hold. In this case it is best to contact the board administrator(s) or moderator(s).
First check to ensure your username and password are correct. If you still can’t login your account has either been put on hold or deleted due to inactivity. Please contact the board administrator(s) or moderator(s).
User Profile & Settings
A profile is information about your account that controls how you view information within Community Server. This includes details about posts you’ve contributed to, personal information you wish to share such as your web address or weblog address, as well as setting that control how you interact with this Community Server site such as: themes, time zone, and many other settings.
Setting your timezone will enable Community Server to display all dates and time relative to your time zone.
A signature is a message that is appended to the end of any posts you make in the forums. You can edit your signature from the profile page. This signature will then appear at the bottom of any messages posted by you.
An avatar is a feature of the forums which allows for an image to be displayed along with your posts. Avatars may be enabled or disabled by your administrator.
If avatars are enabled by the administrator you will see and avatar section when viewing your profile. From here you can complete the forum to name the avatar you wish to use, either uploading an avatar or specifying a URL to your avatar. You will also need to enable your avatar for it to be displayed with your posts.
Community Server is designed to be multi-language friendly. Currently the only available language is English, but additional language packs can be installed to add support for other languages. Check http://www.communityserver.org for language packs. Within your profile you will see a listing of the available languages.
The date format used to display any date information can be configured from your profile.
Email tracking is a feature which will send emails to you when messages that you are subscribed to change. You can turn off all email tracking globally from your profile.
There are many different icons that can show up next to usernames in the forums. Common examples are administrators, moderators, or top posters. Other images may be displayed based on groups the user belongs to.
Depending upon how the administrator has configured the site you may be required to be logged in before viewing/using these areas. This is primarily to protect the privacy of users who have shared their information or to prevent unwanted/unsolicited emails.
Privacy & Security
Once logged in you can change your password from your Profile page.
Unless the administrator has configured the site to allow username changes you cannot change you username. Otherwise you can change your username from the Profile page.
Once logged in, you can change your private email address from your Profile page.
The only profile setting that is required is your private email address. This is the email address that is used when you subscribe to the forums, when a forgotten username/password is emailed. The private email address is never shared or displayed publicly. If you wish to share an email address publicly, use the public email address field. The remainder of the profile settings is optional.
You can set the option in your profile and your name will not appear in any member listings, including the listing of who is online.
Navigation
A Forum Group is a top level grouping of related forums. A forum group contains 1 or more forums.
A Forum is a grouping of related threads of discussion. A Forum contains 0 or more threads and 0 or more sub-forums.
A Thread is a grouping of related posts. A Thread contains 1 or more Posts. The first post becomes the Thread and replies to the original post increment details on the Thread, such as the reply count or last post.
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Thread Icon Legend
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Topic with posts you have not read.
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Topic with posts you have read.
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Popular topic with posts you have not read. A topic
becomes popular after a certain number of views and posts (administrator
defined).
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Popular topic with posts you have read. A topic becomes
popular after a certain number of views and posts (administrator
defined).
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Announcement you have not read
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Announcement you have read
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A pinned topic with posts you have not read. Pinned topics are
displayed before other topics until they become unpinned.
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A pinned topic with posts you have read. Pinned topics are displayed
before other topics until they become unpinned.
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A pinned popular topic with posts you have not read. A pinned topic
with enough views or replies to become popular.
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A pinned popular topic with posts you have read. A pinned topic with
enough views or replies to become popular.
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A locked topic with posts you have not read. Locked topics do not
allow replies.
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A locked topic with posts you have read. Locked topics do not allow
replies.
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A forum may not display any threads if there are no threads in the forum or if filters on the forms have been applied and no threads match the filter. An example of a filter is filtering to display threads newer than a certain date, such as threads new in the past 2 weeks.
A forum may or may not be moderated depending upon how the forum has been configured. After posting a message in a moderated forum you may receive a message stating that the post is awaiting moderation. Once the moderator(s) approve your post you post will become visible. The moderators may choose to move, edit, or delete your post to ensure that the post is topical to the current forum.
The icons next to threads when viewing a forum indicate different status. You can move your mouse cursor over these icons to see what the different status / types of threads are.
An announcement is a special post type that is always displayed at the top of a forum for a configured amount of time. The purpose of an announcement is to increase the visibility of certain topics.
A sticky topic is a special post that causes a post to sort to the top of a forum for a specified amount of time. A sticky topic is similar to an announcement, whereas an announcement is displayed separate from other threads and usually does not allow replies.
