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Forum Instructions
Personal Messaging
Ptownwest is about community and communication. And there are many ways to communicate, such as posting to the boards, personal messaging, email, ICQ, AIM and YIM. But Ptownwest's own personal message system, as available to registered members, is sometimes a more suitable option than any of these.
As an alternative to email, Personal Messaging offers a faster, more private method. Personal messaging on the boards provides instantaneous delivery to the recipient's private mailbox. The mail is sent and received entirely through the private message system, so neither you nor the recipient have to open another program or leave SMF. Personal messaging also offers both the sender and the recipient greater privacy because no-one's real email address is revealed. Personal messages show only the handle and name of both parties.
If a recipient isn't online, personal messages wait in the member's PM box until the next time he/she logs in and reads and/or deletes them. SMF Personal Messages is a self-contained, highly private email system.
Reading Your Messages
To read your personal messages, you need to be logged in, then follow the link that says something like 'Hey, [username], you have x messages, x are new.
The PM Interface
Starting or Replying to a Message
There are actually several different ways to start a new personal message, but all require you to be logged in:
- You can follow the link that says something like 'Hey, [username], you have x messages, x are new', then click the New Message button in your inbox.
- You can click another member's name, followed by Send this member a personal message from his/her profile summary screen.
- You can start a new message direct by clicking the IM on/offline icon from the user info accompanying all of his/her posts.
- You can start a new message direct by clicking the PM on/offline icon from the Current Status in his/her profile summary screen. (This icon/link is often duplicated in the user info described above.)
- Replying to a message is very similar to replying to a topic.
Visit the forums/message boards >>
Topic Boards
Posting Basics
Starting a New Topic
Browse to the board where you wish to post and click the New Topic button (positioned by default at both the top and the bottom of the board, as shown in the User Help Introduction), which should take you to the Start new topic screen. While this presents a number of options, the two most important are the Subject field and main Message field (not labeled as such, but obvious by its size). So enter your subject and start to type (or paste) your message into the main text area, noting that a message missing either a subject or a body will not be accepted for posting until it has both. If you're happy with your plain text message, you can then post it by clicking the Post button and/or preview it first by clicking the Preview button, but there are many further options available to make things that little bit more interesting.
Replying to a Topic or Poll
Replying to a topic or poll is basically the same as starting a new topic, but it's not necessary to enter anything in the Subject field unless you wish to change what's already there. To vote in a poll, you simply have to select your chosen option(s) and click Submit Vote.
If 'Quick Reply' has been enabled, a simple reply field will also appear after the post(s) on a page, but you'll have to type your Bulletin Board Code and Smileys manually if you choose to use it.
Quoting a Post
To reply to a post by quoting it, you can either click the Quote button for the relevant post and add your own message to the quoted text or click the Reply button followed by Insert Quote from the relevant post in the 'Topic Summary' below, but note that:
Visit the forums/message boards >>
Posting an Event to the Calendar
Where this option has been configured (it's not standard 'out of the box'), you can post an event by selecting Calendar from the main menu followed by Post Event from the calendar screen. What you see now is a Start new topic screen with supplementary fields for the event title, date and target board, which simply add your event to the calendar and create a link back to your post in that board.