These are the settings I recommend for use with Advanced Forum. All of these settings are part of core Drupal, and not the Advanced Forum module itself, but Advanced Forum builds on top of core so having a good base is important.

1. Forum settings ( ?q=admin/content/forum/settings )
   • Hot topic threshold: Up to you.
   • Topics per page: Up to you.
   • Default order: "Date - newest first" so the most recent posts are at the top of the topic list.
2. Comment settings ( ?q=admin/content/comment/settings )
   • Set Default display mode: Flat list - expanded. (Advforum is intended to be used flat. Using it threaded should mostly work but is unsupported and may have some issues.)
   • Default display order: Date - oldest first
   • Default comments per page: Up to you. (If you chose to have a threaded forum, setting this number to the maximum will reduce issues with pagination and threading.)
   • Comment controls: "Do not display" is recommended.
   • Anonymous commenting: Up to you.
   • Comment subject field: Up to you. If disabled, advforum will not display the Drupal default subject, which is the first few words of the comment.
   • Preview comment: Up to you.
   • Location of comment submission form: Up to you. Displaying below provides a non-ajax quick reply.
3. User settings ( ?q=admin/user/settings )
   • Picture support: Enable this for avatars in the forum.
   • Picture maximum dimensions: If you change this from the default 85x85, you will want to size it in either CSS or with imagecache to avoid breaking the forum layout.
   • If you use a default image, make sure to use a relative path, not a full URL, if you intend to use the imagecache preset option.
4. Statistics settings ( ?q=admin/logs/settings ) [Note: the core Statistics module must already have been enabled]
   • Enable access log: Enabled
   • Count content views: Enabled - Needed for topic views count.