A locked thread is a special post that does not allow replies. Once a user locks a post or an administrator/moderator locks a thread no more posts are allowed.
Yes, you can sort threads when viewing a forum by Author, Replies, Views, and Last Post. The default sort for a forum is to display the newest threads first (Last Post descending). To sort simply click on the options button at the bottom of the screen and select your desired sort order and click 'Apply'.
The XML icon is linked to the RSS feed for the forum. RSS is used to allow other applications to subscribe to a forum's posts.
This icon indicates the user’s online status. A green icon means the user has been active recently (usually within the last 15 minutes). A red icon means the user has not recently been active. You can hover your mouse over this icon to see details about the user’s past activity.
If you are attempting to access a forum that you have visited before, but now receive an ‘unknown forum’ error there are two likely causes. The first cause is that the forum you are attempting to access is private and you are not signed in. The second cause is that the forum has been removed.
Posting
Yes and no. You cannot type HTML directly into the editor. If you are using Internet Explorer the default editor for creating new posts will be a Rich Text Editor that will automatically format posts using HTML. If you post with a browser other than Internet Explorer a standard HTML textbox is used and BBCode can be used to mark-up posts.
BBCode is a special syntax for formatting plaintext posts.
Yes, however, this requires the moderator(s) or administrator(s) to enable this permission for user’s on a forum-by-forum basis.
Emoticons are graphical elements that can be added within the body of a post to add emotions to the post. Common examples are the use of smilies within the contents of a post. Community Server comes with a pre-defined set of emoticons, however the administrator can add additional ones.
You can post a new message to a forum in several ways depending upon how the administrator has configured the site. When viewing a forum you should see an image button reading New Topic. Clicking on this image button will take you to a form for posting a message or ask you to login first. Depending upon how the administrator has configured the site you may be able to post anonymously, i.e. no login required. If you do not see the New Topic image button you may not have enough permissions – even after logging in – to post a message to the forum even though you are allowed to view the forum.
You can reply to an existing post using either the Reply or Quote image buttons displayed with the post. If you do not see the Reply or Quote image buttons when viewing a post you either do not have permissions to reply or the post may not allow replies.
If the administrator or moderator has configured the forum or your role to allow editing of posts you will see an Edit image button next to posts you have made. Clicking on this image button will allow you to edit your post.
If the administrator or moderator has configured the forum or your role to allow deleting posts you will see a Delete image button next to new posts you have made. If a post you have made has one or more replies you will no longer be able to delete the post.
The administrator may have specified a word filter for posts. When word filters are enabled certain words that are deemed to be offensive are filtered and replaced with the ‘*’ character.
See How do I add Signature to my Post? in the User Profile and Settings section.
See What is an avatar? And How do I Set my Avatar in the User Profile and Settings section.
User Groups & Permissions
Permissions control what you are or are not allowed to do while browsing the site. The permissions you are granted control all aspects of your view within Community Server.
An administrator is the highest permission level within Community Server. By default, an administrator has full permissions to perform any action, e.g. moderating posts, approving users, and so on.
A moderator is the second highest permission level within Community Server. By default a moderator can perform any number of tasks within a particular forum or set of forums. This includes approving posts, moving posts, deleting posts, editing posts, or banning users. If you have a problem with a particular forum the best place to start is with a moderator. Moderators belong to varying groups configured by the Administrator.
A user group, also known as a role, is grouping of common users for the purpose of assigning permissions. In addition to common permission assignment a role can also be used to display an image for a user in that role. Roles make the job of administering and moderating the site easier since users can be assigned to roles and then permission applied based on those roles.
Users are assigned to user groups by the administrator. If there is a particular group you wish to join, please send a private message or email to one of its members for more information.
Private Messages
A private message is like email within Community Server. You can send a private message to other users within this Community Server site that is visible only to them. No private information, such as the user's email address, is ever disclosed.
About Community Server
Community Server is a rich knowledge management and collaboration platform designed to meet the demands of the most rigorous collaborative needs. It is used by fortune 100 companies, small start-up businesses, schools, and individuals to better connect, share, and collaborate. Community Server is perfect for setting up a support system for products, reporting, and general information management by organizations or individuals.
Visit http://www.communityserver.org to download the latest commercial or non-commercial version.
Visit http://www.communityserver.org for more information on the types of licenses available. Community Server is available in both commercial and non-commercial versions.
Please visit http://www.communityserver.org to learn how to contribute fixes or report bugs.