[electricnic]

Now that we've all had time to settle into the new forum design (love it or hate it), I thought I'd make a thread to show how some of the new stuff works. I notice that sometimes folks still have trouble finding how to quote other users or insert images, and a few other features that are neat, so I'm going to make a tutorial thread here to explain those.

 

[electricnic]

QUOTING

Clicking 'Reply' on a post is the fastest way to quote someone. This shouldn't be news to anyone. This will quote the entire post. Any images in the post will be replaced by a link to the image instead of the image itself.

Clicking 'Quote' on the post will add the whole post to a clipboard of quotes, which I'll get to in a second.

You can also reply to a section of a post. This is useful for when someone writes a huge post that you only want to respond to a part of. Highlight what you want to reply to with the mouse and click 'Reply' when that automatically pops up.

Clicking 'Quote' on the highlighted text will add that text to a clipboard of quotes.

You can do this multiple times to add quotes to your clipboard by using the 'Quote' button instead of 'Reply.' This is useful when replying to multiple people in one response, instead of making a new post to address each person.
Once you have collected them in your quote clipboard, you can place them all down at once in your reply by clicking 'Insert Quotes.'

You'll then be asked to verify all the quotes you have collected. Click the little trashcan icon if you have too many or don't want to use that quote.

When you're writing your post, your message will have coded commands in brackets. Be careful where you write - if you reply to someone inside the quote start & stop, it won't look like a reply.

[quote]
Quoted text is in here. Don't write your reply inside these quote brackets.
[/quote]
Reply down here. Lots of folks mess this one up.

[quote] = START QUOTE
[/quote] = STOP QUOTE

If you want to quote something and give a reference, you can do something like this:

[quote="Amendment II of the US Constitution"]
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
[/quote]

and it'll come out like this:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

 

[electricnic]

IMAGES

Even if you hate the new forum layout, you have to agree that it's FAR easier to insert images into your posts now. Just click this icon, and find the photo from your computer you want to use. You can add up to 10 images per post.

But wait, there's more!
Let's say you found an image online that you want to use. Saving it to your hard drive and then using the method above is one method, but it's kind of clunky to do it that way.
You can just copy and paste the image directly into your post.
Here, I've right-clicked on the image from my internet browser, and I select 'Copy image'

...and then I right-click where I'm making my post and select 'Paste.' You can obviously use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to do this as well.

You can also resize images after you've placed them. Click on the image and a little box will appear on all 4 corners of the image. Drag any one of these boxes around to resize the image.

 

[electricnic]

GOOFY TITLES

I get asked this one a lot. How do I keep changing my title? The trick is, I'm not. My actual title is 'Premium Member' (or it may simply be 'Registered Member' for some), and I can't change that myself.
The dorky titles I give myself are found in your Account Settings. Click on your profile image at the top right corner and this menu will drop down. Select 'Account Settings.'

Under 'Gun Info' you can write whatever you want, and it'll show up alongside every post. There is a limit to how much text you can put here before it clips it short, so be clever in what you choose.

 

[M11293]

Engineers can't claim "Schrödinger" anything as part of their avatar... that is reserved for real scientists.

And nice guide by the way... I personally love the new forum format. So much easier and much more intuitive to complete tasks.

 

[M1Army]

Thanks electricnic -

Nice that you took the time to do this..... Maybe you can continue to add items here as you think of other things or get questions from others.

One of the big reminders for new folks is to take the time to master the main forum search function so you can search for topics and get great information from previous posts before you make a posting asking for the same information that has been asked many times before. I use the main search function all of the time even to find things I have posted under M1Army before.

Also - learn how to search the SPF sub forum in the PX area to search to for specific items you may want to purchase now -> you can search for similar items and see the historical selling prices for those items. This provides great information when you are in the market for something specific.

M1Army

 

[electricnic]

MENTIONS

Pardon the "hip" social media term - that's just what it's called.

If you want to call a specific person's attention to a post you've made, you can so do by typing '@' before their username (no space in between).
For example, if I had a question about refinishing stocks, I might write @M1Army and he'll get a forum alert (similar to when your posts are quoted or when you get a PM) so hopefully he can come chime in with his wisdom on the topic.

Excessive mentions may be an annoyance, so maybe as much as we revere Ted Brown on this forum, I'm sure he'd appreciate us not abusing this tool. No one wants to log in and see 40 alerts worth of mentions a day.

It only works if you spell the username right, but it'll make suggestions as you type to help you out.
For example, if I start typing '@tony,' it will suggest all usernames that start with 'tony.' You can just click on the one you want and it'll auto-complete the name for you.

That said, if @admin wants to chime in here (see what I did there?) on any forum features I may have missed, perhaps there's more to learn.

 

[MuppetMeat4Me]

Not bad for a soup tester.

 

[58COOP]

Have to admit. Lot of good info on the workings around the forum.