Phorum Blog How-To
==================

This document describes how to create a forum which can be used as a blog.


1. Create the Blog Forum
------------------------

   1. When creating the forum, you should set `Visible` to `No`.  This
      will keep it out of the normal forum list;

   2. The template will use the forum's name as the title of the page;

   3. Set the forum to allow only reading by anyone.


2. Create a write group
-----------------------

   1. Go to `Edit Groups`;

   2. Add a group by creating a new group.  e.g. Blog Writers;

   3. Click on the group name to edit it;

   4. Add the blog forum to the group and grant `Read`, `Reply`,
      `Create New Topics`, `Edit Their Posts`;

   5. You can create additional groups for moderation of comments, etc.


3. Make a cool script (optional)
--------------------------------

   Somehow, you have to point people at the blog. You could make a redirect
   using any number of things to redirect your readers to the appropriate URL
   (list.php?1, where 1 is the forum id of the blog forum). However, I like
   the following method. Let's asume you want the blog to be a page called 
   blog.php. Then create blog.php like this:

      <?php

      chdir("/full/path/to/phorum");

      // Below, "1" is the forum_id for the blog forum
      $PHORUM_CUSTOM_QUERY_STRING="1";

      include_once "./list.php";

      ?>

   If you wanted your front page to be the blog, just create index.php and 
   put this in it.


TODO
----

   At the time of writing, there are still several parts of the default
   template that are not yet converted to the blog template. Control Center
   for example.