3.2.3. Modules included in the distribution

3.2.3.1. Announcements

3.2.3.1.1. What are announcements?

Announcements are important messages shown to all users and on all (or specified) pages which should stand out over the regular posts.
Since Phorum-5.2 announcements are handled as a module which is distributed with Phorum. See Section 3.2, “Phorum Modules” for generic module instructions. The module allows for better separation of posts and announcements and also some additional features like hiding announcements after a given time and it opens the way for other future announcements modules which offer even more functionalities.

3.2.3.1.2. How do I use announcements?

The announcement-module works with a separate announcements-forum whose messages are shown above the message-list as specified. Therefore follow this description to enable announcements for your Phorum:

Create a separate announcement-forum. The name doesn't matter, just try to remember it.
Go to the Admin -> Modules panel and click on the "Settings" link of the announcements-module.
Select the pages where announcements should be visible on (index, list and/or read)
Select if only unread announcements should be shown to the user
Note: Only announcements the user has clicked on to read the message are counted as read.
Enter the number of announcements that should be shown.
Attention: This number of announcements is all that is retrieved before doing the additional checks like for date and being new to the user.
Enter the maximum number of days an announcement should be visible for.
Note: The post-date is being used to calculate that. Edits are not taken into account.
Select the announcement forum where the messages should be taken from
Optional: If you have vroots then these will be listed and you have the chance to select different announcement forums for them.