SMF Online Manual -- FAQs available

[Angelina Belle]

To help you find answers to your questions faster, the SMF team has put many common problems in the FAQ category of the online manual.

You can find them all at http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Category:FAQ

Here is a selection of FAQs currently available:

A

• Add a smiley set
  
• Administration - I accidentally lost my admin account! What can I do
  
• All about permission profiles
  
• Archives - How do I extract files in an archive
  
• Avatars - How do I add new avatars

B

• Backup
  
• Board Permissions
  
• Board Permissions - Limit posting location for newbies
  
• Buttons - How do I add buttons to SMF 2.0

C

• CHMOD - What's that all about
  
• Context - What is $context
  
• Conversions - How do I convert from my current software to SMF
  
• Copyright Information
  
• Creating a recycle board
  
• Cross references for other software
  
• Custom tabs - How do I add them to the Core (default) theme menu

D

• Database - What is an SQL Database
  
• Default theme - What is it and why can't I delete it
  
• Directory - The directory where SMF is installed
  
• Disallow and Deny - What's the difference when it comes down to permissions
  
• Donate - How do I donate to SMF

E

• E-Mails - Why are members not getting emails sent from the forum
  
• Error in mod installation

F

• FTP - How do I use FTP
  
• Fatal error: Cannot redeclare
  
• Favicon.ico
  
• Features
  
• File check.php - What is it and what does it do

H

• Hacking - I think I have been hacked
  
• Help - Is help available in other languages
  
• Help, I keep going back to the list of topics when I make a post
  
• How can I install a mod that doesn't work in my SMF version
  
• How do I get rid of a Byte Order Mark
  
• How do I limit image size in signatures
  
• How do I set the forum width
  
• How to change the default forum language
  
• How to change the logo
  
• How to change your forum name to a new one
  
• How to create a new administrator or global moderator
  
• How to put the forum in maintenance mode and back
  
• How to upload a fresh set of files
  
• How to use Advanced Profile Fields

I

• Illegal installation - Why does it say I'm running an illegal SMF installation
  
• Images - How do I add images to the board's description
  
• Images - Why am I getting borders around images
  
• Installation - How do I install a theme

J

K

• Karma - How do I reset karma totals to zero
  

L

• Languages - How do I add a new language
  
• Languages - How do I fix this "Installer unable to find language files" error I am getting
  
• Languages - How to add or change phrases used by the forum software
  
• Logo - How do I remove the simple machines logo

M

• Manually setting a package installed or uninstalled
  
• Membergroups - How do I change a member's membergroup
  
• Membergroups - How do I create a board for certain membergroups only
  
• Mod security - Having problems with mod security
  
• Moderators - How do I assign members as local moderators
  
• Modifications - A mod broke my forum what should I do
  
• Modifications/Mods - What is a mod
  
• MySQL has gone away / Lost connection to server during query

O

• On file and directory permission and ownership
  
• One of my members forgot his/her password. How can I retrieve it

P

• Packages - How to upload packages using FTP
  
• Permissions - How do I set up post-count based membergroup permissions
  
• Personal messages - Are administrators able to view their members' PMs
  
• PhpMyAdmin
  
• What is phpinfo()
  

R

• Recent posts - How do I show the most recent posts on the main page of my website
  
• Redistribution - Am I allowed to redistribute a modified copy of the SMF software
  
• Redistribution - Am I allowed to redistribute mods
  
• Registration - How do I edit the registration/welcome email
  
• Repair settings.php

S

• Spam - my forum is flooded with spam, what can I do
  

T

• Themes - I don't like or want the default theme - can't I just change it

U

• UTF-8 Readme
  

V

• Visual verification code - It doesn't work. What should I do

W

• What members are allowed to see and do
  
• What the white screen of death means
  
• Why do I have partially blank or missing text in posts
  
• Why is my new post indicator missing in the message index
  
• www.redirect
  

X

• XML feeds
  

[Ashley S]

Good job on the FAQ's AngelinaBelle.
This will help the newbies

[Angelina Belle]

I hope so.  As time passes, we will be trying to make the FAQs even more organized.
Want to join that discussion? Check out http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?board=202.0

[ddabcd277]

Is there a pdf or a doc version of the manual?

Thanks,

[Angelina Belle]

The manual is currently only available in Wiki format. At this time, we have no way to produce a pdf or doc version of the manual.

