What are the differences for an administrator compared to a regular member? Well, there are quite a few. We'll take a look at some of the more important ones now.
The first differences are the forum and thread tools. Forum tools allow the administrator to view the posts and attachments that are in the moderator queue. (These are the posts and attachments that need to be approved before being made visible.) The administrator tools also allow threads to be moved and pruned and allow a moderator to be assigned to the forum.
The thread tools give the administrator the ability to close, move, copy, edit, and delete threads, as well as merge threads with other threads, split threads into multiple threads, delete posts, and remove redirects. (Redirects are left in place by default when a thread is moved to a different location.)
If an administrator clicks on the Edit button of a post, they get the ability to delete a message (which makes it unavailable to regular users but visible to moderators and administrators) or to remove a message. A reason can also be given for the deletion. Also, an administrator can edit a post (again, leaving a reason if they wish). Other options include closing a thread (so that users can no longer post to it) and making the thread sticky (so that it stays at the top).
The AdminCP The tools described in the last section are powerful and allow you to work with forums and threads, but the real power for the administrator of a vBulletin discussion board is in the Administrator Control Panel (AdminCP). You've already had a glimpse at this in the previous chapter, but now we'll take a closer look at it. When you enter the AdminCP, you will find a navigation menu on the left-hand side. This expands and collapses as you click on the entries. |
Control Panel Home On the right, is a screen called Control Panel Home, which has some basic information about the forum and some useful tools and utilities. This has four key components. Latest Version Information First it has a box that tells you whether you are running the latest version of vBulletin. If you aren't, it gives you a link to the member area, where you can download the latest version (if you have a valid and up-to-date license). Administrator Notes Below that, is the Administrator Notes box, where you can type notes. These notes will stay there until you delete them and are very handy if there is more than one administrator! Quick Administrator Links Below the Administrator Notes box is the Quick Administrator Links box. This makes available a set of tools that administrators often need. These include a Quick User Finder box that allows administrators to see user profiles, a quick PHP function, and MySQL language lookup search boxes that allow you to search for PHP and MySQL terms. Below that is a useful set of links. vBulletin Contributors and Developers Finally on the Control Panel Home screen, is a list of vBulletin contributors and developers, with links to their profiles on the vBulletin site. |
If you click on vBulletin Options on the left-hand side menu, you will uncover another option, also called vBulletin Options.
Clicking on this uncovers a powerful array of options. From here, you can choose an option and click on Edit Settings (Alternatively, just double-click on the option you want.)
Let's take a look at some of the important options available here (we'll cover other options later):
This can be a very handy tool—it allows you to work on the discussion board without interruptions from users and without your changes being visible to them.