TOC
- Add Home/Rules Link in the
Top Menu for all users
Set Registration Defaults
- Install Google SEO
plugin - Create Forum Rules
Page - Set the Footer text
- Add a favicon in
MyBB - Setting cookiedomain &
cookiepath - Change Meta description of
the index page - Implement MyBB Anti-spam
Techniques to discourage spammers
Disable Editing/Deleting
posts
- Watching for New Posts or
Replies - Wrap Thread Title in H1
tags - Make Profile Visible only to
Registered Users
Add Google Analytics Code
- ProStats Plugin
- Change Forum Logo
- Change Site Name in
Nofollow/Dofollow Mybb Codes - Add Social Media links(Facebook/Google Plus etc)
- Showing ads within the first post body
- Limit number of PM's
- Move sitename in the forum listing title to the end from beginning
- Disable mybb lite version to reduce duplication
I'm launching many forums and all I want is quick setup
with all commonly found settings in a good forum and
absolutely safe from spammers since I've least time to
moderate the forum. So I've mentioned here the
important customizations I've done before I make the
forum live. The following steps assume that you're
using the "default" style templates. So if I ever
need to quickly launch another MyBB forum then these steps
would help me to set it up quickly.
Add
Go to
Templates & Style -> Templates -> Template Sets
-> Default Templates->Header Templates->Header
Add: <div class="menu"> <ul>
<li><a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}"><img
src="{$theme['imgdir']}/toplinks/home.gif"
alt="" title="Go to site Home page"
/>Home</a></li> Note: Green text is
the added one. Also home.gif is new image copied in the
path: images/toplinks More in url: http://community.mybb.com/thread-96062.html
Set
While registration you most
likely will want to enable following two options:
Hide
Notify
Those options are set to unchecked by
default during user registration which are present in
Account Preferences which you wanna set. Download this
plugin:
Registration Checkbox Configuration to set them.
â†'Read the readme.txt
enable
Default Thread Subscription
By default it is set to "Do not
subscribe" but you most likely want to change to
"Instant Email Notification". To do it: Go
to Templates & Styles -> Templates -> Template
Sets -> Default Templates ->Member Templates(expand
it)->member_register->Edit Template Fin the following
text: <td colspan="2"> <select
name="subscriptionmethod"
id="subscriptionmethod"> <option
value="0"
{$no_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->no_auto_subscribe}</option>
<option value="1"
{$no_email_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->no_email_subscribe}</option>
<option value="2"
{$instant_email_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->instant_email_subscribe}</option>
</select> </td> Change add
selected="selected" to which option you want to
set default: <td colspan="2"> <select
name="subscriptionmethod"
id="subscriptionmethod"> <option
value="0"
{$no_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->no_auto_subscribe}</option>
<option value="1"
{$no_email_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->no_email_subscribe}</option>
<option value="2" selected="selected"
{$instant_email_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->instant_email_subscribe}</option>
</select> </td>
Install Google SEO
Google SEO
plugin will change urls to the title of your forum plus
many other features. For a noob like me check this on
"Enable Google SEO URLs" . Leave everything else
as defaults. Mind you - you need to read the documentation as for best results you'll need to copy paste robots.txt and httaccess.example file that comes along with it. Also enable the Sitemap generation option so that your forum will keep getting much quicker than if you choose not to enable it.
Create
Use page manager
plugin and very easily create a custom page. While in Page
Manager configuration page just select/fill the first three
options/textboxes. Don't forget to set Use MyBB
Template? to Yes. This will add the MyBB header in your
page. Now add the html code and then press "Save &
return to Listing". Now click "Page Manager"
in the left menu, then it'll show the url at which you
can see this page. Use this url anywhere you want.
The add this page link in the forum rules icon in the
top of your forum along with Home, Search etc. For this go
to Templates & Style -> Templates -> Template
Sets -> Default Templates -> header. I've added
line as in red.
