Topic: Tips and Changes---please post your questions here! (Read 2484 times)

CZBZ · « **on:** May 30, 2011, 11:22:05 AM »

Tips
(I'm learning too!)

Avatars
Go to Profile on the menu bar at the top of the page and select Forum Profile. You can use an avatar from any site, like Photobucket or Flicker. Copy the url (direct link) to the image on your photo-site and paste it in the window. This is called an EXTERNAL avatar because it comes from another website.

Your photo image cannot be any larger than 150 pixels by 200 pixels. Our forum system may reject your image if it is too large. So if you try uploading your avatar and nothing happens, more than likely it was rejected because of the size.

Shoutbox
This precious little feature is on the left sidebar. It's a quick 'hello' or 'goodbye', like it says: a shoutbox. No conversations and maybe no replies...just letting folks know you stopped by for a few.

Arrows for Minimizing Categories
The left sidebar has several categories containing personal information for YOU, and information about the forum. You can check 'recent topics' on the sidebar and you can see new research articles linked to our library. Notice the small arrow in a box, located on the right side of each category? It should be pointed upwards right now. If you click on that arrow, the entire category will disappear. You are minimizing the category though. You aren't deleting it. This allows you to choose what you want to see and what you don't. It will not disappear forever. Just click on the arrow again and voila! The category reappears.

Expand and Contract left sidebar
This is very important to pay attention to! Look at the top of the message board. There is a small grayed-out square on the far right-side of the screen---just above 'previous---next'. If you click on that square, the left sidebar contracts completely and you no longer see it. It has not disappeared. You can expand the sidebar again by simply clicking on the grayed square again. You may want to contract the sidebar while viewing messages and only view the sidebar when first logging-in to the forum. Play with the square a little bit until you feel comfortable using it. It's kinda freaky at first!

Green Arrow
On the topic page, you will see a green arrow on the far right side of the topic listing. Hover your mouse over the arrow and it explains this function (try hovering over random items on the forum and you may see a pop-up describing the function). Mette mentioned this feature and voila, it was available.

Home
If you get lost AT ANY POINT, click on the Home button and you'll be redirected to opening page again. You can't get lost...not with a Home Button.

Moving threads around
I'm re-structuring existing threads from the old forum. Creating new categories and groupings. We did a lot of heavy-duty work this weekend, even migrating to a new server but gosh, we never lost a single thread! So everything that was here on the farm, is still here. I'll try to make this reorganization as user-friendly as possible. If you have any questions about a particular category you can't find, just post on this thread

Cosmetic
There are cosmetic improvements to be made in this existing 'template'. (i personally can't stand the giant weird icons on the categories letting you know there's a new post.) We had blue and brown butterflies on our old forum so I WILL be changing those icons at some point. Maybe today. The transfer took much longer than we anticipated so I didn't have time to complete cosmetic work. Still, it seemed more important to open the forum rather than remain shut down for two more days. Or three. Depends on how many mistakes I make 'cuz my son is back at work and now I"m in the captain's seat.

Emoticons
Still not showing up on the 'More' link. Don't know why (neither does my son), Wanted to let everyone know we're aware of this ongoing problem of the disappearing/reappearing emoticon list.

WYSIWYG editor
What You See Is What You Get. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to upgrade our forum so we would have a better message editor when typing messages. I haven't played around with it much so if anyone has and you can explain how to use it, please post! Thanks...there should be a way to SEE your message without the BBCode.

Videos
We installed programming code that allows you to embed videos. Just type the url into a message window and when it posts, the video will appear. This code works for google video, YouTube and other media sites. I believe it also works for audios...

Are there any questions you'd like to ask? I may not have answers though---hopefully someone will. We'll get everything figured out soon!

Hugs,
CZ

CZBZ · « **Reply #1 on:** May 30, 2011, 02:39:42 PM »

Avatars are integrated with our new forum theme. Some of you do not currently have an avatar so please let me offer to help if you're having difficulty creating or uploading an avatar.

If other forum members who are tech-savy, would like to volunteer to help, please let people know by posting on this thread. I KNOW some of you are much better at this than myself so speak up!

I could create numerous avatars to choose from--but most people (in my experience) want an avatar that 'fits' their personality. If you have an image but don't know what to do after that, don't worry about asking for help!

