on rss feeds… out of the box, that is not possible, but it is using our api…  assuming you know how to use standard wp hooks, you would hook into the feed process and only show the first post in a topic… so something like:

add_filter('sph_rss_where', 'my_feed_filter');
function my_feed_filter($where) {
    $where.= ' AND post_index=1';
    return $where;
}

if you only wanted to do for specific forums you could add that check to the $where clause as well, like:

    $where.= ' AND post_index=1 AND '.SFPOSTS.'.forum_id IN (3, 4);

where 3 and 4 would be list of forum ids  you wanted to limit…  this code would go in your sp theme spFunctions.php template file…  As always, we recommend a child theme before making changins to a theme…

There is  not really an easy way to do a notification on quoting… its possible in the api, but would require some robust coding… not something anyone has asked for before…  most folks just use our mentions plugin to accomplish something similar…

yes, of course  you can default it to open…  in your sp theme, in the spForumView.php and spTopicView.php template files, at the top, you will find some arrays with defaults defined…  In forum view, you would look for:

    $addTopicForm = array(

and in topic view, you would look for:

    $addPostForm = array(

for both, you want to change the ‘hide’ argument from 1 to 0…  again, make a child theme before making any edits…