CREATING A NEW TOPIC

  1. From the main Forum page, click the New Topic button above the list of available Forums.
  2. Enter your new topic.
  3. Select the forum in which you want the topic to appear and click OK.
  4. Enter a subject for your message and the text of the message itself.
  5. Click Post to post the message to the forum, or click Preview to preview your message before posting it.


POSTING A NEW MESSAGE

  1. Select a topic from those listed under the available forum names.
  2. Click the Post new message in this topic hyperlink.
  3. Enter a subject for your message and the text of the message itself.
  4. Click Post to post the message to the Forum, or Preview to preview your message before posting it.


POSTING OPTIONS

Font options
When you create a message, you can select an option to display the message in a fixed-width font. If you want the entire message displayed in a particular font, you can write the entire message in HTML. Note, however, that selecting a font with the HTML tag is no guarantee that your message will be shown in that font on every browser.

The Advanced option: HTML
When creating a new message, you can also embed HTML directly into your message. You may use this feature to attach a hyperlinked graphic, such as a figure or other graphic, directly in your message.

E-mail notification
Two E-mail options are available when posting a new message:

  1. You can be notified by E-mail when all new messages are posted to the current topic. This can help you stay abreast of a subject you are interested in without having to constantly check the forum for new messages. You can E-mail your new message to everyone who has already posted a message to the current topic.
  2. You can also elect to be notified by E-mail of any new messages posted to a number of different topics that you mark. For more information about marking topics, see "Marking a Message Topic".

Quoting a message
When posting a reply to an existing message, the Quote button appears at the bottom of the message composition form. You can click this button to quote the message you are replying to in your own message.

Previewing your message
When you are finished writing your message, you can preview the message by clicking the Preview button. This can be especially useful if you have embedded a HTML file in your message. When you preview a message, you can return to the composition form if you want to make any changes to the message.

Attaching files to your message
When file uploading is enabled in a forum, you can attach files to any message you post. You might want to attach a graphics file, code snippet, or document file to a message.

To attach a file to your message:

  1. Open the Edit message page by creating a new message.
  2. Enter your name in the Author box.
  3. Click the Advanced button.
  4. Click the Attachments button.
  5. Click Browse to locate the file you want to attach. Then click Add to add it to the message. The filename appears in the Currently Attached box.
You can also use this page to remove attachments from messages.

Creating a signature for your messages
When you post messages, you can elect to have a signature appended to every message you post. This signature can contain text or HTML, so you could, for example, embed a graphic link to your web site as part of your signature.

To define a signature:

  1. Click the Options button.
  2. Click the Attach Signature checkbox and enter the signature text you want in the text entry box below.
Note: You can enter your E-mail address in the E-mail text entry box. Your address will then appear following your name in the header area of every message you post.



REPLYING TO AN EXISTING MESSAGE

  1. Select a topic from those listed under the available Forum names.
  2. In the message part of the page, click the Reply button.
  3. Enter a subject for your message and the text of the message itself.
  4. Click Post to post the message to the Forum, or Preview to preview your message before posting it.


SUBSCRIBING TO A TOPIC

Topics can be selected or marked so that various options can be applied to the topic you mark. You can, for example, request to be notified by E-mail of any new messages posted to any topic(s) you mark. This unique feature can save you a lot of time.

To mark a topic and enable E-mail notification:

  1. In the main Forum page, note the small bullet symbol between the message date to the right and the page icon to the left. Click the bullet to mark the topic. The bullet changes to indicate that it is marked.
  2. Click the Options button.
  3. Click the From Marked Topic checkbox.


DEFINING OPTIONS

Forums
Click the Forums you want to see in the main Forums window.

Global Settings

  • Use Frames
    Enables frames to display the Forum.
  • Use Text Buttons
    Provides text buttons instead of graphical buttons in the Forum.
  • Optimize for Low Speed Connections
    Helps improve conference performance for slower modem connections..
  • Font size
    Sets font size preference.
  • Font name
    Sets font name preference.
  • Date format
    Selects a date format.

Listed Topics

  • From
    Select a date range to filter the display of topics in the Forum.
  • Filtered by keyword
    Enter a keyword you want to use to filter the display of topics in the Forum. The keyword can be any word or phrase that appears in any part of a message.
  • New Topics First
    Shows all new topics at the top of the topics list.
  • Display Topic Dates
    Shows topic dates next to topic titles.
  • Display Message Count
    Shows the number of messages in each topic.

Topic window/frame

  • Display messages (no frames)
    Applies only to non-frames display. Shows message subjects and messages in the same page. When disabled (unchecked) messages appear alone in a separate page.
  • Display Only New Messages (no frames)
    Applies only to non-frames display. Shows only messages that have been posted since your last session. A session starts when you log in to or open a Forum.
  • Split Topic Frame (frames)
    Applies only to frames display. Divides the topic frame in two with message subjects on top and messages below.
  • Display Single Message Only (split frames)
    Applies only to frames display. Used with previous option to show only one message at a time in the messages frame.
  • Embed Images in Messages
    When you attach a graphic file (GIF or JPG) to your message, the graphic appears with the message text.

E-mail Notification

  • From Marked Topic
    Enables email notification for any topic you have marked

Signatures

  • Attach Signature
    Enter HTML code for the signature text you want to be attached to every message you post.

Personal

  • E-mail
    Enter you E-mail address. This address will appear beside your name in the header area of each message you post.



SEARCH FOR A MESSAGE

To search messages:
  1. Click the Search button.
  2. Enter a search word or phrase. You can use ordinary Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT in your search expression.
  3. Enter an author name to limit the search to a particular author.
Using Boolean search syntax:
You can create search expressions using Boolean syntax to find messages in a forum. The following examples illustrate common boolean syntax for searching:

"sleep" AND "sleep research" "sleep" OR "sleep research"



PRINTING A MESSAGE

You can print messages at any time by using the print option native to your web browser. However, unless you enable the Split Topic Frame option, your print operation will print all messages of the topic. Since you may not always want to print all of the messages, you are able to print a single Forum message.

To print a single message:

  1. Open the message you want to print.
  2. Click the Options button.
  3. Click the Use Frames checkbox and also click to enable the Split Topic Frame option.
  4. Click inside the message frame and select Print from the File menu.