Create forums

1. If you have multiple sites, use the dropdown menu in the upper left of the page to select the site where you want to create forums. For more on multiple sites, see Multisite: Manage multiple sites.
2. On the main menu, choose Content » Forums.
   The Forums page opens.
3. Click Create a forum.
   The Create a forum page opens.
4. In the Title input field, describe the forum.
5. In Forum group dropdown box, select which group the forum will belong to.
   If the forum is not a specialized one, you can select General discussions forum group, which exists by default.
   If you want to add the forum to a group that does not exist, you can create it by clicking Create a new forum group link. For more information, see Create forum groups.
6. Under Default page, select the page where the forum will open by default.
   Click Select a page button, select a page from the sitemap, and click Done.
   This page is also used when an RSS link to this forum is clicked.
7. To change the automatically generated URL of the forum, click Change and enter the new URL.
8. To enter a description of the forum, click Click to add description.
9. To manage the files that can be attached in the forum posts, expand File attachments.
   If the option is cleared, there are no other settings. When you select Allow users to upload file attachments in posts, the following parameters are available:
   • Choose whether Everyone or Authenticated users only can view the attachments.
   • Choose the file types that can be attached:
     • Default types
       The types defined in Administration: Configure forum attachment extensions.
     • Define manually…
       Enter additional file extensions that you want to allow, separated by commas.
10. You can choose if you want an RSS feed to be generated for this forum by clicking Alternative publishing (RSS) and selecting RSS feed checkbox.
    Feeds are used to publish frequently updated information, such as blogs, news, forum posts, etc. You can publish an RSS or Atom feed for the forum on the website and the users can subscribe to this feed. This way, they will receive updates of the forum without having to visit the website.

    You can change the settings of the automatically generated RSS feed.
    Click Change button and perform the following procedure:

    1. In RSS or Atom to generate? radio button group, select the format for the feed.
    2. In URL name, enter a URL of the feed.
    3. Choose how many items to include in the feed by selecting one of the following radio buttons:
       • Include the newest <number> items
         In the input field, enter how many of the published items you want to display.
       • Include all published items
         The feed displays all items that are published.
    4. Choose how to display the items in the feeds by selecting one of the following:
       • Title and content.
       • Title and first <number> characters.
       • Title only.
    5. To change the mapping of data fields, click Mapping Settings button.
       In the window that appears, you have a list of the data fields of the feed you are creating. To these fields, you can map fields of the RSS or Atom feed.

       When you are finished with the mapping of fields, click Accept changes.

    6. Click Done.

       For more information, see Publishing system: Feeds.

    7. You can display the RSS feed for the forum using the Feed widget.
       For more information, see Feed widget.
11. When you are finished creating the forum, click Create this forum.
    The forum is created and the system displays the Forums page.