Beginning v4.4, you can switch between 3 different presentation styles for your home page right from the AdminCP.
It is possible with earlier versions, but it requires you to edit a configuration file with Notepad, upload it to the server, and manually restart the AppDomain.
Step by Step Instructions
Step 1. Modify the Routing Configuration File
This step tells ASP.NET's routing engine which file to serve when people browse to
~/ or
~/default.aspx.
First, go to
AdminCP -> System Related Options -> Config Editor 
To change the route, you need to edit the <File></File> in the 2 red rectangles. Do not change the content in the <URL> tags.
Make sure you set the file permission for ~/config/Route.config to "Write" so that you can edit the file from this interface.
If you want to use...
- The News style home page: put ~/home.aspx inside both <File> tags (this is the default)
- The Forum List: put ~/forums.aspx inside both <File> tags
- The Blog: put ~/blogs.aspx inside both <File> tags
Save the edit, and the software will restart the AppDomain automatically.
You may need to restart the AppDomain manually, if you aren't running the software under Full Trust. The easiest way to do so is to slightly modify the web.config file (e.g. adding a space to the end), which triggers the AppDomain restart automatically.
Step 2. Change the Breadcrumb Link URLs
This step lets you set the breadcrumb URLs for a few key pages. It's important we make the changes to reflect our choice for home page.
Go to
AdminCP -> Home, Forums, Menu & Breadcrumbs -> Homepage Selection & Breadcrumb 
Use the dropdown to set your home page (reflect what you decided to use in Step 1), and modify the text boxes below. The software will give you suggestions on what to put in the text boxes once the dropdown selection is changed.
- URL for Home can be either "~/" or "~/default.aspx"
- URL for All Forums can be either "~/Forums" or "~/forums.aspx"
- URL for Blog can be either "~/Blog" or "~/blog.aspx"
That's it.
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The new Landing Pages feature available in the announcement section of the AdminCP allows you to create special pages outside the forum / blog system. It's useful when you want to create pages not usually found in a forum, such as:
- special lead capture page
- private content page
- About Us page
- Custom 404 page
- Special Thank you page after registration confirmation
- ... and many more
Basically you create a landing page just like an announcement, but in addition to deciding the place the announcement shows up (forum, gallery, registration form, etc.), you can specify a
permalink for it so that it can show up on its own URL.
Landing pages also allow you to
optimize for search engine. You can specify Page Title, Meta tags, and additional content in the <head> tag (like adding
Google+ Authorship markup). In addition, you can use
raw HTML and JavaScript, making it very versatile when you want to create pages with rich UI.
Once you are logged in as an Admin,
- For APG vNext (version 4): you'll see an item that says Admin Control Panel when you click on the top right menu;
- For version 3.x: you will see on the top menu an item that says Admin Control Panel. Mouseover it and you will see the basic sections of the admin control panel;
- For version 2.x: scroll down the the bottom of the page to see a graphic that says "Admin". Click on it to go to the admin control panel.
Once you are in the admin control panel, you will see a list of sections on the left. Click on the one you want to configure, and the desired section will appear on the right.
- For APG vNext (version 4):
- For version 3.x: At the very top of the admin page, you will see a link that indicates the Help file location
. - For version 2.x: At the top of the right frame, you should see a link with a ? mark.
Click on it and a small window will popup with detailed descriptions for the current section (context-sensitive help file).
document, admincp, admin
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Sometimes blog posts can get a bit lengthy which may cause loading time and scrolling problem on the blog home page which shows a few blog posts at once. It's common to show a snippet and at the end add a Read More link that takes readers to the full post.
Here is how you do it in APG vNext:
- Set Full Blog Posts per page under Blogging Integration (AdminCP) to 0 to show only partial posts (snippet).
- Then, add a page break to each post:
- The post will show on the blog post listing like the following:
This way, you get to list as many posts on the blog home, and choose how much info to show up front.
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The score system is tied to the rating of the posts. Your score increases / decreases when you get a
thumbs up / down (+1 / -1) or a
star rating (-2 to +2) for your posts from other members, and it affects the member title that shows below your name on the post page.
The reward points is something else: Reward points are gained when members join / sign in, and can be managed on the
Registration / Login page in the AdminCP. You can also set different amount of reward points to gain for different User Groups.
It's important to understand that
score (quality of posts) is in no way associated with
reward points (participation).
Reward points allows you to post reward point threads by attaching a certain amount of points to your thread to reward the best answer you get. Reward point threads can be enabled by going to the forum management interface for each individual forum, and you'll find the setting under the
Posting Permissions and Settings tab.
The reward point system is currently not a very elaborate system, which we'll be expanding in future versions.
How do I hide score and reward points on the post page?
Some people may find it insulting to have negative scores beside their name, and you can hide the display of score if you get complaints from users by going to
AdminCP ->
Basic Configuration ->
Posts, List View & Search and check the
Don't display score beside posts box.
There is currently no AdminCP display switch for reward points. You can however hide it easily by going to the template:
~/App_Templates/
BaseTemplate (or your template name)/
MessageDisplay/ItemTemplate.ascx and remove this line:
<li><%#langString("profAvailableRewardDesc")%> : <%# MDto.AuthorRewardPoints%></li>1 comment
APG vNext supports sign in Integration with Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Enabling
Google Login is easy, as you just have to check the box in the AdminCP (checked by default).
For
Facebook and
Twitter integration, you have to first create an app on their developer sites in order to get a
key and
secret pair. Click on
Get your key in each section to create your apps.
If you've never created these apps before, it may not be very obvious what settings you need to turn on on their developer sites to enable integration with AGP vNext.
See below for information: