Options Manager -- Other, Miscellaneous Options

These options are set from the Other tab of the Options Manager interface.

The following options are intended only for the most advanced Discus administrators who have a specific need to alter the behavior of their board with one of these options.

• Allow arbitrary HTML (strongly discouraged -- read instructions!): DiscusWare strongly discourages customers from checking this box. If you ever check this box, DiscusWare will NOT provide ANY support whatsoever for your board, either while the box is checked, or later on to help you deal with the negative consequences of having the box checked.

  If checked, posts made to the board will not be scanned for Discus formatting tags or have HTML tags removed. This breaks image and attachment uploading, and often breaks JavaScript-based code in searches and tree view. It can also break forms in user profiles and corrupt the display of nearly any imaginable Discus user interface. The entries to the board will be posted just as the user entered them, allowing any HTML directives that are desired. There is strong potential for abuse, as there is nothing that will stop users from entering JavaScript, META tags, or unclosed HTML tags that will ruin the display of pages. If you check this option, you will be making your board vulnerable to the security risks noted in CERT advisory 2000-02 (Malicious HTML tags embedded in client web requests). Additionally, if your server recognizes server-parsed code (such as PHP, SSIs, or ASP), you may also be exposing yourself to security risks, which could allow someone to post a message with malicious code that would let them gain unauthorized access to your server.

  Discus is designed with security in mind, and thus prevents the entry of arbitrary and unscreened code by the end-user. This option overrides those protections. Consider this option only if the board is being accessed only by highly trusted users (we don't even recommend enabling it then).

• Archive Manager: Use radio buttons rather than select boxes: Certain browsers on certain platforms do not behave properly when there are a large number of <select> elements on a single page. This appears to be a memory issue with these browsers, as the error reported is often that there is not enough free memory available. If you experience a problem with the select boxes not showing up in Archive Manager, check this box to generate these Archive Manager options with radio buttons instead. The page in Archive Manager will get much longer, but it should load properly.

• Database Manager: Hide database connection password: If checked, the Database Manager will not display your database connection password on the setup tab. This would prevent someone from seeing the password over your shoulder, if this is a concern. However, since you won't be able to see what you're typing for the database password, it would be easier to make a mistake when entering a password.

• Formatting: Use invalid HTML to allow interpreted formatting tags in subject lines: Check this option only if you are defining your own transliteration or other "special" formatting tags by editing the webtags2.pl file. If checked, the script will use 3.10-style pseudo-comment tags, like <!-tag-!>, rather than valid HTML comment tags. This will allow you to use transliterated tags in subject lines.

• Passwords: Do not convert to lower case or strip non-alphanumeric characters: Discus makes life more convenient for users, and the moderators who must support them, by making passwords case-insensitive. If you don't want this to happen, check this box, and passwords will become case-sensitive.

• Templates: Cache templates for better performance (requires more disk space): Checking this box has the capability to increase the speed of your board by several times, and this box is highly recommended for all users. This box is checked by default in 4.00.b35 and above (and is unchecked by default in older versions simply because the feature was experimental then). The additional disk space requirements are about 2-3 MB; if this does not present a problem, check this option.

• Version Manager: Do not contact DiscusWare's server to determine current Discus version: When you access your Version Manager, the script contacts the DiscusWare server to determine whether a new version is available. This is then reflected in the status message within your Version Manager. If, for some reason, you don't want your board to contact the DiscusWare web server to check for new versions when you go to your Version Manager, you would check this box.