SMF Terminology

Administrator

The Administrator, or Admin, of a forum is the person with full control over the forum's functions, appearance, and general configuration. This person has access to the Administration Center where they can configure the forum as they wish.

The Administrator can add or remove Permissions, customize the forum's appearance, assign Moderators and other staff, and many more things inside the Administration Center.

Attachment

Attachments are documents or images attributed to a post. Attachments are stored as files within the forum website. They give members a place to store important files for as long as they are needed. In Attachments and Avatars, administrators can choose which file types to allow, who can upload attachments, and can set limits on file size and number of attachments to conserve disk space. By default, the number of attachments that can be posted on a forum is limited to 4,294,967,296, but this can be increased if necessary.

Avatar

Avatars are images that members select to represent themselves online. They are shown in profiles and beside every post or personal message. Other members use the avatar to easily identify a member. Commonly avatars are abstract images, photos of celebrities, or pictures of cartoon characters, not a photo of the member.

Administrators use Attachments and Avatars Manager in their Adminstation Center, to can control who can set and change the profile, and whether they can select from a list, upload an image, or link to an offsite avatar. They can set policies on avatar upload file size.

Board

In an SMF forum, Boards are where topics are posted. Boards are displayed on the board index and should be organized into categories to make it easier for viewers. A board that appears inside another board is called a child board. A board with child board is called a parent board. Administrators set who can see and post to the board and set other board options.

Board Index

The Board Index is the central part of the home page of the forum. This is where you will find a listing of all the categories and boards that you are allowed access to. The exact appearance of the Board Index is affected by the options chosen by the administrator, as well as by the theme. For more information, see Board Index When the SMF default theme is used, the main features of the Board Index are as follows:

• Navigation Tree - This is located just above the Board Index and it consists of a series of links which help facilitate browsing through the different boards and child boards. On the Board Index this navigation tree consists only of the forum name and links right back to the top of the Board Index.
• Mark all messages as read - This button is located just below the list of categories in the Board Index. It enables registered members to mark all posts in the entire forum as read. This also clears the list of posts in the Unread Posts section of the Forum Header.
• Category Name Background - This is the colour highlights panels which contain the category names.
  • Collapsible Categories - If a category is collapsible, clicking the category name collapses (hides) or expands (shows) all the boards that belong to this category.
  • Unread Posts link - These links are found to the right of the category names and they take you to a list of all the posts from all the boards in the given category which you have not yet read.
• Boards - Within each category, you will see one or more boards listed.
  • Board Name - the board name links to the Message Index (a list of topics) for that board.
  • Board Description - this is found directly under the board name and it describes the content of the board. This section may also include links to child boards and/or specify the board's moderator(s).
  • New Posts / No New Posts icons - these are usually found to the left of the board names and they show registered members whether there have been any new posts in the boards since they last read them. Some boards have child boards within them and in this case the "new posts in child board" icon shows that there are new posts, but only in a child board.

The template file for the Board Index is: BoardIndex.template.php

Buddy List

A Buddy List displays all of the members on the forum whom you have added as a “buddy”. This list will also show their online status and contact information if available. If your administrator has enabled the buddy list, you can work with your buddy list from your profile.

Default theme

Default theme

Forum

A forum is an online discussion site where participants can hold conversations by posting messages. SMF is forum software. In SMF, the forum contains categories, categories contain boards, boards contain topics, and topics contain a topic post and several reply posts. The terms used to describe how other forum software organizes message topics may be different.

Groups

Groups

Karma

Karma is an optional feature that shows the popularity of a certain member. The administrator can enable this from core features. When members are allowed, they can Applaud or Smite a member to raise or lower that member's karma.

Member

A member is a person who has registered at a forum. It is usually beneficial for a guest to become a member if they intend to post or use the forum more than once. Members always belong to at least one membergroup.

Members

Please see SMF1.1:SMF Terminology or SMF2.0:SMF Terminology depending on the version of SMF you are using.

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As an administrator

Main

• Administration Center
• Support and Credits
• News and newsletters
• Package manager

Configuration

• Core Features
• Features and Options
• Security and Moderation
• Languages
• Server settings
• Current Theme
• Themes and Layout
• Modification Settings

Forum

• Boards
• Posts and Topics
• Calendar
• Search
• Smileys and Message Icons
• Attachments and Avatars

Members

• Members
• Membergroups
• Permissions
• Registration
• Ban List
• Paid subscriptions
• Search engines

Maintenance

• Forum Maintenance
• Scheduled Tasks
• Mail
• Reports
• Logs

Miscellaneous

• Security Tips
• Building Your Community
• Performance enhancements
• Modifications - A mod broke my forum what should I do

News

Forum news can be used to display news items on the forum header of every page of the forum. The administrator enables random news line or news fader in the settings of one or more themes, and enters items in the News tab.

Post

A post, is a message posted on a board. It can be a topic post or a reply to a topic post. It is different from a personal message. You can have up to 4,294,967,296 posts on your forum.