Set
If you wanna add the text like this
in the footer: Sitemap |
Terms of
Use | Privacy
Policy | About Us |
Contact
Us then these are the steps: Go to Templates &
Style -> Templates(on the left) -> Template Sets->
Default Templates. Click on the Footer Templates, now it
expands and then click "footer". Here is my final
code: <hr class="hidden" /> <div
id="copyright"
style="text-align:center;margin:auto
auto"> <div >{$mybb->settings['homename']}
$copy_year(©). All rights reserved. <br />
<a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}/sitemap">Sitemap</a>
| <a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}/terms">Terms
of Use</a> | <a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}/privacy">Privacy
Policy</a> | <a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}/about">About
Us</a> | <a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}/contact">Contact
Us</a> <br /> </div>
<div
id="debug"><debugstuff></div>
<!-- MyBB is free software developed and maintained by a
volunteer community. It would be much appreciated by the
MyBB Group if you left the full copyright and "powered
by" notice intact, to show your support for MyBB. If
you choose to remove or modify the copyright below, you may
be refused support on the MyBB Community Forums. This is
free software, support us and we'll support you. -->
<br />{$lang->powered_by} <a
href="http://mybb.com/"
target="_blank">MyBB</a><br />
<!-- End powered by --> <br /> <br
class="clear" /> <!-- The following piece
of code allows MyBB to run scheduled tasks. DO NOT REMOVE
-->{$task_image}<!-- End task image code -->
{$auto_dst_detection} </div> </div> Change
the settings in the green to your requirement.
Add a
Following steps are copied from
this
thread Make a favicon.ico from here: http://www.webscriptlab.com/favicongenerator.php
and upload this to your root of your forum. Now Go to: ACP
> Templates &Styles ->Templates > Default
Templates->Template Set->Ungrouped Templates >
headerinclude > and find;
and add the following code just after that;
Setting cookiedomain &
I used this for my localhost:
cookiedomain: empty cookiepath:/ This may be wrong settings
but this even worked on the live site too. One person has
even contributed a tool
to find those settings automatically. Just keyin the url.
Change
In your Styles
and Templates go to Index templates then click Index. Below
<title> tags and above {$headerinclude} add these two
lines:
Implement MyBB Anti-spam Techniques to
Please read this blog to find
MyBB
anti-spam techniques .
editing of one's own post after some fixed time - say
600 minutes. For this go to
Configuration>Settings>Posting>Edit Time Limit
Disable Deletion of one's own
Unfortunately we can't specify any time
limit after which to disallow deletion of posts/threads.
May be mod is needed but I could now find in search. All I
could find is to disallow users to delete one's own
posts and threads altogether: ACP>users and
groups>Groups>Edit User Group>Forum and
Posts>Editing/Deleting Options Now uncheck "Can
delete own posts" and "Can delete own
threads". Here is the related thread.
Watching for New Posts or
If it is a new forum, then it takes days to
get a post. You must be impatient and may be checking many
times daily. But here is the
extension which can come to rescue to impatient person
like you.
Wrap Thread
In MyBB threads, the thread title
isn't in H1 by default, you may not be aware of. For
best SEO guidelines it should be wrapped in H1. Click the
above link to see the thread. In short go to Go to Admin CP
> Templates & Style > Templates > Your
Template Set > Show Thread Templates > showthread.
Find:
Make Profile
This feature come on by default in PHPBB. It is a
nuisance in new forums that spammers create account only to
put links in their profile. If they are not visible to
Guests then it won't be visible to Search Engines too.
Spammers will find no use in your forum!
Add
You add the analytics code in the footer template.
Here
is a plugin too.
To add in the footer template go to : ACP =>
Templates & Style => Templates => Expand your
Theme Template Set => Footer Templates => Footer.
Here is the thread.
Adding
This
site provides easy configuration for adding analytics
code in your forum as a subdomain.
ProStats
Use this plugin to show latest stats in the top of your
forum. It adds lot of dynamism to your forum. For new
starters it is must.
