Hi, I have put together a list of helpful tips for the new forum in alphabetical order with thanks to the many people who have been putting their discoveries on the site as they figure it out. I can’t thank all of you individually but you know who you are… It won’t cover everything though… I am still learning too 
Anon Scroll down to the bottom of your reply box and you will see options allowing you to disable the formatting codes, smilies and correct URLs. Below that is the Anon button. Helpful Hint – only hit the Anon button AFTER you have previewed your post. It automatically unchecks again after previewing and if you don’t hit it again you will send without being Anon!!! Author One of the big problems with this site is that you can no longer see who wrote the original post, only who posted last. There is an easy solution to this (Thanks to Verona and Stevie Lion) In the subject line add your user name in brackets at the end. Also see Viewing posts you want to see And Posts and replies in different order Avatar This is a really handy avatar link http://avatars.jurko.net/pic/13683 Choose the avatar you like. Remember that moving or animated ones are not allowed as it upsets some people’s vision…. Then copy the URL from the Direct Link to avatar box Return to MSS and go to User Control Panel Edit Avatar Paste in the URL of your chosen pic and leave blank the Avatar Dimensions boxes Hit Submit and voila! 
You can also Google images of your preferred pics but make sure that the pic you choose is less than 100x100 pixels. The MSS site will attempt to resize the pic if you leave the dimensions box blank but it doesn’t seem to cope with large pics. Or you can follow jowelton’s excellent advice below http://www.mssociety.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=788&start=0#p1263 Background and Brightness Lots of people have commented that the very white background is hard on the eyes. Sadly there seems to be nothing to fix this within the site itself. There is an accessibility button at the bottom right of the Board Index page which does allow you to change the visibility setting within the rest of the MSS site but for some reason it defaults back to harsh white when you return to the Forum pages. But all is not lost For PC users on Windows 7 using Internet Explorer Press Alt and Left Shift Key and the Print Screen Key (prtscr) simultaneously and you will get a black background with purple and white writing. Not sure if there is a solution for Chrome or FireFox For Mac users it is very easy to fix. There are dimmer buttons on the top of the keyboard and by pressing them you can change the brightness of the screen to suit your requirements. Bold See also Reply Box See also Preview To make what you have written Bold highlight the words you want to change and the press the Bold button at the top of your reply box. Your words will then appear with brackets and code on either side of them. Everything inside those brackets will be in bold. Or you can hit bold first and then type inside the brackets. Type as usual but remember to move the cursor OUTSIDE the brackets to continue in non – bold. Personally I prefer the first option because then you can do several functions at once eg Highlight your desired text and then press Bold, Underline, choose your font size from the drop down list and then select the colour you want from the font colour chart and everything you have highlighted will come out with your choices. Remember though that you won’t see the changes in your reply box!!! Go to the Preview button at the bottom of the Reply box to see what your finished version will look like before hitting Submit. Buddies All our old buddies have gone and we have to start compiling them from scratch again. There are a few ways of doing this. If you see someone you know and want on your buddy list you can click on their user name and it will take you to their profile. Under the pic of their avatar is a Buddy button and also the rather disconcertingly named Foe button!!! Click on Buddy and they are added to your list. Click on Foe and you won’t see their posts. You can also search for buddies via the User Control Panel. The last button in the User Control Panel is Friends and Foes. Click on it There you will find two buttons “Manage Friends” and Manage Foes” The easiest way is to enter their user name in the add new friends field. You can add several at once but each on a new line and hit submit. If you can’t remember exactly what their user name is but have a rough idea you can click on the find a member and you will get a pop up where you can enter their user name or other details if you can’t remember their name and press search. You can also scroll down you can search alphabetically. When you have found them you select them and they will appear in your friends list. Your friends will then appear in the side bar and if you click on them you will go to their profile where you can PM them. Foes works in exactly the same way…. Colour You can change the colour of your text as outlined above in the Bold section. Highlight the text you want to change, press the Font colour button, select the shade you like and the highlighted area will have brackets and code at either end of it. To keep typing in black move the cursor outside the end bracket. Contacts See Buddies Disable smilies Some people HATE smilies with a passion but there is a way to avoid seeing them. Go to User Control Panel Go to Board Preferences Go to Edit posting defaults Click “No” on the Enable smilies by default. Editing see also Reply Box See also Preview Not available once you have submitted your posts so do make use of the Preview Function At the bottom of your Reply box you will find the Preview button. When you click it your post will appear above the reply box in its finished from. This makes it really easy to edit it in the reply box and double-check it. Email Alerts For an email alert when you get a reply to a post do the same as above but select Notify me upon replies by default. Only problem is that it doesn’t actually work!!! It seems to be a bug that the developers need to sort out so I suggest we ALL send a post to Greg Chivers or Bob Barbour (poor guys!) asking that this be fixed Email alert for PMs