For the most part this should be a very easy to use site. But in case you want to know everything you can do, here’s a quick tutorial on using the forum.
Please note: this site is built using Drupal, a powerful content management system with some forum-like capabilities. It’s not your regular VBulletin or Simple Machines. Being a CMS means we can do some interesting things and have lots of customized stuff. But it comes with it’s own quirks.
You should be able to create a new topic in any of the following forums, Announcements, Projects and General Discussion. Additionally, Premium members can post to the Builders’ discussion, Ask Wayne and Beta forums. When posting a new topic, you can select any of the forums available to you in the dropdown box. Moderators may move topics when appropriate.
There is no WYSIWYG editor, that’s intentional. Instead, you can use the “Filtered HTML” format, which allows some basic HTML. Here are some of the most common tags you might use:
~ Links. Most URLs will be automatically recognized as links. But if you want to fancy it up with a title, do this:
This is a link This is a link. You replace “someURL” with your URL, that should look like http://www.example.com. The title of your link replaces “This is a link”.
~Images. Most of the time you will upload images to the site. But sometimes you want to link to an image you have on an external site. Do this:
and replace the “someURL” with the actual URL, that should look like http://www.example.com/image.jpg. You can even use this instead of the title on a link, and you end up with a clickable image.
~ Quote. Add and around your text.
~ Bold. Add and around your text.
~ Italics. Add and around your text.
~ Bullets. Add before each item.
Each post gets to have as many photos as you like attached. Inside the box, click the button to Choose a file. Pick your file, and click OK. Then – listen up – you have to click the “Upload” button. Once you do, it will make a new box to allow another photo to upload. If you don’t click that Upload button, it will wait until you finish your post and then it will upload it as it saves. But you won’t get a chance for a second picture.
Pictures attached to posts are clickable. You will get the full size image. Note that on slow connections this may take a while to load up.
You may edit your post anytime. You may not delete it. If you double post or something just leave it for a moderator, we will fix it. All posts may be edited by a moderator. We don’t intend to change your post’s meaning, only to correct errors or remove offensive content. If you have an issue with a post being changed, please contact us.
Eventually there will be a way to embed Youtube videos. For now that’s an admin-only function and you just have to link to the video.
Comments on other site content are the same as forum posts, and use the same Filtered HTML markup and rules.
Your profile is a great place to put information about yourself. I know they are minimal looking but I haven’t had time to improve them yet. You can do a lot with the Bio field, including external pictures and links.
There’s no photo gallery yet, please know that it’s coming… someday.
Comments and questions welcome!