Change
You can either replace the /images/logo.gif file with
your own, or visit AdminCP -> Themes -> Modify ->
<select theme> -> Board Logo
Change
I hope you've created custom MyBB codes for Dofollow
and Nofollow as specified in this thread
In that case go to each pattern and change the site name
if you're working on replica of another site:
I could not find any good mod to add those and I did myself. Here is what I did to add Facebook/Google Plus likes.
There are many options/plugins to add the ads. My advertisements is nice and it allows you to add ads even within posts. Also read about how to show ads inside the first post only. For those using Adsense to adhere to their policies, I think easiest would be to add ad below the first ad using My Advertisements and then within the first post using postad-lite plugin as described.
with all commonly found settings in a good forum and
absolutely safe from spammers since I've least time to
moderate the forum. So I've mentioned here the
important customizations I've done before I make the
forum live. The following steps assume that you're
using the "default" style templates. So if I ever
need to quickly launch another MyBB forum then these steps
would help me to set it up quickly.
Add
Home/Rules Link in the Top Menu for all users
Go toTemplates & Style -> Templates -> Template Sets
-> Default Templates->Header Templates->Header
Add: <div class="menu"> <ul>
<li><a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}"><img
src="{$theme['imgdir']}/toplinks/home.gif"
alt="" title="Go to site Home page"
/>Home</a></li> Note: Green text is
the added one. Also home.gif is new image copied in the
path: images/toplinks More in url: http://community.mybb.com/thread-96062.html
Set
Registration Defaults
While registration you mostlikely will want to enable following two options:
Hide
your email from other members.
Notify
me by email when I receive a new Private
Message.
Those options are set to unchecked bydefault during user registration which are present in
Account Preferences which you wanna set. Download this
plugin:
Registration Checkbox Configuration to set them.
â†'Read the readme.txt
enable
Default Thread Subscription
Mode
By default it is set to "Do notsubscribe" but you most likely want to change to
"Instant Email Notification". To do it: Go
to Templates & Styles -> Templates -> Template
Sets -> Default Templates ->Member Templates(expand
it)->member_register->Edit Template Fin the following
text: <td colspan="2"> <select
name="subscriptionmethod"
id="subscriptionmethod"> <option
value="0"
{$no_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->no_auto_subscribe}</option>
<option value="1"
{$no_email_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->no_email_subscribe}</option>
<option value="2"
{$instant_email_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->instant_email_subscribe}</option>
</select> </td> Change add
selected="selected" to which option you want to
set default: <td colspan="2"> <select
name="subscriptionmethod"
id="subscriptionmethod"> <option
value="0"
{$no_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->no_auto_subscribe}</option>
<option value="1"
{$no_email_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->no_email_subscribe}</option>
<option value="2" selected="selected"
{$instant_email_subscribe_selected}>{$lang->instant_email_subscribe}</option>
</select> </td>
Install Google SEO
plugin
Google SEOplugin will change urls to the title of your forum plus
many other features. For a noob like me check this on
"Enable Google SEO URLs" . Leave everything else
as defaults. Mind you - you need to read the documentation as for best results you'll need to copy paste robots.txt and httaccess.example file that comes along with it. Also enable the Sitemap generation option so that your forum will keep getting much quicker than if you choose not to enable it.
Create
Forum Rules Page
Use page manager
plugin and very easily create a custom page. While in Page
Manager configuration page just select/fill the first three
options/textboxes. Don't forget to set Use MyBB
Template? to Yes. This will add the MyBB header in your
page. Now add the html code and then press "Save &
return to Listing". Now click "Page Manager"
in the left menu, then it'll show the url at which you
can see this page. Use this url anywhere you want.
The add this page link in the forum rules icon in the
top of your forum along with Home, Search etc. For this go
to Templates & Style -> Templates -> Template
Sets -> Default Templates -> header. I've added
line as in red.