Please do not post actual photographs of yourself. Keep it personal to yourself BUTanonymous. Some people might not be concerned about anonymity so this decision is up to you. If a personal picture is posted as an avatar, I will assume you are aware of the personal risk. Don't post an avatar of the Narcissist either. Or his girlfriend or boyfriend or anyone you are writing about.

And for any lurkers hanging out in cyberspace, WoN managers reserve the right to edit or delete any avatars deemed to be inappropriate or offensive to our community.

We send an email first and if we cannot resolve the issue, we will terminate the membership. This has never happened but.....I'm just sayin'.

Hugs,
CZ

betterdays · « **Reply #2 on:** May 30, 2011, 05:54:01 PM »

Well, I have wanted an avatar for a while, but have trouble finding pics I really like. The whole castle motif appeals to me, and the position of queen must be taken

, but I think I'll look for something somewhat royal.

SydneyFireworks · « **Reply #3 on:** May 30, 2011, 06:56:12 PM »

I have a question! How do I change the board's time? I used to be able to set it to my local time, but now it's showing the time as one hour earlier than it actually is! I looked under 'profile' but couldn't see anything that would adjust the clock.

Hugs
Syd

CZBZ · « **Reply #4 on:** May 30, 2011, 08:01:08 PM »

I have the perfect picture for any woman who wants to be queen of her royal kingdom----with a ball and scepter gently resting in your hands. you just know that nobody's gonna be messing with your day! Glad you like the Castle Motif...it'll be fun pulling everything together. There's a few important items needing my attention and time---like the lead article that connects the dots between fairies and castles and narcissists and women supporting other women. Essay coming soon.............

Hey Syd,

I cannot find the same box we used to have allowing members to change time settings. It's not in the admin controls anymore. so I went to the admin website and people are begging for a dropdown menu allowing members to change time settings. It appears there's a conflict with 'global' service and actual time settings. Not sure what that's all about...but it appears that this is something we lost by upgrading.

That seems truly bizarre to me. I'll keep snooping around!

hugs,
CZ

too_many · « **Reply #5 on:** May 30, 2011, 08:11:31 PM »

Syd - I know this! If I can write it out correctly - it's kind of hard to trace the path: Go to your Profile box --> Account Settings --> dropdown the middle heading, Modify Profile, and choose Look and Layout --> scroll down to Time Offset - it even has an 'auto detect' button in blue that amazed me - how does it know where I am? But it works!

too_many

SydneyFireworks · « **Reply #6 on:** May 30, 2011, 08:26:49 PM »

Yay! Thanks too_many! Your instructions were great, and yes the auto detect worked for me too!

One less thing in life to confuse me.

Hugs
Syd

Candymom · « **Reply #7 on:** May 30, 2011, 09:04:53 PM »

CZ,
I would like an Avatar but I'm not that computer savy.
Do you have a pic of Coffee? I love coffee. I will also try and do it myself in the meantime.

CZBZ · « **Reply #8 on:** May 30, 2011, 09:13:15 PM »

Thanks, too_many!! I didn't even think about checking the profile page! MSN What they have on the profile page now must be the result of a request thread on the SMF site, asking for a dropdown window. 2.0 has been in development for like five years now. It's still not 'gold' but close enough to make it worth the switch.

There are new options in the personal profile so listen up everybody---go to your profile and set your forum interaction however you want. If you have questions about what some of those boxes mean, just post. Try something and if you hate it, go back to your profile page and untick the box.

CZ

CZBZ · « **Reply #9 on:** May 30, 2011, 09:15:43 PM »

Do you have a photobucket account, Candymom? You'll need to store the image on an external photo site. If you don't have a site like Photobucket, Flicker, Picassa, etc. maybe we can set one up just for avatars?

Let me know because it's no problem for me to store avatars on my account. It's unlimited since I pay an annual fee (it's not much).

Let me start a new thread for people who want avatars.

Hugs,
CZ

Julia · « **Reply #10 on:** May 31, 2011, 01:55:06 PM »

CZ, I saw an option in personal settings for filtering cusswords or not, so now perhaps we can choose to read clucks or f*ucks.

Julia

CZBZ · « **Reply #11 on:** May 31, 2011, 02:01:37 PM »

You're right...another new feature. People can swear all they want, the only problem being whether or not I censored their particular variety of swearing when setting up the 'bleeper.'

My feeling was that we might as well try some of the new functions and if there's any problem or issue, revert back to former methods.

I tried thinking up lots of combinations of words---so if some of you are worried about offending other members, try clicking PREVIEW before you post. My swear-and-cuss vocabulary isn't very creative. ha!!

