MSDN Reference for Discussion Boards - Link
A Discussion Board in SharePoint 2010 is a List which allows collaboration between members in a team over a particular discussion subject. To make it even simpler, Discussion boards are moreover like Internet forums where discussions threads exist and each discussion topic have several replies from users. Users have an option to create, edit and remove a discussion topic or discussion reply.
The Discussion board functionality and user-interface can be customized with the help of SharePoint Object Model and customizing CSS classes respectively. From a developer point-of-view, a point to note - the Discussion Board forms do not open in InfoPath Designer 2010. SharePoint Designer 2010 is the only choice for customizing any of the Discussion Board forms and views besides the out-of-box functionality available in browser.
Views in Discussion List:
Discussion board can have several Views which are different ways to display the list which will suit the user requirements. New views can be created and out-of-box views can be customized if required.
Each discussion list has three views by default:
| View name | Page Name |
| Subject view (default) | AllItems.aspx |
| Flat View | Flat.aspx |
| Threaded View | Threaded.aspx |
The default view is Subject for a new discussion list created. More views can be created as per user’s requirements. (More on Types of Views below).
Creating a Discussion List in a SharePoint 2010 site:
1. Login into the SharePoint 2010 site. The user has to be a Site Administrator to create the list.
2. Go to Site Settings menu in the top-left corner of the page and select View All Content.
3. Click Create.
4. Select List from left navigation and click on Discussion Board. Enter the name of the list you would like to have and click on Create.
Once created, you will see the ‘Villkor och tariff’ Discussion list in the Quick Launch navigation on the left side.
Different types of views:
1. Subject view (default view)
This view is available only at the top-level folder (the highest level of a discussion board) and is used to view the names of the discussions and other metadata on a particular discussion. The name of each discussion in the board appears as a link in the Subject column that you can click to go to a lower-level folder that displays the replies to that particular discussion.
Note: Although it is possible to use a different view for the top-level folder, such as the flat or threaded view, we do not recommend that. Instead, use the subject view or a view that you create based on the subject view.
2. Flat view
By default, this view is available only in folders of the discussion content type. This means that it is not available to the top-level folder. In this view, the subject of the discussion, all replies to the discussion, and other replies are aligned on one side.
3. Threaded view
By default, this view is available only in folders of the discussion content type. This means that it is not available to the top-level folder. In this view, the subject of the discussion is aligned to one side, all replies to the discussion are indented slightly, and all replies to previous replies are indented even farther. This view makes it easy to see whether a reply was made directly to the subject of the discussion or to a previous reply.
Changing the view in Discussion Board:
From any view in Discussion Board, you can change the view by clicking on the List on Main Navigation Breadcrumb and selecting the desired view.