Now this one DOES work! Go to User Control Panel Got to Board Preferences Edit Global Settings Select Notify me on new Private Messages Friends and Foes See also Buddies Foes By choosing foes you will not be able to see their posts but they can still PM you. Orange Boxes You will see little orange boxes on the left side of posts on the Forums. This indicates there are unread posts in there. If you click on the orange box rather then the subject it will take you to the most recent post! Saves a lot of time. Perm links This is REALLY nifty :lol: If you want to refer to someone’s post instead of quoting them you can use the perm link. Go to the person’s post you want to refer to. Hold the cursor over the subject name and an underline will appear. Right click and choose Copy Link. Then paste this into your post and it will take the readers straight to the relevant post when they click on it. Posts and replies in different order Go into your preferred Forum eg Everyday Living. Scroll right to the bottom of the page. Here you can set your preferences for newest posts first (Ascending) or newest posts last (Descending) and sort by the number of days and by author and time, replies, subject or number of views. The author one is interesting because we CAN’T see the author!!! But it does list the posts in alphabetical order so it might help you track down posts by your favourite posters. Preview At the bottom of your Reply box you will find the Preview button. When you click it your post will appear above the reply box in its finished from. This makes it really easy to edit it in the reply box and double-check it. Quotes See also Perm links See also Reply to individual posters Quoting is a really helpful tool and there are several ways to use this. One way is to reply directly to a person’s post. If you want to refer to a section of a person’s post in your reply you can: Highlight the section and you want, copy it and then go to the Reply button at the bottom of the page. Press the quote button in the Reply boxes tool bar and then paste in your copied text between the closed brackets. Or do it in reverse (which I prefer) highlight and copy your chosen text, paste it into your reply box, highlight it again and then hit quote. You can choose sections of texts from different people’s replies this way and “speak” to them below each quote Another way is to go to your reply box first and hit the Expand button on the right hand side below your reply box. This will open up ALL the replies to the post. Then you can go to the reply you want to quote from, highlight your chosen bit and press Quote in the top of THEIR reply and it will paste it in to YOUR reply Reply Box See also Bold See also Colour See also Quotes See also Editing See also Preview See also Reply to individual posters The reply box is at the bottom of the post’s page. Click on Post a Reply and type your reply in the box. You can Save a draft by clicking the save a Draft button at the bottom of your Reply box To find and manage your drafts Go to User Control Panel Overview Manage Drafts You can delete and edit your drafts in there. Reply to individual posters See also Quotes See also Reply Box Many people have been asking how to reply to individual posters rather then to the whole thread. Simple answer is, “You can’t” But if you press the quote button in the top right hand side of that person’s post your reply window will open with their post quoted. You can then answer to them and they will know what you are referring to. Tagging When you start a new post you will see a selection box called My post is about…. Please choose the relevant selection. You can choose more than one. This will make it much easier for people to find posts they want to read. Text Size For Safari (Mac) users you can press the AA button in your tool bar to increase text size. And you can hold down control ( Command for Mac) and press + repeatedly to get to the size of text you want in any of the browsers or hold Control (Command for Mac) and scroll your mouse wheel Viewing posts you want to see There are a few ways of selecting posts that you want to see rather than wading through everything. In any of the individual forums eg Everyday Living, there is a search facility YAY!!! You can also select from the “I want to see posts about” options. But this will only really do its job if everyone remembers to tag their posts. See Tagging If you click on the Board Index (Upper right of screen above= User Control Panel) you will see on the right hand side of the screen View unanswered posts • View unread posts • View new posts • View active topics Clicking on one of these will filter the posts. And as an added bonus you will see the author with each post!!! Hallelujah!!! See Author Okay, hope that helps!!! Feel free to add to this PLEASE!!! Belinda
Hi belinda, I was looking thru your helpful hints, to see what guest means. I found a post of mine in the carers board, which named me as guest. is it another word for anon? yet, I dunno why it puts that word, yet says Poll at the bottom. I am trying my best to fumble my way round this new system. Thanks luv Pollx`
MS43 wrote:
Hi belinda, I was looking thru your helpful hints, to see what
guest means. I found a post of mine in the carers board, which named me asguest. is it another word for anon? yet, I dunno why it puts that word, yet says Poll at the bottom. I am trying my best to fumble my way round this new system. Thanks luv Pollx`
Hi Poll, Last week when the Boards were down for a few tweaks the team had to wipe all the profiles so when we came back online all our earlier posts were authored by Guest. Now our user name shows as the author again. Mark 2 of the site will be launched next week after some testing is done tomorrow and it will be far easier to use making 99% of my Guide will be completely obsolete :lol: Have a look here for more info http://www.mssociety.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=1358 B x
loopiloo wrote:
After I go to the ‘user control’ panel, there is nothing about Avatars. This is simply driving me crazy GGrrrrr!!! Please ,please help me to get a pic. Claire x
read the update here http://www.mssociety.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=1358#p4203