Hugs,
CZ

Imogene · « **Reply #12 on:** June 02, 2011, 07:34:01 AM »

Not a question--more like an observation. I am finding it harder to log out of this forum. Twice now I'm come back in only to find myself. . . still there. I'll just have to double-check.

Julia · « **Reply #13 on:** June 02, 2011, 12:30:52 PM »

CZ,

I miss the symbol that says which threads we have posted in (and might be following more closely).

Julia

Julia · « **Reply #14 on:** June 02, 2011, 12:39:22 PM »

OK - I just changed my swearing filter to off, so here goes again. cluck, shite, azzhole, bazturd

P.S - nope, still came through with clucks.

Julia

CZBZ · « **Reply #15 on:** June 03, 2011, 09:42:57 AM »

1-I don't log-out, Imogene but for those of you who do, please let me know if this problem persists. It's important to take precautions if the narcissist has access to your computer!

2- I"m not recalling the symbol you are referring to, Julia?? I will check controls to see if there's a feature I haven't set correctly.

3-Will check the 'swearing filter, too'. If it doesn't work, then I might as well remove it from the menu as an option.

Be back soon....if I get lost back there, will somebody throw me a rope please??

CZ

Julia · « **Reply #16 on:** June 03, 2011, 12:38:05 PM »

CZ, the "you have posted on this thread symbol" was yellow, sorry I can't say more....but out of site out of mind.....

Julia

CZBZ · « **Reply #17 on:** June 03, 2011, 12:48:45 PM »

We must have lost that feature with 2.0. I've gone through the permissions and settings ten times this morning and can't see the feature you're describing, Julia. I can always look for a 'mod'...but there may not be one.

I have tried the setting for non-censoring and it allows 'censored' words to post without clucking. Not sure how important that is since we're kinda used to not swearing at this point. shite! (just checkin')

CZ

CZBZ · « **Reply #18 on:** June 03, 2011, 12:49:36 PM »

Yup...I can see myself swearing (which might come in handy now and then, ha!)

Julia · « **Reply #19 on:** June 03, 2011, 01:48:40 PM »

CZ, my swearing filter is off, and you just said shite on my screen. Obviously, not a huge issue, you have better things to do.

Julia

CZBZ · « **Reply #20 on:** June 03, 2011, 01:56:54 PM »

yes, BUT it bugs me when features don't work. Especially if it's Administrator Idiocy

If it doesn't work, then I'll take the option off the list. thanks for letting me know!

P.S. Our version of 2.0 still have a few kinks for developers to work out, so reporting problems is a good thing.

I didn't want to wait until it went 'gold' and since other forums were using it without serious complications, the timing felt right. We may have 'internal service problems' from time-to-time but my son is johnny-on-the-spot. We could never afford this forum without his free donation of time. He's a good kid.

Hugs,
CZ

too_many · « **Reply #21 on:** June 05, 2011, 09:40:40 AM »

On Julia's question about a symbol showing which topics you've posted in, I think it was a smaller square inside the same yellow square that expanded as a thread gathered replies to show that it was popular. Now that square is white and still right next to the topic name, but it doesn't seem to do anything. Just in case that helps!

Imogene · « **Reply #22 on:** June 05, 2011, 12:37:01 PM »

Okay, this is driving me crazy--I cannot fix the time. I followed the advice of another forum member and went into profile settings, but my time is six hours ahead, essentially (for me) on UK time. I'll try changing the default hours setting and see if that works, but the switch came for no reason (it used to be a mere one hour off, and I thought I had fixed that).

Anyone?

too_many · « **Reply #23 on:** June 05, 2011, 01:46:53 PM »

Imogene, the time went wonky on me this week too, and I had to redo my settings in the same place as before, but instead of auto set, I just put the right math in the manual box? And it has been working fine since, as long as I'm logged in.

your Profile box --> Account Settings --> dropdown the middle heading, Modify Profile, and choose Look and Layout --> scroll down to Time Offset

JennyWren · « **Reply #24 on:** June 05, 2011, 05:02:03 PM »

Well well well....so there`s me thinking what a clever old system this is to put me on UK time...here in the gool ol` UK..... without me doing a thing...and it turns out poor Imogene is running UK time too! We will take over the world with our glorious GMT. Mwahaha!!!!

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Author Topic: Tips and Changes---please post your questions here! (Read 2484 times)

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