Hey everyone, just got a little guide here to help show you how to use this site. We'll go over how to navigate the site, change your settings for your account, and how to use BBCode in your posts. This guide will be divided into two posts. The first post is for the general forum portion of the guide, and the second post is for the BBCode portion of the guide. The guide is still in it's Alpha state, so not everything is completed yet. If you have any questions about anything in the guide, or something that's not included, ask over in this thread here.
Navigating The Site
So, let's start with the homepage:
Here we have the 4 most recent pieces of content featured at the top of the page, with older content listed beneath. (Content includes articles and podcasts for right now, possibly more in the future). There's a link to submit an article if you want to try writing for us. (This link will tell you more about writing for us, and we hope you do). You'll also be able to see your pending articles. (You can ignore the Publish link, that's only available to moderators). The front page also has some quick links to different parts of the forum.
The Home button will take you to the front page of the site, which is the one you're already on. Clicking the Forum button will take you to the board index page (which we'll go over more in a moment). Hover over the Forum button to bring down some quick links for the forum (more on those in a moment as well). The Articles button will cause the page to show just the Articles published on the site, and the Podcasts button will cause the page to display just the podcasts. Click the Home button to display all content again.
Now, let's talk about those forum Quick Links. All of these quick links will take you off the main page and onto the forum. The View Your Posts will show you all the threads you've posted in. View Unanswered Posts will show you all the threads that don't have a reply yet. View Unread Posts will show you all the threads that have posts you haven't read yet. (The forum will track which threads and posts you have and have not read). View New Posts will show recent posts on the forum (I'm not sure of the time frame for this). View Active Topics will show you threads that are getting posts and views.
Now, let's take a look at the board index page.
This page has links to all the sub-forums on TCS. You can click a sub-forum to view the topics in that sub-forum. Some sub-forums have further sub-forums. These can be accessed either by clicking the link on the main page (underneath the link to the parent sub-forum), or clicking to their parent sub-forum and then clicking to that sub-forum. You may be wondering about the different coloured icons next to threads and sub-forums, but that's something we'll talk about later.
If you click around in the forums and on threads, you'll notice that at the top of the page there will be a breadcrumb trail showing the forum layout to that point, meaning it will display the index page, then the sub forum, then sub-sub-forum (if any), and then the thread you are in (if any). You can click on any of these breadcrumbs to go to that part of the site.
Back to the Index page again, you'll also find it has links for you to check your Private Messages (PM), and to edit options in your profile. The FAQ button will take you to an FAQ for phpBB message boards (the software we use for our forum). If you hover over the Search button, it will display the same quick links as the Forum button on the homepage. You can click the Search button to bring you to bring up an advanced search page for the forum. The Members button will show you a list of all the members on TCS.
Go to the bottom of the Index page to see a little more information about the forum.
Here you'll see info about how many users are online, how many are registered, how many are hidden, and how many are guests. You'll also see a list of who is online;, note that hidden users will not display here(If you want to remain hidden, simply tick the box to do so when logging into to TCS). The Legend will also tell you what the different coloured user names mean. You can click on a group in the legend to see everyone who belongs to that group. Beneath that the Index page will also display current TCS birthdays, and a few statistics about the forum.
Changing Your User Settings (User Control Panel)
Now, let's take a look at that Profile button at the top of the Index page we mentioned earlier. If you click on that, it'll take you to the User Control Panel (UCP); this is where you can change settings for your user account.
The main page here shows a brief overview of your account, and has links for you to manage threads you've subscribed to (meaning you get e-mail alerts when there's a new post), threads you've bookmarked (so you can find them quickly), drafts for posts you've begun writing, and all the attachments you've uploaded to TCS.
The profile tab will let you edit information about your profile, signature, avatar, and other account settings. The Private Messages tab will let you read and write PMs (I'll talk more about PMs later in this guide). The Usergroup tab will show which groups you belong to on the forum (you probably won't use this much).
The Friends & Foes tab let's you manage people you like and dislike on the forum. You can add someone to your Foe list to ignore them, and you won't see any of their posts. The Friends list will alert you when your friends are online, and make it easier to communicate with those you like.
The Reputation tab lets you see the rep points you've given, received, set your options on if you receive notifications for getting new rep, and if you want to have the "show rep" button below user posts.
