Now, I think you do best to keep this text in a window, and open the following URL in a second window:
http://epsilon-division.netfirms.com/cgi-bin/admincenter.cgi
This is the "admincenter" of the board, where you can set up your entire board with all the forums, colours, member titles, access to private forums, and so on...
When you go to the admincenter, you will be asked for a username and password. Use the Admin one to log in (I sent you the password in a private message on the Expansion Sector board). Mind the caps.
Now you are logged in, we'll go over each section of the admincenter. You find the different section links on the left.
1. Member Control
This is an important section. Here you control everything concerning your registered members. You can give them certain access, change their member title or even ban them. Let's start with giving your new username "admin" access.
Click on this "member control" link, and then you will find a few letters, under which "A" (of admin) and "V" (of Vorak). If a letter is not there, it means that there are no registered usernames yet beginning with that letter. Now go to the letter of the username you registered, and then you will see something like "Profile for -". Here you click "edit", and now you can do the following:
- Member Title (here you fill out the rank of the character)
- number of posts, email, aol, ... should normally not need any modification
- Private Forums (check box to allow access): any private forums you create, are listed here. For now, I have created "mission planning" for you already. Mark this for you, so you have access yourself too (note: if you decide to add more private forums afterwards, you will have to go to each username you want to give access to it to mark that forum as well). Then, at last the "memberstate". "Ban Member" speaks for itself (you can unban this member at any time you want), "Member" is a normal member without special privileges, "Moderator" is someone who can moderate a forum (posts & topics), and "administrator" also has access to the admincenter of the board. So, here you give yourself "administrator" access.
When that is done, you click "submit" to allow the changes to take effect.
Now go back to the "member control" once more, and click on the "A". Here you will find "Admin". Now you click "delete" next to it, because you don't need this username any more (you have access with your own username now). Note that when you delete this Admin username, the admincenter may ask you to re-login with your new username.
2. Forum Control
Here you can create/modify/delete forums and forum categories. I already took the freedom to create some basic forums and categories for you, but you can modify and add what you want.
Let's start with editing an existing forum:
after clicking on "forum control", look for the category "Division starships" and the forum "U.S.S. Something". Under that, you can click on "edit forum". Here you can rename the name of the ship into whatever you want. In forum description you write what extra information you want, and in forum moderator(s) you write the exact username of the person you want to give moderator access for this forum (has to be someone who has registered, so perhaps you can start with your own username).
html on/off allows or disallows the use of html codes in posts. We generally keep this "off" for safety precautions.
ikoncode on/off we generally leave on. This allows people to write in bold, italic, underline or insert an image or quote.
Private forum yes/no here you decide if this forum is to be a private one or not.
start new threads: usually left to "all registered users"
forum graphic: you can leave it to logo.gif for now, but if you have specific logo's somewhere, that can always be added later.
Now, let's create a new forum (for example, a second ship): Go back to "forum control" and to the category "division starships". Here you click "add forum to this category". You will see that the system works the same: you choose a forum name, description, the moderator(s), and so on.
Important note: when a category has only one forum, and you delete this forum, it automatically removes the category with it. Another note: once one or more topics are created in a forum, and you wish to delete them, never delete the LAST topic, because that will corrupt the forum at hand. Create a new topic first, before removing the previous last one.
3. Order Forums
This is pretty easy, if you think that the forums are not in the right order as you want them, you can go here. You give them all a number from 1 to ... to select the order. Whenever you go there, it will say "99" for all of them. Note that its not possible to move a forum from one category to the other.
4. Styles setup
Here you change the look & feel of the whole board. You select the colours for everything in particular (background, borders, foreground, font, ...) Feel free to try things out here, you can't screw anything up really.
5. Variables set-up
Do NOT touch the "board information setup" of this part, if you don't know exactly what you're doing. The wrong information here may cause your board not to work.
The email functions I have already set up for you (with your email address). The rest is pretty much self explaining.
6. Member titles setup
This is where the automatic member title can be set (according to the number of posts). I already set this up for you.
7. Bad word filter setup
That explains itself lol.
8. Check the hack logs
You would only need this if there were serious problems with the board, which normally never happens
9. Board template
Only modify this when you know how to work with html. This is where you also set the background picture for the board. If you have a specific image, let me know and I'll set it up for you (and send me the image)
10. Go to the board
This is simply a link to go to your board.
I hope that everything is clear. If not, feel free to ask. I'm sure that Karelia will help you out as well, he knows also how the system works.
(Edited by Will Karelia at 9:34 pm on Sep. 30, 2003)
Alright, i've known you for awhile now. lol
As you can see i'm already setting up the board. YEAH!!
Will is anxious.
So, am I the new supervisor?
BTW, you may want to name that ship...
(Edited by Will Karelia at 9:32 pm on Sep. 30, 2003)
I will need Admin access, and I will definitely create a real character here, as Admiral Karelia isn't actually on this station, so can't participate in the storylines.
For the Flag Ship it will most likley be Defiant Class (along with every other ship in the fleet) as for the noame i thought that the USS Endurance???
One glitch of netfirms.com I forgot to explain:
if you are surfing the board, and you suddenly get a message instead saying "temporarily unavailable for 5 minutes", ignore it and hit the "refresh" button. There's no need to wait 5 minutes, if you hit "refresh" one or two times, it'll already work again But that likely only happens when the board becomes very busy, or it might also occur when you are working on the settings (since it often requires surfing through the board and admincenter alot). I just wanted to let you know so you won't panic lol.
And also, when configuring the board styles, you cant really screw anything up there. The worst that can happen is that you have ugly colors, which you can easily change again lol.