Options Manager -- E-mail Activation and Headers

These options are set from the E-mail tab of the Options Manager interface.

Activation

To configure the board to send e-mail messages, you must activate one or more e-mail features. By default, these features are not activated, for the sole purpose of requiring you as a board administrator to come to this interface and configure the options as needed.

• Server is capable of sending e-mail messages: This option is a prerequisite for any e-mail sending functions of your discussion board to work. Check this box simply to indicate that you are setting up your discussion board to use a mail server to send messages. All administrators wishing to use e-mail functions must check this box.

• E-mail notification enabled: This option must be checked to allow the discussion board to send e-mail notification messages when new posts are made. Unless you have a good reason to disable this feature, you should check this box.

• Reply by e-mail -- administrative features enabled: If you are implementing the reply by e-mail feature and you want moderators to be able to send simple commands as e-mail responses to posts, check this box. The "Configure" link pops up a new window to allow you to define your commands. Properly setting up the reply by e-mail feature is a prerequisite to using this option. For details, consult the documentation on how to set up e-mail reply administrative commands.

• Reply by e-mail -- posting features enabled: When properly configured, your discussion board can accept posts through the web interface or through e-mail messages sent in reply to e-mail notifications. Configuring your Discus board and mail server to support this feature can be tricky, so it is recommended that you do not check this box unless you are following through one of DiscusWare's tutorials on setting up the reply by e-mail feature.

E-mail Message Headers

This section allows you to influence the message headers that are generated for new posts. With most mail servers, your parameters from this section will be applied and used in the generated e-mail messages.

• From Name: Enter the name of your discussion board. Since this name will be displayed as the "From" name in all e-mail messages sent out, if your board title is long, consider shortening it for the purposes of this box.

• From Address: Enter a valid e-mail address where replies to discussion board posts should be sent. If possible, you should set up a separate POP3 mailbox for your discussion board and enter this address here. More specific instructions are provided if you need to set up the reply by e-mail features; if you are not following through a reply by e-mail setup tutorial, just enter any valid e-mail address that you own.

• To Address: This is used in the deprecated BCC sending method and should generally be left blank. If you are convinced that you must put something here, enter your own e-mail address. If you're not using the BCC method of mail sending, it doesn't matter what you put here. All but the most advanced users can leave this box blank and not worry about it.