Tip sheet on using the board?

[ewilen]

Just an idea--maybe someone can write up a few tips on using the board. Most everything is pretty self-explanatory but I'm surprised how long it took me to realize a few things. Then again, maybe I'm just slow.

My latest discovery, for example. If you are browsing the thread subjects in a particular forum, you can tell which ones have unread messages by checking to see if there's a little blue button next to the title. Clicking the button takes you to the first unread message (although the pop-up help when I move the mouse over the button says "go to last unread message", which would be nigh useless).

But oddly, if you go into a thread and click the "first unread message", it seems like it takes you directly to the last message--useless.

The "view new posts" link is extremely useful and in fact it's the way I generally use the site. But I'm not sure what the criteria are for determining what the "new posts" are each time I click it. I'm guessing it uses a cookie which times out after a while, since it often shows threads which I've read completely. But now that I know about the blue button, that's not a problem at all.

BTW, the "view new posts" link is another thing that took me a while to catch onto. Before that, I'd first tried tracking threads (generates too much email) and then the "today's active topics" link (doesn't relate to my reading habits--will show too much if I've been reading a lot, not enough if I've been gone for a while).

Finally, it took me a while to learn that when you do a search, you can view the results by post not just thread. Extremely useful when you're looking for something that's in a multi-page thread (let alone one of the pinned megathreads).

[Agent ONE]

Yeah, it took me a while to figure out how this stuff works on the board... It is not too different from when we were on Ikon Board though. The problem is, where would you want to put this set of instructions? I can't think of a place that wouldn't have the curse of having someone, months after its up posting a thread here in the feedback forum saying "Hey could we make this instruction thing easier to find".

[ewilen]

I'd put it in the FAQ forum as a pinned topic next to the rules and regs.

It could either be locked to keep people from monkeying around, or left open for people to post their ideas. But like the pinned imacross thread, it should probably either be closely modded or watched over by someone who can easily get a mod to delete stuff that's inappropriate or confusingly written.

Edit: Or maybe it could be locked, but whenever someone writes something that they feel is worthy of inclusion, they could post it in the FAQ section and include a request to have it merged into the locked topic.

Edited January 28, 2004 by ewilen

[BLESS]

I'd like to know if there more invision board posting codes other than the ones above which we can click, when we reply? Looked in the help section where such stuff usually is in but couldn't find it

[Max Jenius]

That's why there's a help link... lazy bums.