# Boards, Forums, and Topics Hierarchy

GravityOps Forum uses a structured hierarchy to organize content and discussions. Understanding this hierarchy is essential for correctly setting up your forum and managing its content.

## The Organizational Structure

The plugin follows a four-level hierarchy:

1.  **Boards**: The top-level containers. Think of these as major categories or departments (e.g., "Product Support," "Community Lounge," "Developer Hub").
2.  **Forums**: Sub-categories within a Board where actual discussions happen. Each Board can contain multiple Forums (e.g., within "Product Support," you might have "Bug Reports" and "Feature Requests").
3.  **Topics**: Individual discussion threads started by users. These are stored as entries in the Gravity Form assigned as a "Topic Form."
4.  **Replies**: Responses to a specific Topic. These are stored as entries in the Gravity Form assigned as a "Reply Form."

## Content Creation and Management

*   **Administrative Management**: Boards and Forums are created and managed by administrators through the GravityOps Forum dashboard. This is where you define the structure, names, slugs, and descriptions.
*   **User Interaction**: Topics and Replies are created by users on the front end of your site using standard Gravity Forms.

## Relationships and IDs

*   **Board ID**: Every board has a unique numerical ID.
*   **Forum ID**: Every forum has a unique numerical ID and is linked to a parent Board.
*   **Topic ID**: This is the Gravity Forms Entry ID of the topic. Each Topic is linked to a Forum ID.
*   **Reply ID**: This is the Gravity Forms Entry ID of the reply. Each Reply is linked to a parent Topic ID.

This hierarchical structure allows for precise control over where content is posted and who can access specific sections of the forum.