<div id="container">
<a name="top" id="top"></a>
<div id="header">
<div class="logo"><a href="{$mybb->settings['bburl']}/index.php"><img src="{$theme['logo']}" alt="{$mybb->settings['bbname']}" title="{$mybb->settings['bbname']}" /> <span id="logotext"> {$mybb->settings['bbname']} </span> </a></div>
<div class="menu">
<ul>
<li><a href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}"><img src="{$theme['imgdir']}/toplinks/home.gif" alt="" title="Go to site Home page" />Home</a></li>
<li><a href="{$mybb->settings['bburl']}/search.php"><img src="{$theme['imgdir']}/toplinks/search.gif" alt="" title="" />{$lang->toplinks_search}</a></li>
<li><a href="{$mybb->settings['bburl']}/memberlist.php"><img src="{$theme['imgdir']}/toplinks/memberlist.gif" alt="" title="" />{$lang->toplinks_memberlist}</a></li>
<li><a href="{$mybb->settings['bburl']}/calendar.php"><img src="{$theme['imgdir']}/toplinks/calendar.gif" alt="" title="" />{$lang->toplinks_calendar}</a></li>
<li><a
href="{$mybb->settings['bburl']}/misc.php?page=forumrules"><img
src="{$theme['imgdir']}/toplinks/forumrules.jpg"
alt="" title="Click to
read this forum's usage rules"
/>Forum
Rules</a></li>
href="{$mybb->settings['bburl']}/misc.php?page=forumrules"><img
src="{$theme['imgdir']}/toplinks/forumrules.jpg"
alt="" title="Click to
read this forum's usage rules"
/>Forum
Rules</a></li>
<li><a href="{$mybb->settings['bburl']}/misc.php?action=help"><img src="{$theme['imgdir']}/toplinks/help.gif" alt="" title="" />{$lang->toplinks_help}</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
Set
the Footer text
If you wanna add the text like thisin the footer: Sitemap |
Terms of
Use | Privacy
Policy | About Us |
Contact
Us then these are the steps: Go to Templates &
Style -> Templates(on the left) -> Template Sets->
Default Templates. Click on the Footer Templates, now it
expands and then click "footer". Here is my final
code: <hr class="hidden" /> <div
id="copyright"
style="text-align:center;margin:auto
auto"> <div >{$mybb->settings['homename']}
$copy_year(©). All rights reserved. <br />
<a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}/sitemap">Sitemap</a>
| <a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}/terms">Terms
of Use</a> | <a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}/privacy">Privacy
Policy</a> | <a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}/about">About
Us</a> | <a
href="{$mybb->settings['homeurl']}/contact">Contact
Us</a> <br /> </div>
<div
id="debug"><debugstuff></div>
<!-- MyBB is free software developed and maintained by a
volunteer community. It would be much appreciated by the
MyBB Group if you left the full copyright and "powered
by" notice intact, to show your support for MyBB. If
you choose to remove or modify the copyright below, you may
be refused support on the MyBB Community Forums. This is
free software, support us and we'll support you. -->
<br />{$lang->powered_by} <a
href="http://mybb.com/"
target="_blank">MyBB</a><br />
<!-- End powered by --> <br /> <br
class="clear" /> <!-- The following piece
of code allows MyBB to run scheduled tasks. DO NOT REMOVE
-->{$task_image}<!-- End task image code -->
{$auto_dst_detection} </div> </div> Change
the settings in the green to your requirement.
Add a
favicon in MyBB
Following steps are copied fromthis
thread Make a favicon.ico from here: http://www.webscriptlab.com/favicongenerator.php
and upload this to your root of your forum. Now Go to: ACP
> Templates &Styles ->Templates > Default
Templates->Template Set->Ungrouped Templates >
headerinclude > and find;
Code:
{$stylesheets}
Code:
<link rel="shortcut icon"
href="favicon.ico" />
href="favicon.ico" />
Setting cookiedomain &
cookiepath
I used this for my localhost:cookiedomain: empty cookiepath:/ This may be wrong settings
but this even worked on the live site too. One person has
even contributed a tool
to find those settings automatically. Just keyin the url.
