Learning to Use the Forum!

[Arch_Angel]

The migration from the old forum is completed and now we are faced with a whole lot more features and options that we need to get used to.

- The first thing I suggest is that you visit your User CP (Control Panel) and explore each setting and options that are available there.
Your Control Panel is where you will be able to manage your profile and signature, change your avatar, manage your Private Messages, view threads you have Subscribed to and other Miscellaneous options.

- Next suggestion is to take a look at the FAQ section of the forum. There you will find many answers to common questions that you may have on how to use the new features in this forum.

- There is also another FAQ in the Newbie forum, which addresses most of the questions asked in the forum. This FAQ is updated regularly.

Please Read the FAQs before asking how to do something!

Keeping track of posts
Many of us like to keep track of threads that we have started or posted to, to see if there are any replies. Going to your User CP will display a list of threads that you have started or replied to. This makes it easy to keep track of your posts.

Viewing New Posts
To see a list of all new posts that have been made since your last visit, click the New Posts link at the top of the forum.

Quick Links
While browsing around the forum, you may see some links with a down arrow beside it:
This arrow means that when you click on the link, a list of menu options will appear below.
See example: Quick Links Example

Important Arrows
In the old forum there used to be the blue "New" image link beside threads, to let us know that there are new posts in the thread that we haven't read.
There are no "New" image link beside the threads here, but there are some useful arrows that will help you with your forum experience.

- Go To First New Post
This arrow is located beside each thread, that has a new post that you haven't read. Clicking on this link will take you to the first new post in that thread, since your last visit.
See example: First New Post Example

- Go To Last Post
This arrow is located in the "Last Post" column in each forum, beside the date and the author that made the last post in that thread. Clicking on this link will take you to the very last post made in the thread. Useful when reading thread with many pages.
See example: Last Post Example

Enjoy the new forum!! :icon_wink

[Arch_Angel]

Using the Quick Reply
At the bottom of each thread, you will find the Quick Reply. This feature allows you to post a reply to the thread without having to click the Post Reply button and using the advanced editor. Very useful if you just want to make a "quick reply". :icon_wink

A feature that some of you might miss while using the Quick Reply, is that you can quote a users post using the quick reply. Look for the post you would like to quote. Then look for the "Quick reply to this message" icon on the bottom of the post, as shown here: . Clicking on this icon, will take you back to the Quick Reply text box. Type your message as you normally would. Then make sure the option "Quote message in reply?" is checked. It is below the Quick Reply text box. Then submit your reply.

Your reply will have the users quoted post along with your message.

Go Advanced
In the Quick Reply, there is a button called "Go Advanced". If you started using the Quick Reply and wanted to insert a smiley or some forum code you don't quite remember how to use, clicking the Go Advanced button will take you to the advanced editor, with your current message still intact.

Viewing a thread on mouse over
Did you know you can view the contents of a thread when you place your mouse over the thread? When viewing the list of threads in a forum, place your mouse over the title of the thread and hold it there for a few seconds. A pop-up will display the contents of the thread, without actually clicking on the thread to view it. Very useful if you want to see what the thread is about and decide if you should read it or not.

Note: Internet Explorer users will be able to see all of the post in the pop-up while Mozilla users will only see 1 line of text from the thread. This is a browser limitation.

Examples:
Mouse Over using Firefox
Mouse Over using IE

[Arch_Angel]

Reporting a Bad Post
To help keep our forums clean and following the rules, users have the option to report any posts they see, that might be breaking the rules, to the forum moderator.
Above each post, there is an exclamation icon . Clicking on this icon gives you the option to submit a report to the moderator about that particular post. This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising messages, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts.

I strongly urge users to make use of this feature.

[Arch_Angel]

HOW-TO: INSERT AN IMAGE INTO YOUR POST ON TECHJAMAICA.COM.

There are two ways in which you can accomplish. But I will only show you how to link to the image, which is stored on free server. If you are wondering, the reason why you can't directly create a link is because it is forbidden on most free servers.


To get a free web host you should Click Here for a list of free host to choose from. After you sign-up to the host of your choice, upload the image that you want to be displayed in your post.

Go-To the post where you want you image to be displayed and type in the message box. Click on the picture frame icon which will open a javascript alert box if you are in Guided Mode or give you [IMG] in the text box if you are in Enhanced Mode or you can just type [IMG][/IMG] in. This is the tag that will allow you to insert an image into your post.

Add the following url, depending on which mode you are using in your post:
http://invis.free.anonymizer.com/http://www.domainname.com/images/image.gif.

• If you are using Guided Mode add the url in the javascript box.
• If you are using Enhanced Mode add the url after the opening image tag.
• If you typed the image tags in add the url between the opening and closing image tags.

http://invis.free.anonymizer.com is the link which will make your image visible on via linkage on other sites.

Next you would substitute http://www.domainname.com/images/ & image.gif for the exact location of the image that you want to create a link to.

Again http://www.domainname.com/ is the name of the website that you created, while images is the images folder that you will create on the server to store your images.

If you want to add multiple images to you post all you have to do is to repeat the steps above.

>>Written by Ropy<<

[Arch_Angel]

Some of you might have noticed some changes around the forum. This is due to the new forum software upgrade that was done yesterday.

To help you make the most out of these new features, I will highlight them below. These are the more noticeable features.

Multi-Quote
The much-requested multi-quote feature allows users to tag multiple posts that they wish to respond to by clicking a small button on each post. Once the user clicks the reply button, each tagged post is quoted.

To increase usability, by default, only posts within the current thread are automatically quoted. If you wish to quote posts in other threads with multi-quote, you simply need to click a link on the reply page, and the text of those posts will be added without a reload.



Quote Tags Link to Quoted Post
When quoting a post, the ID of the post is automatically included with the [quote] tag. When the quoted text is viewed in a thread, a small icon links back to the quoted post.

Example:

What he is referring to is, when your inbox is 90% full an email will be sent to you, to let you know that you need to empty out your inbox. And it also shows a notification in the top right hand corner, that your inbox is 90% full.

Show Threads or Posts from Quick Search Popup
You can now choose to show search results as threads or posts without having to click through to the advanced search page.




Mark Forums Read with AJAX
If you wish to mark a forum read, you can simply click its status icon on the index page and the change will be processed without a reload. You can even mark individual sub-forums as read in the same way.




Pop Up List of Attachments in a Thread
The paperclip icon that denotes whether a thread contains attachments is now clickable. It will pop up a window that shows a list of all the attachments in the specified thread, including file size and number of views.

This makes it easy for you to download or view that attachment in a thread without having to search for the exact post that had the attachment.

Private Messages: Quota Warning
Once you have reached 90% of your private message quota, you will receive a warning telling you that you have almost reached your quota.

Full BCC Support in Private Messages
Like in an email, BCC (blind carbon-copy) allows you to hide the full list of recipients from each recipient. In previous versions of vBulletin, the “to” field acted like a BCC field. Now, the “to” field acts like the field in an email; each recipient will see all the names in the “to” field.



If you have any questions about any feature of the forum, please ask in the Website Suggestions, Feedback and Queries forum.