{"id":1204,"date":"2012-03-07T16:56:46","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T21:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/2012\/03\/07\/understanding-forums-in-drupal-7\/"},"modified":"2023-10-12T13:52:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T17:52:11","slug":"understanding-forums-in-drupal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/drupal\/understanding-forums-in-drupal\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Forums in Drupal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before you enable the Forum<\/strong> module in Drupal, you may encounter some terms that you aren\u2019t exactly familiar with. Forums have a special terminology that you\u2019ll want to understand so you can set up your forums appropriately. In this tutorial, we\u2019ll explain what forums, containers, messages, and comments are and how they interact with one another.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s on the main forum page?<\/h2>\n

If you go to https:\/\/example.com\/forum<\/strong> (replacing example.com with your actual domain<\/em>) you\u2019ll be taken to the main forum page of your Drupal website. This page lists all the forums and containers you created (only if you have first enabled the forum module<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"drupal_forum_structure_1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

What are containers?<\/h2>\n

Containers can be used to hold forums or other containers themselves. Let\u2019s say we have a forum all about food. We can set up a container called different food types that contains forums for French, Italian, Chinese, Mexican, and American regional. Containers are just that, containers to group other forums together. Containers cannot hold messages.<\/p>\n

Now, we could even go one step further and set the French forum as the parent to other forums such as French Desserts, French Main Courses, and French Appetizers. Containers and even forums grouped together help to create a logical order to your forums. If someone is only interested in French Desserts, they don\u2019t have to navigate through all of the French Food messages, only the forum on French Desserts.<\/p>\n

\"drupal_forum_structure_2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Messages and Comments<\/h2>\n

Messages are simply nodes of a specific content-type called Forum topic<\/strong> and show up with the other article and basic pages in the list of content. Messages are the basic threads that your website visitors create. Comments made on any forum topic are treated like any other comment on your Drupal website. These appear in the Comment administration list in your Drupal Dashboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before you enable the Forum module in Drupal, you may encounter some terms that you aren\u2019t exactly familiar with. Forums have a special terminology that you\u2019ll want to understand so you can set up your forums appropriately. In this tutorial, we\u2019ll explain what forums, containers, messages, and comments are and how they interact with one Read More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56983,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[372],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drupal"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUnderstanding Forums in Drupal | InMotion Hosting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In this tutorial, we'll explain the basic terminology used in the forums of Drupal 7 and how the different parts interact with one another.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/drupal_drupal_forum_structure_1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Smaha\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@carriesmaha\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@InMotionHosting\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Smaha\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" 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