The CC-BY-SA 3.0 license on our wiki content means that you are welcome to download all the content, if you want to produce a local copy.

[DVD_GR]

can you put some info also about bulk mail cron queuing ? thanks a lot!

[Blackburn]

Good job on the FAQ's AngelinaBelle

[Angelina Belle]

Thanks for the kind words.  You know, I didn't write them myself.
I did help copy some documentation from the old online documentation  site, and check through the copied documentation, and help coordinate others helping with this work.  That's been my role -- doc coordinator.

[Frank496]

Is there a pdf or a doc version of the manual?

[Colin]

Is there a pdf or a doc version of the manual?

I edited your post to remove the multiple random broken image links which possibly were intended to spam. You can always view the manual online, but as of now, there isn't a downloadable version.

[gerryclement]

Regarding Integrating Your Site and Forum - Visually: can this be updated please?

It would also be helpful if the author explained exactly where the files he is referring to are located. In 2.0.4, there is no style.css in the Themes directory.

In the section 'Moving to Your Layout', the author starts wittering on about the index template - where is that?

[Nicholaus]

Thanks for being specific Angelina!

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

Awesome topic and list. A little annoying detail... You messed something up with "list" BBCode tags between letters E and F because letters from F to Z are shown as if they were a list of the E letter.

[Illori]

Awesome topic and list. A little annoying detail... You messed something up with "list" BBCode tags between letters E and F because letters from F to Z are shown as if they were a list of the E letter.

must have been fixed already.

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

Yep i see Kindred edited it for good nothing to add.

[JonnyRich]

Brilliant thanks for the info ive just downloaded smf and this basicly covers all the basics and more thanks!

[SMiFFER]

This helped me a lot.

Many thanks!

[landyvlad]

Hi not sure where to report this looking at the wiki for v2 here
http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Main_Page

Looking in INSTALLING SMF section, I clicked on: Requirements and recommendations


and got this:

The wiki.simplemachines.org page isn't working

wiki.simplemachines.org is currently unable to handle this request.
HTTP ERROR 500

which is kind of a bugger since I need to know.... LOL

[Arantor]

Wiki tells me that page doesn't exist...

[Illori]

fixed.

[İerdogan]

This helped me a lot. Thank you verymuch...

[joehark]

Why is there nothing under the search word:

formatting
hyperlinks
text

These are really basic things.

[Kindred]

https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Bulletin_board_code

[kaladorn]

One thing it doesn't cover (at least it didn't appear under T for Themes) is REMOVING themes. The software lets me manage themes - choose which are supposed to be visible if I let users choose and it lest me install them from files. How do I get rid of one so that it just isn't installed anymore? That'd be a useful thing to have in the wiki.

(Note: I did (in admin, themes management) click off all the older themes I don't want users to be able to select... yet when I looked at my own profile (admin user) for theme options, I still see all the old themes so something isn't doing what I expect...)

So if there's any info about getting old themes gone completely, I'd think a) I'd like to know it and b) it'd be a good FAQ inclusion.

[Kindred]

The Themes Settings section of the Administration Center shows a list of all themes currently installed on the forum. Clicking on any Theme's name will take you to that theme's settings, exactly like current theme settings. If you want to remove a theme from your forum, then click on the red X, to the right of the theme's name. Doing this will only delete that theme reference from your forum settings. The actual theme contents will be left in your themes directory. To physically remove the theme from there, you need to do so using FTP.

https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Themes_and_Layout#Theme_Settings

[Illori]

click the X next to the theme in the admin tool....

in SMF 2.0 that only removes it from the database it does not remove the themes files on the server. that has to be done manually.

[JesusIsGodAlmighty.Life]

I don't understand after reading about UTF-8 why it would not just be the default in the setup when you install - like there is really only benefits to installing it, it seems to me? So why not be safe from the beginning and install it. There seems to be no drawbacks as far I can understand to just install UTF-8, but there might be drawbacks if you do not.

[Arantor]

It is the default is 2.1. It wasn't the default in 2.0 because 2.0 hails from an era before UTF-8 support was properly in MySQL.

[JesusIsGodAlmighty.Life]

It is the default is 2.1. It wasn't the default in 2.0 because 2.0 hails from an era before UTF-8 support was properly in MySQL.

Ahh, makes sense - Thanks for the info!