Quick Tour of the Front Page

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Description

A quick look around the front page of the new forum and introduction to some of the changes and new features.

Length

9 min 27 seconds

Transcript

New Panel Arrangement

Here we are on the front page of the new website and as you can see it looks quite a bit different to the one we've been using.

We still have the familiar forum layout in the centre panel here, but we have these new left and right side panels.

The idea of these side panels is to provide quicker and easier access to existing topics in the forum.

So you can click on any of these links here and you'll go straight into that topic.

We can also put new content in this centre panel where the forum currently is.

So here's a user guide page for example. These are just normal web pages so we can have video or images or documents and normal text. It's easier to read perhaps in some cases than a forum topic.

So there's potential there for all sorts of content to go in there.

Left Panel

Looking at the left hand panel now we've got the For Sale items. I think it's the top 6 latest items listed now that number can be varied.

We'll see how 6 goes for a start and as I said you can go straight into the topic just by clicking on the link. Underneath that we've got the top 10 Douglas Wanted items and again we can vary that number and you can go straight into those just by clicking on the topic name there.

Member Profile

Now we'll move up to the top left hand corner here and go around in a big loop.

So what we have up here is our user profile that used to be linked on the Main Menu under a profile link. But if we click on that, here are all our account settings and how we want the forum to appear, notifications (most important), we can get a list of our posts and any drafts we have saved.

Now Drafts is a new feature so we can write a message and save it, come back later and edit it and when we're happy with it we can post it.

So that's a very handy feature and then My Messages - that's where we access our message boxes, inbox and sent items, we control the settings there and drafts the same as forum posts you can save drafts of PMs and come back later and edit them and then send them and we can start new messages there.

Finally we have alerts that's a real time version of notifications so if you want to turn that on you can a little message will pop up saying that somebody has replied to your post and so you can go straight there and read it.

Search

Now over here in the top right hand corner we've got what I call the 'simple search' box and down here we also have another search item and I call that one 'advanced search'.

They both use the same underlying search engine, but each has its own advantages and is good in different circumstances. I will cover that in a separate video.

Unread Posts

Coming down now to these two links here we've got 'Show unread posts since last visit' and 'Show new replies to our posts' so that's how we access those two.

We can also access them and another item and I'll cover that when we get around to the Main Menu.

Collapse/Expand Side Panels

Underneath those we have these two little buttons here. Now if I mouse over that it says 'Collapse restore left panel' and 'Collapse restore right panel'.

So if we're in a situation where we want to copy something in and out of the forum, so let's say we want to shrink the screen down to half size, let me just do that, there we go and copy something in and out to say Notepad.

Now we can see that the forum gets scrunched up in the middle here so if we click on each of these we can close those two panels and then away we go. We've got normal forum size and then when we're finished we can put it back. So we'll go back to full size and then we can put the side panels back.

Quick Comments Box

Now we'll have a look at the Quick Comments box, that's a new feature.

You can post reminders about events or links to interesting topics, you can bump your own topic, Quick Comments or any short message of interest to members.

So here we have somebody reminding of a ride and an annual rally, me something about a page update, somebody with lots of parts for sale, drawing attention to them and somebody with a tough carb problem in need of help.

And also down here we have this little green button at the bottom, 'History'. So if we click on that, we get a full history of the recent comments coming up in the centre panel. If there's been a bit of a conversation going back and forward you can follow what's going on there.

And to get back to the Main Menu or back to the front page we can just click on the logo or the home button, they all do the same thing.

Info Centre

Down the bottom of the page here we have the Info Centre. There's a few recent posts listed there but again, there's a better display available from the Main Menu or this link here that does a similar thing to what's on the Main Menu.

This is quite useful, Forum Stats, if you want to see what's broadly happening. We've got top ten replies. This can be quite interesting to see where most people are posting. And By Views, what people are looking at, so that's quite a useful display.

Spare Space

Also down the bottom of the page here you'll see a lot of spare space in the left and right hand panels.

Unfortunately I just ran out of time to finish the content that was going to go in there. That will provide links and ways of looking at our existing topics and finding existing topics and help find what you're looking for.

So I'll finish the user guide first or get that substantially underway and then come back and slowly we'll fill these areas out here.

There also can be, there's room to add more underneath so gradually we'll go down and across.

Main Menu

Back up the top now we have the Main Menu, the Home button brings us back here to the main page, same as the clicking anywhere on this logo does, that's a good target area.

New Topic button

The New Topic button, that's a new feature, you can click on that, that'll take you straight to a posting window, doesn't normally come up in Forum Issues and News, it normally comes up in General Discussion like that and if you want to post it somewhere else other than General Discussion, you can choose where and then just go ahead and write your message and post it.

Now there may be a small bug in attaching files with this, I'm still researching that but I'll keep you informed of that.

Search button

Now the Search button, that takes us into the advanced search and as I mentioned before so it's a totally different menu to what we get up here. I'll cover that in a separate video because each is better under different circumstances.

Members button

The Members button, I don't think that's changed since last time, those two items.

Support button

The Support button, that's a new button, now this is where you can, if you're not a member you can become a member.

The User Guide takes us into the User Guide index page which I've just started. Got quite a lot to do there and the bottom item, the Contact option, takes us to a contact window so if you're stuck and nothing's working for you, you can send us a message there and that will come direct to one of the admins.

Recent Posts button

Now the Recent Posts, as I mentioned before, that has the same two items as over on the top right hand corner there plus this third one. This is my preferred option, that takes us to all our unread posts so that can catch things that will get past these filters, last visit and replies to your posts.

This is a more solid method of finding out what you haven't read.

So this person probably looks like a new member and hasn't read anything or read very much so the best thing for him to do is to mark all his messages as read and then from there on they'll appear in this list.

Logout button

And finally we have the logout button which after you logout changes to, oh it's a two stage logout so this is a new thing unfortunately.

So we logout there and then we can log in again here.

So that's a quick look around. I look forward to seeing you there.