The tab I'm going to spend a little more time talking about is the Board Preferences tab.
You can set options on if and how users can contact you, and your notifications for it. You can also edit your timezone and date/time format. The main option I want to highlight here is the board style. By default, the Alpha theme is used. There's a few other themes available, the AlphaSilver theme is the Alpha colours with prosilver icons (which we'll talk about soon). The rest of the themes are colour variations of prosilver, and of course prosilver itself. Personally, I like to use the prosilver theme since not only do I think it looks nicer than the Alpha theme, it also scales width better, and has a little bit more utility. From here on out in this post I'll be using the prosilver, so do note that there may be some differences between that and the Alpha theme. (Note: Themes do not apply to the homepage of TCS).
The rest of the options under board preferences let you manage your preferences towards posting and display options. These include if you want the board to display smileys, avatars, images in posts, signatures, flash, etc.
Before proceeding, we'll take a real quick look at some of the things that are different about prosilver compared to Alpha. For that, we're going back to the Index page again.
You'll notice it looks pretty similar for the most part. Things display wider, as it scales better than Alpha. You'll notice the top of the page doesn't have the same quick links layout as the Alpha theme. It does, however, still have all the same links, but that layout is a bit different. The profile link is now called the User Control Panel, the Private Message link is replaced with (0 new messages) (or however many you happen to have at the time). There's now a search bar in the top right, with a link to bring you to the advanced search page if you need more options over just a basic search. The forum quick links that you could access by hovering over the Search tab on Alpha are now all directly on the page instead. Other than that, it's not too much different. Except for the icons. I guess we can finally talk about the icons.
Forum Icons
So we'll talk about both the prosilver icons. If you like the Alpha theme, but prefer the prosilver icons, then you can use the AlphaSilver theme. Only the Alpha theme uses
the Alpha icons, all other themes use the prosilver icons. As such, we'll talk about the prosilver icons. The Alpha icons are generally similar to the prosilver ones.
prosilver Icons
This icon means the forum is read, as in, you've read every post in that forum.
The red version, on the other hand, means you have one or more unread posts in that forum.
This icon is similar to the above, you have one or more unread post in one of the sub-sub-forums for that sub-forum (and possibly the parent sub-forum as well).
The arrow means the link points elsewhere, to a location off-site.
This means a topic/thread has an unread post in it. If it were blue, then it would mean you've read all the posts in it.
The icon with a lower case "i" in it means it is an announcement. Being that it is red, it means it the topic has unread posts in it. The lock icon means that the thread is locked, and no new replies can be made, nor can you edit your posts in the thread. The little red star means that you have posted in the thread. (The star will be red even if you have read all the posts in the thread and the rest of the icon is blue).
The lightbulb shaped icon with the exclamation mark means the thread is stickied. A stickied thread means it will always appear at the top of a forum's list of topics. Stickied threads are used for important threads, such as rules, useful threads, such as guides, and perpetually popular topics, like the Pics Or You Didn't Happen thread, or the Shit Said in IRC thread. The lock, again, means the topic is locked, and the red star means you have posted in the thread. Since the icon is blue, it means there are no unread posts in the thread.
If you see a topic icon that is scrolling, it means the topic is hot, or very popular, and it's getting a lot of activity. Seeing as it is blue, there are no unread posts in the thread.
This icon means that a topic has been moved. You will only see this if a shadow topic was left in it's place when it was moved. (We usually do not leave shadow topics when moving threads). (Also note, it will be blue, I'm not sure why it's grey in this pic).
Unlike the other icons, this one also serves as a link. You can click it to take you to the last post made in the topic. You will find it to the right of the username of the last person who made a post in the thread of forum. (This icon appears both on the index page next to forums, and the pages that list topics).
This icon also serves as a link, and it's an especially useful one, too. You can click it to take you to the first unread post in a topic. This icon will appear to the left of the thread title. It will only appear if you have one or more unread posts in a topic.
This icon will appear on posts in the top left corner, next to the username of the person who made the post. It means you have already read the post.
Like the last icon, this appears on posts in the top left corner by the name of the poster. This means you have not read this post before.
Posting
User preferences are set up, and now we know how to navigate the forum, so let's go over posting. Scenario: You've found a thread and are ready to reply. There are two basic ways one can do this, both options can be found at the bottom of the page.
