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Explanation of board features


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Hi,

 

Seeing that we have a lot of new users lately and have plenty of non IT savvy people here as well, I figured it may not be a bad idea to highlight some of the extra features on this board and to explain how to use them.

 

Add a post

 

To start a new thread you *need* to have an account (click here to create one) and be logged in. Once logged in open the forum you wish to post to and click the 'Post' link in the grey bar towards the top of the screen (in between the menu and the list of forum topics).

On the screen that opens enter your subject in the first field, optionally select a Post Icon, and then type your post in the big Post field. Click the 'Continue' button at the bottom of the page to add your post to the board.

 

Adding a poll to your post

 

Start a post as described above and select the tickbox before "Add a poll to this post." at the bottom of the page. Enter the number of questions in the box behind it. Click the 'Continue' button.

On the next screen enter your question(s), enter the number of choices and selection type for each question. Click the 'Continue' button.

On the next screen enter the choices for each question and click the 'Continue' button.

On the next screen you can add some final, optional, parameters to make the poll start / end at a certain time as well as setting whether people can see the results before the poll ends, or if they haven't voted yet. Click the 'Continue' button one final time and the post & poll are added to the board.

 

Adding pictures to your post

 

Silver Members have the option of adding photos to their posts.

To do so start a new post or reply to one and on the screen where you enter your post click the 'Image' link when you wish to insert a photo.

This will popup a small window in which you need to enter a URL to the photo. The photo *needs* to be located online and cannot be called from your own computer.

 

If you have a photo on your own computer you wish to use you therefore have to upload it to the Internet first. You can upload it to the Photo Gallery of this site (see instructions further down) or use any other photo gallery (for instance Photobucket).

 

Archives

 

All posts older than 1 year get moved into the archives, which are only available to Silver Members. The use of these archives is identical as the use of the other forums, with the exception that you cannot post or reply to the archived threads.

 

Favorite Threads

 

At the bottom of each thread (in the Extra Information box) is a link called 'Favorite Thread! (toggle)'. This is a toggle (i.e. it switches from off to on to or from on to off every time you click it) which is used to set whether or not you want a certain thread to be one of your favorites.

If set to be a favorite thread, all replies to this thread will be emailed to you until you unselect it.

 

Your My Home contains an overview of your favorite threads.

 

Links

 

Clicking the Links link found in the menu at the top of the page will take you to the Links section.

This section contains loads of Thailand-related links which might be of use to you. They are organized in categories, and everybody is welcome to add their own links to the system (as long as they are relevant).

 

To add a link click the 'Submit a Link' link at the bottom right of the page.

This will bring up a new page in which you need to enter values for several fields. First of all select the category you think best suits your link from the drop down menu (if no suitable exists, feel free to suggest an addition). Then enter the link and the title and description you wish to associate with this link.

Finally click the 'Submit Resource' button and you are done.

Please note that the link still needs to be approved by me though, so it will not show up immediately.

 

It is also possible to rate links. Each link shows up using the same format. The first line shows the title, the second the description and the final line contains some additional info such as when it was added and by whom, and how many times it was clicked.

That last line also contains to links, one to rate the link and one to add the link to your favorites.

 

Clicking the 'Rate this link' link brings up a new screen in which you can select a rating of 1 (worst) to 5 (best) for the link. Click the 'Rate This Link' button to submit your rating.

 

My Home

 

Clicking the My Home link found in the menu at the top of the page will take you to your My Home section. In this section you can check your Private Messages, as well as changing many personal profile and display preferences. Some examples:

 

Change your username

 

Click the Edit link behind "Personal information, email, password, etc.". On the next page enter a new username in the first field (marked 'Display Name'. Click the 'Submit' button at the bottom of the page.

 

Add an avatar

 

Click the Edit link behind "Personal information, email, password, etc.". On the next page scroll down to nearly the bottom of the page. The last field allows you to enter a URL to your avatar. This avatar *needs* to be located online (Silver Members can send it to sanuk@nanaplaza.com and I'll upload it to our server and send you the URL to use). Click the 'Submit' button at the bottom of the page.

 

Change your stylesheet

 

Click the Edit link behind "Display preferences, number of shown threads, languages, colors...". On the next page select the stylesheet you wish to use from the second dropdown menu. Click the 'Submit' button at the bottom of the page.

 

Photo Gallery

 

Clicking the Photo Gallery link found in the menu at the top of the page (just below the row of tabs) will take you to the Photo Gallery.

The Photo Gallery contains pictures uploaded by our members organized in several different categories. It is also the place where the entries for our monthly photo contest are displayed. Please note that only Bronze and Silver Members can see all the categories and it is only them who can upload photos.

 

To upload a photo click the 'Upload Photos' link at the top right of the screen. This will bring up a new page in which you need to enter values for several fields. As with the Links you need to select a category to which to upload the photo. Next task is to select the photo; do this by clicking on the Browse button. This will popup a window which lets you browse your computer to look for the photo. Click on the photo and click Done to close the window; the path to your photo should be entered onto the page now.

 

Notes on uploading :

- the maximum filesize (i.e.number of kilobytes) for a photo is 150Kb, bigger than that and it will be refused

- the maximum width and height of the photo is set to 1280 pixels, bigger than that and it will be refused

- the acceptable image types are : .jpg,.jpeg,.png,.gif

 

Personal photo albums

Silver Members also have the option of creating their own albums.

To create your own album click the 'Album Admin' link at the top left of the screen. On the screen which appears you can create a new album by clicking the 'Add Album' link, which will bring up another screen.

Enter an Album Name and Description and decide whether or not you want this album to be private. Click the 'Add Album' button to create the album.

(If you create the album as private a password is automatically generated to protect it, only those members you give this password to can view your album.)

 

After you have created your album, the main 'PhotoPost Album Editor' (i.e. the page you were on earlier to add an album) page is displayed again, and your newly added album appears in the table at the bottom of the page. You can Delete or Edit your album from this page, as well as Sort the photos in it.

Uploading photos to personal albums is done in the same way as uploading to the public galleries, just select the correct category from the drop down menu.

 

Opening / Closing categories

 

If you have no interest in a certain category, you can 'close' on the main index page by clicking the - sign in front of the name. To open it up again later, click the + sign.

 

Quick Reply

 

While I think most of you know about Quick Reply, many may not know how to use it properly.

If you just enter text in it and hit Continue your reply will be associated with the last post in the thread. If, however, you click on the Quick Reply link at the top right of the post you wish to reply to, it will jump you to the Quick Reply box as well. Entering your reply and hitting Continue will in that case associate your reply with the post from which you hit the Quick Reply button.

 

The last method is much more preferable as it will help keep threads organized.

 

View recent messages

 

If you would rather not browse through all the different forums to find out which posts are new, you can opt ot view the recent messages (either Past 24 hours, Past 48 hours, or Past 7 days). The links to this are found in the Extra Information box and bring up a long list of posts which have been added to the board in the selected timeframe. The posts are in order of posting.

 

If there are any other features that are unclear, please ask and I'll include them in this post.

 

Sanuk!

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