To login, click the log in link or click the PROFILE button.

For those who don't want to log in, they can still post to the forums and edit messages by entering their username and password each time. Other forum features may require login.

Logged-in users can access the User Services Main Menu by clicking the PROFILE button. The User Services Main Menu provides links for adding avatars, setting preferences, viewing bookmarks and other forum features.

Email Verification Required for Creating New Topics: This feature will hopefully curb spamming. Non-verified users can still reply and edit replies.

Private Messaging - forum members can send each other messages. Users must be logged in to send a PM. Click the MESSAGES button to enter Private Messaging. PM inboxes can store a max of 50 messages. PM sentboxes can store a max of 30 messages. If the inbox is full, no new messages will be accepted. If the sentbox is full, the message will be delivered, but no copy will be stored. You can delete messages by selecting DELETE from the action droplist for each message and then pressing the UPDATE button.

Email Notification of New Private Messages: If you have enabled the Email Notification option in your user preferences, an email will be sent to you each time you receive a private message in the forums.

Note: for this feature to work, you must have a verified and NON-EXPIRED email address. If your email address is not verified, click on the PROFILE button to begin the verification process.

Setting Forum Preferences - Access from the User Services Main Menu by clicking the PROFILE button. Users can set:

View Days window for topic lists
Display Avatars in topic
Default Smilies in New Topic/Reply/PM pages
Default Email Notification setting in New Topic/Reply pages AND email notification of new private messages.

Note: the View Days value in Preferences can be overridden temporarily by selecting a new View Days value from the topic list page. If you do this, the setting will last only 20 minutes or so. It then reverts back to the value in Preferences.

Uploading Avatar Images - Click the profile button, click the Add/Delete avatar link. Avatar images must be less <= 10Kb. The maximum display size is 100x100px, if the image larger than 100px x 100px. Smaller images will display at their original size.

Reply To Author - clicking the Reply To icon above each mesage opens a Reply Compose page with the author's topic message already quoted.

Send PM to Author -clicking the PM Author icon above each topic message opens a private message compose page with the recipient name field already filled in with the author's username.

UBB Tag Buttons - UBB code buttons for bold, italic, underscore, url, img and quote tags. Simply highlight the desired text in the message textbox and click one of the buttons to enclose the text between tags.

UBB Quoting Author tag - [ quote=username ]...text...[ /quote ] (remove spaces inside the brackets). Used when posting a reply to give a quote and the author's name. This is the same result achieved by clicking on the ReplyTo icon, except that you can quote anyone, even non-forum members. Ex:
[ quote=shakespeare ]A rose by any other name...[ /quote ]

IMG tags with ALT text: The alt text appears when the mouse cursor moves over an image. The syntax is:

[ img=url ]alt text[ /img ]

Remove the spaces inside the brackets.

Bookmarks - You can bookmark a topic by click the Book icon next the topic title in a Topic Discussion page. The max. number of bookmarks per user is currently 20.

To view a list of bookmarks, click the BOOKMRKS button. The bookmark list displays below the user services links. To delete a bookmark, click the action droplist for that bookmark and select DELETE. When you have set all the droplists, click the UPDATE button at the bottom of the list.

Search Topic - Users can search a specific topic the same way they can search the forum. This feature is most useful for long topics. Clicking the SEARCH TOPIC icon (located next the topic title in a Topic Discussion page) presents a small search form on top of the Topic Discussion page. Enter search words (same rules as in a forum search) and click Go.

Uploading File Attachments - Users can attach up to 4 files (each no more than 200kb) when composing or editing a message. In the New Topic/Reply pages, click the ATTACH FILES button to display the attachment form. There are 4 file upload textboxes. For each file, click the BROWSE button next to the textbox and in the file dialog box, navigate to the file on the computer. Click OPEN. The full path to the file appears in the textbox. When the New Topic/Reply is submitted, the files will automatically be uploaded.

When editing a message, attachments can be kept, deleted or replaced. If the message does not already have an attachment, click the ATTACH FILES button to display the attachment form. The file upload textboxes display as before, but with two extra elements. Next to each textbox is shown the name of an existing attachment (if any) and an action droplist.

To keep an attachment, select KEEP from the action droplist (this is the default value) next to the file.

To delete an attachment, select DELETE from the action droplist next to the file.

To add an attachment, click the browse button next to an empty textbox and enter the full path to the file as above. In the action droplist, select REPLACE.

To replace an existing attachment, click the browse button next to the name of the attachment and enter the full path into the textbox as above. In the action droplist, select REPLACE.

When the edit page is submitted, any new attachments will be uploaded.

Preview Popups in Topic Lists - In the topic/thread list of any forum, moving the cursor over the topic link (or anywhere inside the table cell containing that link) causes a popup to display with a short excerpt from the first message in the thread.

Previewing Messages - in the New Topic/Reply/Edit pages, clicking the PREVIEW button displays a page containing a box with a sample of how the message will look when published to the topic. UBB and smiley codes and attachments are processed in this view. Below the preview box is an edit box for making any changes to the message text. If there were attachments, they are listed below the edit box. Each attachment is associated with an ACTION droplist with options to KEEP, REPLACE or DELETE the attachment. To add or replace an attachment, choose the REPLACE option and select the file by clicking the BROWSE button.

Displaying an attached image in a post - The image file must be uploaded first in order to obtain the URL address for the image. Follow the instructions above for uploading files and either preview the message or submit it for posting.

Skip this step if the message was previewed: if the message was posted, click the EDIT icon to edit the message.

When the uploaded file appears as an attachment hyperlink, pass the cursor over the hyperlink to get the URL. Copy the attachment URL to the message. Enclose the attachment URL in IMG tags and post/save the message.

Old HeadWize powerpill url updated - The forum pages will update posts containing the old HeadWize powerpill url. Note that the powerpill url is not actually removed from the stored text - only converted to the current url as the page is displayed.

[Edited by cmoy on 10-06-2007 at 12:42 PM.]

[Edited by livewebcamgirl on 05-17-2007 at 12:25 PM.]