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Finding your way
around the course area
Please read this carefully
before entering the course area
In order to log into the board as a
user, you must register a username. To do this, click the
small Register link at the top of
any page.
You will be taken to the
Registration Agreement Terms, which you must agree
to in order to register.
You will then be taken to the
registration information form. Fill out each of the required
fields, and any of the optional fields you like. The
settings on the registration form are identical to those in
the Profile Settings form, for more details
see
4.7 Profile Settings.
When you register, you must specify
an email address. All email from the board to you will be
sent to that address. If the board is set to User
Activation, you must check your email and click the
activation link there before you may log in.
In order to post using your
username and use your custom settings on the board, you must
log in. To log in, you must use the small login form at the
bottom of the Forum Index page.
Alternatively you may click the
small Login link at the top of any
page to be taken to the Login Page.
Enter your user name and password,
and click Login. You will be taken
to the page you were previously using, but will now be able
to post with your username, change your profile, check
private messages, etc. To log out of the board, click the
small Logout [<your username> ]
link at the top of any page.
If you are not logged in and
attempt to do anything that requires a login, you will be
taken to the login screen. After you log in, you will be
taken to the page you were attempting to go to before
logging in. Things that require login include changing your
profile, checking your private messages, posting to forums
(if they require it), etc.
If you forget your password, go to
the Login Page. Click I
forgot my password.
You will be taken to a form to
enter your username and email address. A new password will
be created, and sent in an email to you. When you receive
the email, you need to click the new password activation
link. The new password activation link exists so that if
someone else enters your information into the
Forgotten Password form, your current password will
remain intact. After you have activated your new password,
you may log in with it. You may change your password to what
you like in your profile. For more information, see
4.7 Profile Settings.
Post
- A post is a piece of information submitted by a single
user. It may be a new post, which starts a new topic, or
a reply to an existing post. Posts are typically a
sentence, paragraph, or a few paragraphs.
Topic - A topic
is a collection of posts. The posts are organized in
chronological order. The idea of a topic is that there
is a single post that contains the topic of discussion.
The rest of the posts in the topic are replies to this
first post and to other replies. Topics are sort of like
conversations, allowing many people to state their
opinions about an idea, or debate an issue.
Forum - A
forum is a container for topics. Forums often have a
general subject that the topics within are about. For
instance, you might have a Movie Reviews forum,
which would contain topics in which people would discuss
movies and their opinions about them.
Navigating through posts is
based on the idea of posts, topics and forums.
Generally, a user will start at the Forum
Index (index.php). The Forum
Index shows a list of forums.
If you click on one of the forums,
you will be shown the
View Forum
page, which is a
listing of the topics in the forum (viewforum.php). By
default they are sorted in chronological order by the
most recent post in each topic.
If you click on a topic,
you will be shown the
View Topic
page, which is a listing of
the posts in that topic (viewtopic.php). The posts in a
topic are organized chronologically, with the oldest
post first.
To view a topic click on the icon
under the last post
or any of the options available in the same column (right side
of the page)
There are two primary ways to create a
post. In the View Forum and View Topic
pages, you may click New Topic. This
will take you to the posting form, and, when you have posted,
will create a new topic with your post as the first one in the
topic. In the View Topic page, you may also
click Reply. This will take you to the
posting form, and, when you have posted, it will add your post
to the topic you replied to. To reply to a specific post, you
may also click the Quote button in the
upper right corner of that post. For more information, see
4.2.6
Quoting Messages.
When you post a new topic or post a
reply, you are taken to the posting form, where to enter
your post.
Subject - The
subject of your post. If this is a new post, the subject is
required, and it will be the name of the topic. If the post
is replying to another post, the subject is not required,
but may be added, and will be shown at the top of the post.
Message Body - The
Message body is a large text area where the body of your
post is input. Plain text is the only thing allowed in this
text area, but special formatting, links, smilies
(emoticons), images, etc. may be added through the use of
Smilies, BBCode and/or
HTML (if they are enabled).
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