11. How to add the Agora forum system to your Joomla site

There are several very popular forum solutions available for Joomla. We'll be installing Agora, but you might prefer one of the others

As with all extensions we'll be showing you, start by going to extensions.joomla.org. Then, navigate to the Communication / Forum category and find the Agora page

1) Once there, click the Download button

Scroll down

2) Choose the latest version

3) Then, click Components

4) You'll see a description of the installation file here. Scroll down to find the download link

5) Click Download

6) Save the file to your computer

With the file saved to your computer, it's time to install it in Joomla; do so before proceeding. If you need assistance, watch the accompanying tutorial on how to install extensions

Upon successful installation, this is what you'll see

Scroll down

The first two actions listed here should have been performed automatically

If you have previously installed a version of Agora, your information should have been retained. If you wish to clear it out, click Install clean database

Scroll back up to the top

Agora is a pretty complex Joomla component, so we won't be able to cover everything in this tutorial

Now, let's view Agora's section of the Admin CP

7) Go to Components

8) Click Agora Forum

9) Then, click Options

When you first visit the Agora section, you might see a number of initial setup queries. They should be gone the next time you view a page

10) Press F5 to refresh now, if you wish, or scroll down

The menu at left contains a list of the sub-pages in the Options section. Each page contains any number of related options

The defaults for most of the options listed should work just fine. Don't hesitate to explore and change things, though, if you'd like to

If you ever question the purpose of a setting, hover over its title for a description

Also, take note of the Help section here. It's sure to be of some assistance for many of the questions or problems you might encounter

Now, let's move on to the Configuration section

The Configuration page is really just a continuation of the Options

There's one step that has to be taken before we can visit the Forums tab

11) Click Groups

Groups in Agora are used to control the permissions of the users they contain, depending on each user's role

We need to change a few of the default group's permissions

By default, the Member role gets complete access to your forum's frontend; this includes the ability to edit and delete other people's posts. You'll most likely want to remove this ability from them

12) Click this link next to Member

13) Remove the checkmarks next to the permissions shown, as follows

14) Click Submit

15) Click Save

Now, we can move on to the Forums section

This is where you create forums for your members to post threads in

Before creating a forum, we must first create a category to contain it

Look to the right

16) Click Add Category

17) Choose a Category Name

There are no other categories yet, so we can't set an Order for this one

Look right

18) Click Save

The category we just created shows up here now. With that done, it's time to create a new forum

You'll notice an additional link has appeared here to allow you to Add a Forum

19) Click on the link

20) Provide the forum with a Name

21) Type a description

The multi-select box next to Parent lets you choose what category this forum should be in. We only have the one we just created, so it's selected by default

The Global group's permissions that we just adjusted will be applied automatically to this forum after we submit this page. If you wish to change those permissions just for this forum, return here after saving

Scroll up and look to the right

22) Click Save

Now let's take a look at the Users page

As you can see here, all of our Joomla users were imported by the synchronization process that ran automatically at the end of installation

Finally, let's check out the Maintenance tab

Maintenance is where you can perform the actions shown at left

Prune allows you to mass delete posts older than a certain age

Upload Manager lets you control the files that all your users have uploaded

On the DB Tools page, you can perform the same operations that were done automatically at the end of installation

We've finished exploring the Agora admin panel. Now, we just need to add a link to the forums in Joomla and our members will be able to post to their hearts' content

23) Go to Menus...