Guidelines, Forum information, and how to do stuff!
Hi, and welcome to TechTalk.
Perhaps the first thing you should do is have a good read of the information contained in our FAQ section:
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/faq.php?
There you will find:
Forum Rules and policies, Webmaster Information, Privacy policy.
User Maintenance, General forum usage, Reading and posting messages.
There is quite a lot of information contained in the articles you will find at those links, and I'm sure that it will be enough to answer most of your initial queries about using this Forum.
When you've come to grips with all that, you might want to head into the 'Control Panel' for your user account to see if you'd like to make some changes to the way you have the Forum working for you. There are a range of Settings available to change the way your posts display, and to edit your personal account details.
Most importantly, if you click on the 'Edit options' menu item, you can alter the way the forum works for you. Of particular relevence are settings to change the way you are notified about new posts in topics you've posted in. Your default setting is to inform you of new posts as a weekly summary via email. You can change that to instant notification if you like, so that you are informed immediately if someone has answered your question.
Also, there is the option to alter the interface for the message editor. You can set it to a text editor only, to a Standard editor with formatting controls, or even to a full 'What you see is what you get' interface, with formatting displayed as you create it.
Please feel free to explore the alternatives available to you, and make any changes to your account profile that you wish to put into place.
That all said, however, there are doubtless some features and procedures that aren't readily apparent on reading through the basic FAQ sections of the forum. So I'll invite experienced forum members to post short 'Guides' to using some of the more obscure (or not so obscure) facets of forum use.
Catweazle
Grandad
4,335 posts since Mar 2004
Reputation Points: 229
Solved Threads: 149
Posting links to websites.
You may have noticed that other forum members have included links to web pages in their posts, and be wondering how to do it. It's quite easy.
If the link you want to post is quite short in length, you can simply right-click on the link and choose 'Copy'. Then Right-click in the 'Reply' box and choose 'Paste' (or simply hold the Ctrl key down and hit the 'V' key) The url for the website will automatically display as a link.
But if the link is an especially long one, it will push the forum page out of shape, causing the need for others to scroll sideways in order to read the page. To avoid this outcome, use the 'Insert link' button above the text entry box and copy the link into the dialogue popup there. That way the link will be 'shortened' when it appears on the forum page.
You might also have noticed that some people have 'embedded' links to web pages, so that when you click on the underlined words in the text of a post, you are sent to the relevent web page.
This is quite simple to do as well. Type your post out, then highlight the words you wish to turn into links. Then use the 'Insert link' button and copy the link into the dialogue box. The link will be embedded for you!
Catweazle
Grandad
4,335 posts since Mar 2004
Reputation Points: 229
Solved Threads: 149
Your default setting is to inform you of new posts as a weekly summary via email. You can change that to instant notification if you like, so that you are informed immediately if someone has answered your question.
As of somewhat recently, instant notification is now the default for new members. The specified settings of existing members has remained intact.
cscgal
The Queen of DaniWeb
19,417 posts since Feb 2002
Reputation Points: 1,474
Solved Threads: 229
Why do 'smiley faces' show up in my posts, when I didn't click on them?
You might notice that, from time to time, you've typed out and submitted a post, but it doesn't didplay correctly. Instead of the textual information you've typed, one of the little 'emoticons' will be included within your text. The reason is quite simple, and the solution just as simple :D
Emoticons are simply special combinations of characters, which are scanned for, and which are replaced with a tiny image! The broad smile above, for example, is denoted by a colon ":" followed immediately by a capital "D". Whenever this character combination is encountered in a Daniweb post, that emoticon will appear.
The same is true for all the other emoticons. A 'smile' is a colon ":" followed by a right, round bracket symbol ")", a 'wink' is a semi-colon ";" followed by a right, round bracket ")".
Most often, you will encounter this problem when typing out lists, or when enclosing text and other information within brackets. Simply include a space between the characters involved, and the problem will not show up :)
Cheers.
Catweazle
Grandad
4,335 posts since Mar 2004
Reputation Points: 229
Solved Threads: 149
This topic isn't really intended for people to ask questions in. As mentioned: That all said, however, there are doubtless some features and procedures that aren't readily apparent on reading through the basic FAQ sections of the forum. So I'll invite experienced forum members to post short 'Guides' to using some of the more obscure (or not so obscure) facets of forum use.
But it can be difficult for newcomers to work out where to place their question on a site which covers such a wide range of topics. Taking the time to explorer the menu system and have a look at the range of categories available is worthwhile. Quite a few sections are 'nested' and don't appear on the main menu.
In raleman's instance, the correct section would be found by digging down through the 'Software Development' section. One of the options below that is 'Legacy and other languages', and below that there is a section for 'BASIC and QBASIC'.
Bingo! :D
If it's not apparent to you where to place your question after browsing through the various levels of the menu system here, you can feel free to ask for assistance in the 'Introductions' section of 'Coffee House'. That's part of the reason we have that section :)
Catweazle
Grandad
4,335 posts since Mar 2004
Reputation Points: 229
Solved Threads: 149
You can submit your site into our directory at http://www.daniweb.com/directory/ in the relevant category, and depending upon the amount of traffic you send to us, your link will be featured on our high traffic forum pages.
cscgal
The Queen of DaniWeb
19,417 posts since Feb 2002
Reputation Points: 1,474
Solved Threads: 229
I see the link.....
Did you provide a JPG image link to show as a thumbnail??
I reckon thats the only way to show a clickable thumbnail :)
The Dude
Nearly a Senior Poster
3,485 posts since Dec 2005
Reputation Points: 1,054
Solved Threads: 31
On the topic of the link directory, I've submitted the link to my web site, and apparently it is supposed to be visible in my profile, as a thumbnail etc, but all I see is the link to it. Am I missing something.
I see it just fine from your profile?
cscgal
The Queen of DaniWeb
19,417 posts since Feb 2002
Reputation Points: 1,474
Solved Threads: 229
"Flag Bad Post" button it's on every post. Although usually a thread bump is just left alone.
jasimp
Senior Poster
3,623 posts since Aug 2007
Reputation Points: 533
Solved Threads: 53
How do we report bad posts - like a bump to a 3 year old thread?
Thats not a bad post.. (Nothing wrong with dates)
I have seen it done more here than one any other site im on.. (Nothing wrong with it though)
The Dude
Nearly a Senior Poster
3,485 posts since Dec 2005
Reputation Points: 1,054
Solved Threads: 31
>Thats not a bad post.. (Nothing wrong with dates)
Assuming the bump is relevant, of course.
Narue
Bad Cop
15,460 posts since Sep 2004
Reputation Points: 6,464
Solved Threads: 1,401