Change
Meta description of the index page
In your Stylesand Templates go to Index templates then click Index. Below
<title> tags and above {$headerinclude} add these two
lines:
<title>{$mybb->settings['bbname']}</title>
<meta
name="Keywords" content="Your
keywords" > <meta name="Description"
content="Your description" >
{$headerinclude}Implement MyBB Anti-spam Techniques to
discourage spammers
Please read this blog to findMyBB
anti-spam techniques .
Disable Editing/Deleting posts
Disable Editing posts
Disableediting of one's own post after some fixed time - say
600 minutes. For this go to
Configuration>Settings>Posting>Edit Time Limit
Disable Deletion of one's own
posts
Unfortunately we can't specify any timelimit after which to disallow deletion of posts/threads.
May be mod is needed but I could now find in search. All I
could find is to disallow users to delete one's own
posts and threads altogether: ACP>users and
groups>Groups>Edit User Group>Forum and
Posts>Editing/Deleting Options Now uncheck "Can
delete own posts" and "Can delete own
threads". Here is the related thread.
Watching for New Posts or
Replies
If it is a new forum, then it takes days toget a post. You must be impatient and may be checking many
times daily. But here is the
extension which can come to rescue to impatient person
like you.
Wrap Thread
Title in H1 tags
In MyBB threads, the thread titleisn't in H1 by default, you may not be aware of. For
best SEO guidelines it should be wrapped in H1. Click the
above link to see the thread. In short go to Go to Admin CP
> Templates & Style > Templates > Your
Template Set > Show Thread Templates > showthread.
Find:
<div>
<strong>{$thread['threadprefix']}{$thread['subject']}</strong>
</div> and replace it with: <div>
<h1
style="font-size:1.2em">{$thread['threadprefix']}{$thread['subject']}</h1>
</div>Make Profile
Visible only to Registered Users
This feature come on by default in PHPBB. It is a
nuisance in new forums that spammers create account only to
put links in their profile. If they are not visible to
Guests then it won't be visible to Search Engines too.
Spammers will find no use in your forum!
Add
Google Analytics Code
You add the analytics code in the footer template.
Here
is a plugin too.
To add in the footer template go to : ACP =>
Templates & Style => Templates => Expand your
Theme Template Set => Footer Templates => Footer.
Here is the thread.
Adding
Subdomain in Analytics
This
site provides easy configuration for adding analytics
code in your forum as a subdomain.
ProStats
Plugin
Use this plugin to show latest stats in the top of your
forum. It adds lot of dynamism to your forum. For new
starters it is must.
Change
Forum Logo
You can either replace the /images/logo.gif file with
your own, or visit AdminCP -> Themes -> Modify ->
<select theme> -> Board Logo
Change
Site Name in Nofollow/Dofollow Mybb Codes
I hope you've created custom MyBB codes for Dofollow
and Nofollow as specified in this thread
In that case go to each pattern and change the site name
if you're working on replica of another site:
Add Social Media links(Facebook/Google Plus etc)
I could not find any good mod to add those and I did myself. Here is what I did to add Facebook/Google Plus likes.
Add Ads in desired positions
There are many options/plugins to add the ads. My advertisements is nice and it allows you to add ads even within posts. Also read about how to show ads inside the first post only. For those using Adsense to adhere to their policies, I think easiest would be to add ad below the first ad using My Advertisements and then within the first post using postad-lite plugin as described.Limit Number of PMs
Occasionally you'll find some mischievous person sending mass PM's to your members just about anything. And it happened with my forum when he/she send PM's to all of members. Fortunately we've this plugin and just set 2-3 as maximum PM's can be sent in a day.
Move sitename in the forum listing title to the end from beginning
Just go to Templates& Style->Default Templates->Forum Display Templates->forumdisplay change this line:
<title>{$mybb->settings['bbname']} - {$foruminfo['name']} </title>
to
<title>{$foruminfo['name']} - {$mybb->settings['bbname']}</title>
Disable mybb lite version to reduce duplication
Read disabling lite archive mode
Awesome tutorial, I used almost all of your steps, many thanks for taking the time to put this up.
ReplyDelete