How To Use the Forum Board

[admin]

Ok, so you now have joined the student lounge! Yay! This lounge is pretty neat, and there are a lot of features within the lounge that are really interesting.

When we look at the main page of the forum board, above where your name is there is a search box. You can put in what you are looking for and search by clicking enter or you can click the little flower icon and it will take you to Advanced Search where you can put in more specific things you are looking for.

In the top bar you will see Quick Links. This will take you to specific things like listing every post you have made, all new posts made in the last few days, all posts you have not read, all posts that have not been replied to, and topics that have had a lot of replies lately.

There is a FAQ that is written by the phpBB and it will have answers to a lot of your questions that I have no clue on yet (like what flash is).

The next line is the menu.

If you click The Magical Circle School it will take you back to the main page of the school (not the forum boards).

Board Index takes you to the main page of the forum boards.

Whatever is listed after Board Index is the section of the board you are in and it will take you to the list of forums boards in that section. Under that list will show all of the newest posts in all of that section.

Listed after that is the forum you are currently in. Clicking on that will take you back to that forum and the list of all the discussion threads within.


Now, when you find a forum board you want to look at, click on the title of the board and it will take you into the board so you can see the different discussion threads within it.

Some forums you are not allowed to post in without special permission, so you can only read the forums. In some you can post or reply to posts or participate in polls.

When you click on the forum, like Coffee Talk, at the top you will see the name of the forum you are in, and under it will tell you who the moderator or moderators are for the board. Some will be specific people, some will be more general like Teachers.

To add a post click on New Topic. This will bring you into the text box.

In some of the place you will see something called Topic Icon and you have a list of different icons you can choose from. You do not need to use them or you can, usually they mean specific things but it is up to you if you want to use them.

You then will have Subject and this is the title of your post.

Next you have your icon tool bar

B = Bold
i = italic
u = underline

Quote will put things in a different way, usually used if quoting someone else.

Code means that you are showing a code and that the BBC code is ignored so that people can see the code.

List will create bullet points for you

• So
  It
  Looks
  Like
  This

Or if you choose to do List =

1. After the = put 1 then click the star button next to it
2. and the * again but don't put the /list until you are done with the list

The IMG is the Image embeder that you all will know and love

URL will attach links to other sites.

Flash..... ok, I have no idea what Flash is, I am guessing it is like a gif, but I have no idea, so if someone wants to research it and write it up, be my guest!

The next drop down box will change the size of the words
Tiny
Small
Normal
Large
Huge

Font color will pull up a color chart and you have a ton of choices for all sorts of different colors! (please be aware that some color choices may be difficult to read)

Then on the right side of the board is Smilies you can choose from


Now at the bottom of the text box you will see Save Draft (which will save what you have so far so you can come back and finish later)
Preview which will show you what it looks like and Submit..... but before you click those under that you will see Options.

Leave the first three (disable BBCode, disable smiles, do not automatically pars URLs) unchecked.
Attach a signature can be checked and that will put your signature at the bottom of the post.
Notify me when a reply is posted you should have checked so that you will know if your post was replied to.

Some of you will see Lock Topic.... leave that unchecked otherwise no one can reply to it. Only Admins, Teachers and Moderators will see this.

Some of you will see post topic as (only teachers and admins) Normal is the usual way, but you can create a sticky or an announcement. Then there is Global which will post it on every single board in every forum. Then there is a stick topic for. You can choose to keep an item always sticky by leaving it at 0 or you can have it sticky for only a set number of days and then it will become a normal post.


Then some people (Moderators and Admins and Teachers) will see another tab called Poll Creation. It is pretty self explanatory. However there is now an option for how many votes a person gets and if they are allowed to change a vote.


Once you hit submit you will then see your post and you can go back and edit it if need be.

[admin]

When looking at posts you will see a Quick Reply box. If you know your coding or don't need any you can use that or you can click the Full Editor and Preview button to take you to the full edit screen.

You will also see at the top and at the bottom of the discussion thread a button to click to reply which will take you to the full edit screen as well.
Next to that you will see at both places a icon that looks like a wrench with an arrow. Click on the arrow and you can subscribe to the topic or bookmark the topic.

If you are an admin or moderator you will see next to that an icon with a hammer. This will give you some options you can do such as delete the topic or move it to another board.

[admin]

Click on another student or teacher's user name and you can view that person's profile. You can see on a person's profile if they are currently on line or not.

Here it tells you a little about that person.
You can add them as a friend or as a foe through the profile.
You can also email or PM a person through this screen.
You can see the person's signature and other information that they chose to share.

If you are an ADMIN or Teacher or in some cases a Mod you will be able to place warnings on people's accounts. These are if a person is found breaking rules or causing problems. I am notified anytime a person gets a warning.

[TMCS Teachers]

Subscribing to Forums

As you know when you post something you will get notifications when someone replies, but a new thing for our forums is subscribing to entire forum boards!!!!!! How cool is that???? So now if you want to see any time someone posts a new topic in Coffee Talk or one of your class forums or your best friend's blog, you can subscribe to that forum!

Simply enter into the forum, such as Coffee Talk, and down at the bottom of the forum where all the topics are listed in the little blue bar Subscribe to Forum. (and it has a little box with a check mark)

If you want to get notifications when people post in that forum you can click that and you will get a notification.
If you no longer want to get notifications then you can click it again to unsubscribe!