Fireboard Forum Component for Joomla CMS – Features, Setup and Configuration

   Fireboard is a very versatile component which enables us to run a forum as part of a Joomla based site. User registration can be done directly from the forum home page if direct registrations are permitted. Otherwise the Joomla registed users can be synchronised with the forum user list via the Synchronize Users option in the Fireboard control panel.

Joomla - Fireboard home page

The Fireboard Control Panel

   The fireboard control panel enables us to effectively administer the forum. The fireboard configuration button presents us with a list of options that we can configure. They include options to turn the forum offline and online, offline message, User privileges and look and feel amongst several others.
   There is also an option for filtering posts containing the words that you define in the Badword Component config. The Badword Component is an additional component that you must install to use this function.

fireboard control panel

The Forum Administration

   The forum administration enables us to add as well as edit existing categories and forums. To create a new category we have to choose No Parent under Parent and the Name of the category under name. A Category serves as a container for Forums.
   A forum can only be created within a category which is already existing. During the creation of a new forum we have to select an already existing category as the parent. Messages can only be posted to forums NOT to categories.

Forum Administration

User Administration, Edit Smilies and Rank Management

   Under user management we can assign roles such as moderator to the users as well as specify the forums that the user is allowed to moderate.
   The edit smilies option enables us to do just that i.e. edit the smilies. The rank management option enables us to specify the minimum number of posts for each rank, the rank image and the rank title.

Ranks Management in Joomla

Other Features of Fireboard Extension

   There are also provisions to browse uploaded files as well as images, Synchronize Users edit CSS and add as well as remove sample data. The system also maintains detailed statistics. Below is a screenshot of a sample post.

Joomla - View of Sample post in Fireboard