You can click the Post Reply button to bring you to a new page, this will have more options for your posts. We'll look at this one in depth a bit more in a moment. First, let's take a quick look at the Quick Reply button. Press that and a box will pop open where you can start typing your response.
With the quick reply box you have two options. When you're done you can click Submit and it will post. Or, if you decide you want to use the full editor, just click the (surprise) Full Editor button. Anything you've already typed in the quick reply box will still be there when you click Full Editor. (Note: You can still use all BBCode tags when using quick reply, you will just need to type them out manually; if you're not sure what BBCode tags are, we'll discuss them in a bit).
Let's take a look at the Full Editor now.
Notice how there's a lot more options to choose from. To the side, you can pick smileys to insert in your post (you can also type them in manually; note: graphical smileys are not enabled on every sub-forum, so this option will not always be available). Above the box wherein you type your response, you also have numerous options. These are called BBCode tags. These are used for various things, such as formatting your post, embedding images and videos, and more. We'll take an in-depth look at BBCode tags later, for now you just need to know that the Full Editor has buttons for most of the BBCode tags used on TCS [there are some BBCode tags that don't have a button, we'll talk about those as well]), and that you can manually type in BBCOde tags if you prefer that over the button.
Now glance beneath the full editor. Right below the section where you type in your response, you'll notice more buttons. These, however, are not for BBCode; these are for the post itself. Submit will, not surprisingly, post what you've written to the forum. Preview will let you see what your post will look like once posted, without actually posting it. This is useful for proofreading and making sure all your BBCode is correct.
The Save Draft button will save what you've written for later. And the Load Draft button will let you load a draft you've written for that thread, allowing you to continue editing it and/or post it. The Load Draft will only appear if you have a draft saved.
Now, below those buttons we find a few things to play with.
The options section allows you to disable BBCode if you want it to be just plain text for some reason. You can stop the post from parsing URLs, attach a signature (if you have one enabled), and tell the forum to notify you when a reply is posted. (Ignore the Lock topic option, that's only available to mods).
Next to the options section, you'll see a tab to upload attachments.
Simply browse your computer for you attachment, select the file, then click upload. Now, if you stop here, your attachment won't display correctly. For whatever reason, it just won't work. You'll need to place your attachment inline. Simply click the Place Inline button, and it'll add your attachment inline, as a BBCode tag, to wherever you last had the cursor position in the editor. There's also a comment box in case you'd like to leave a comment beneath your attachment. (Note: You can have a maximum of 3 attachments in a post).
Now below all that you have the topic review, which shows the previews 15 posts in the thread. There will be a scroll bar on the right side to scroll down. If you click Expand View, it'll get rid of the scroll bar and display all 15 posts in full. You can click the Quote button in a post to quote it (more on quoting in a bit). The quote will be placed wherever you last left the cursor in the editor. (Ignore the post details option, that's only available to mods).
Quoting Posts
When you look at another person's post, you will see a button that says Quote.
Clicking this will take you to the full editor with the entirety of their post quoted in the editor, allowing you to respond to it. You don't need to quote someone's post to respond to it, but it is useful if their post is a few replies back, or if you want to respond to only a certain part of their post. Do note that you can edit what you are quoting from them, you don't need to include the full text of their post. If it's a long post, it's useful to edit it down to just the parts you are responding to. If you are quoting a picture or a video, then please remove them from your quote, unless they appeared on a previous page in the thread. Do do that simple remove the BBCode tag for them. So for example, if I want to quote the following:
This is such a great death metal song, Suffocation is a killer band.
When I quote the post I want to edit it to remove the video, I can replace it with a line stating what I was removing.
Dr. Ambiguous wrote:Suffocation - Infecting The Crypts
This is such a great death metal song, Suffocation is a killer band.
Hell yeah they are. Bang your fucking head!
To do that I need to look for the BBCode tag for the youtube embed, which means I need to remove the tag for it. The youtube tag (and other tags that are helpful to remove from quotes) are:
- Code: Select all
[youtube][/youtube]
[youtube=hidden][/youtube]
[video][/video]
[img][/img]
Do note that there will be a URL between the tags. (See the BBCode section later for more info on this). I'll talk more about the quote tags and some of the other things you can do with them later when we get to the BBCode. For now, just know how to click the Quote button to quote a post, and what to edit out.
