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Boards
Boards is a discussion forum module for Cactus. Members create Boards and Sub-boards, start Threads, and reply to each other, with polls, reactions, subscriptions, bookmarks, search and a full set of moderation tools - all from your own admin.
Where it lives now. Boards used to take four sidebar links. It takes one - Boards - and Threads, Structure, Moderation and Analytics are tabs across the top of that page. Old links still work.
The forum lives at /boards on your site (or /boards/general for a board, /boards/t/your-thread-title for a thread). If you already have a page at /boards, that page wins and the forum's front page stays hidden until you rename one of them.
Moderating Boards is just another permission on your core roles, set from Users → Roles:
-
boards.access- see the Boards section in the admin sidebar at all. -
boards.manage- get at structure, tags, templates and the settings/import tab. -
boards.moderate- the full moderator toolkit everywhere: hide, delete, lock, pin, archive, move and split threads and posts, resolve reports, and hand out bans.
Hiding or deleting a post from the thread page asks first, and if the site refuses (a role that lost the permission, a dropped connection) the post stays put and the reason is shown, rather than vanishing until the next page load.
There's no separate moderator list to maintain and no "just this one board" option any more - tick the box on a role and everyone with that role can moderate every board on the site. Anyone with a login can read public boards, start threads and reply; a board can also be restricted to logged-in members only, or to moderators only (handy for a staff-only area).
Core admins always have full run of Boards, permissions or no permissions.
From Boards → Structure, an admin (with boards.manage) can:
- Create Categories to group boards visually on the front page (optional - uncategorised boards just show in a trailing group). Rename a category any time by editing its title in the list.
- Create Boards, each with its own title, description, icon (emoji or an uploaded image), visibility (Public, Members-only, or Private to moderators), a "hide from search engines" toggle, a minimum post length, and a word filter (one flagged term per line - a hit sends the post to the moderation queue instead of publishing it straight away). A board's title and category can both be changed later from the same list.
- Add Sub-boards underneath any board (one level deep). A sub-board's title and parent board can be edited later too.
- Manage Tags (rename them any time) and reusable thread Templates.
Board-wide settings - how many threads/posts show per page, reactions, signatures, posting limits, and the RSS feed - live under Settings → Boards (alongside the forum importer, see below).
Any member can start a thread from a board or sub-board page - click New Thread, give it a title, write the opening post, and optionally attach tags or a poll. The editor has a small, forum-focused set of blocks (paragraphs and headings, pull quotes, code snippets, images, polls, and link/video embeds) rather than the full page-builder palette.
Replies use a simpler text box, with support for quoting an earlier reply. Everything you're writing autosaves as a draft, so a dropped connection or an accidental tab close won't lose your post.
New members' first few posts (configurable in Settings → Boards) land in the moderation queue for a quick check before going live - established members skip straight past it.
Moderators get a full toolkit at Boards → Moderation:
- Queue - pending threads and posts (new-member posts, or anything that tripped a board's word filter), approve or reject with one click.
- Reports - things members have flagged, resolve or dismiss.
- Bans and IP Bans - block a member or an address from posting, for a set time or indefinitely.
- Log - a read-only history of every moderation action taken, by whom.
From any thread or reply, a moderator can also hide, delete, lock, pin, archive, move to a different board, or split a thread from a chosen reply onwards into a brand new thread - handy when a conversation has wandered off-topic.
A thread that is waiting in the queue, or that a moderator has hidden or deleted, is closed to replies for everyone but moderators - including the person who started it. That is what most people assume already happens; until recently a determined member could still add to one, and those replies then reappeared if the thread was later approved or restored. Voting in a poll, reacting to a post and reporting something all check the same way that the board and the item in question are actually visible to the person doing it, so none of them can be aimed at a private board or an item that isn't there.
Any thread can carry one poll, created alongside it - single or multiple choice, with an optional closing date. Results show live once someone's voted.
Members can react to individual replies with emoji (which emoji are available is set in Settings → Boards), subscribe to a thread or a whole board to get notified of new activity, and bookmark threads to find them again later from their own profile.
Until Cactus's own site-wide notification bell arrives, subscription and moderation notifications go out by email only (or not at all, if a member switches notifications off, or picks the daily digest instead of immediate emails).
A search box on the forum front page looks across thread titles and reply text, scoped to whatever boards a visitor is actually allowed to see. Every board (and the forum as a whole) publishes an RSS feed, switchable from Settings → Boards.
Every tag has its own page listing threads carrying it, at /boards/tag/tag-name. Categories don't get a page of their own - a link to one jumps to that group on the main forum page.
The look of a board (or sub-board) page and a thread's own page can be customised in Appearance → Layouts, under the Boards tab (with Board and Thread sub-tabs) - the same drag-and-drop editor used for your header and footer, with Boards' own blocks (thread list, sub-board list, reply list, and more) alongside the usual layout and content blocks.
Install Boards from v0.1.17 onwards and one Board design and one Thread design are created and published for you, arranged exactly as the pages already look. Two more of each are offered under + New Layout.
If your Boards went in before v0.1.17 those two tabs will be empty, and updating will not fill them - the module only creates its starting designs once, on the way in, and yours has already had its go. Nothing is broken: your boards carry on using the built-in look. Click + New Layout, pick a Board design and a Thread design, publish each one, and set it to show on the entire site.
When editing a menu (see Appearance and design), choose Module content and then Boards to link directly to the Boards home page, a category, board, sub-board or tag, instead of typing out the address by hand.
The importer, at the bottom of Settings → Boards, brings threads and posts in from:
- phpBB - export your forum as XML and upload the file directly.
- Discourse - export your forum as JSON and upload the file directly.
Click Preview (dry run) first to see counts before anything is written. Re-running an import is always safe - anything already brought in is recognised and skipped, never duplicated.
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