Editing Your Posts
Now let's say you make a post, and then you realize you've made a typo. Or you bungled your BBCode, or you just realize you forgot something. Happens to everyone, not a big deal. To fix that, simply go to your post and click the Edit button.
This will bring you to the full editor, just like you use for writing posts. Here you can add, delete, rearrange, whatever it is you need to do to your post. When editing a post, people generally leave a reason at the bottom of their post (or sometimes in the middle) stating the reason for the edit. This isn't required, but it does make it clearer if you're adding something, or just fixing a typo. Do note that if you edit your post, users will not be able to see the previous versions of your post, they will only be able to see the current version. However, all edits made to your post are logged, and all versions of it can be seen my moderators. Also note that you are not able to delete your posts.
If you are the OP (original poster) of a thread, you can edit the subject line of your post to rename the thread.
Reporting A Post
Now, thankfully it doesn't happen too often here at TCS, but sometimes people cross the line and break the rules when they post. When this happens, you can use the Report Post button.
Simply click that button to report a post. (Read more about what to do if someone is being inappropriate here). When you submit a report, you can also set it to be notified when a moderator deals with the post.
You can also use the report button if you accidentally double post. Just write in the reason field that it was a double post and a mod will take care of it. If you accidentally thumb a post that you didn't want to (say for example one that you find you strongly disagree with) you can also report the post and ask a mod to delete your rep point on the post. (Do note: If you want a mod to delete a rep point on a post, the post does not have to be one that breaks the rules. In your report please indicate if you are also reporting the post for inappropriate behaviour, of if you simply want the rep point deleted).
Creating A Thread
If you ever have something to post that doesn't already have a thread, you can create a new thread for it. Creating a new thread isn't much different than replying to an existing thread, but we'll go over the few differences(Try not to create a thread for a topic that exists, if you're not sure if there's a thread for it already, please use the search function. If you goof, it's not a big deal, but we do appreciate the effort). First, find the appropriate forum for your thread, then look for the New Topic button on the top left.
This will then take you to the full editor, like for a post. There's a few things different about this. One, you need to enter a subject line in the post. Giving your thread a clear and detailed subject will also help reduce having multiple threads for a single topic.
Beneath the editor, you'll also find options to add a poll to your topic.
From here, creating a poll is pretty self-explanatory. You can choose the number of poll options (up to 30), how many options a user can vote for, how long the poll will run for, and if users can change their vote or not. Once you're done with your poll, you can click the Preview button to see a preview of your poll, as well as your post.
Private Messages
Now let's take a closer look at sending PMs. You should remember how to get to your PMs from earlier, but if not, go to your UCP, and then click on Private Messages (or click on Private Messages on Alpha, or # New Messages on prosilver to go straight to your PM inbox). From your inbox you can write a new PM either by clicking New PM, or by clicking Compose Message.
Writing a PM is pretty much the same as writing a post. The difference is, instead of creating a thread in a forum, you need to add the users you'd like to PM. You can type in the username of the person(s) you want to PM in the box, enter in new names on a new line, and then click Add. If you want to send the PM to someone without the other recipients knowing you're sending it to them, then click Add [BCC] (blind carbon copy) instead. (Note: You can BCC the PM to everyone that you are sending the PM to). If you're not sure of exactly what a person's username is, you can click on Find A Member and search for their username. To remove someone from the PM after you've added them, click the X next to their name. You can PM up to 10 users with a single PM. (Ignore the group option, this is only available to moderators).
After you send a PM, it will appear in your Outbox until the user has read it. If the PM was sent to more than one person it will only remain in your outbox until the first person who received the PM reads it. After the message is read, it will appear in your Sent Messages folder.
In addition to simply sending and receiving PMs, you can also create new folders, and configure criteria to automatically sort new messages into folders. To do this, go to the Rules, Folders & Settings tab. After creating a folder, you can manually move messages to it (more on that in a moment).
To move messages manually, go to the folder with the message(s), check the box next to the message(s), then at the bottom select the option you want to perform on the message(s).
To Be Added List:
IRC Button
Brief IRC Overview (For full details visit the IRC forum)
Additional Information On Media Site Navigation
Updated Pictures to reflect recent site updates