Support Forum

I had checked the simple:press wiki and found it was for admin rather than users - not a complaint: I understand that developers must look after this first.

The stuff at http://tripawds.com/problem-wi.....buttonelp/ is great! Hitch: it's for Wordpress, not for a forum.

I suppose I was hoping someone or several people will have put together a beginner user help guide so I agree with Mr Papa and lodge an appeal: has anyone got something to share on this?

Thanks for the correction - I did look at the link you gave but the contents are a 6-point set of rules; not what I was meaning.

For the people we have as users nothing can be assumed so we need to cover everything in as much detail as possible. We will be doing this by demonstration, of course, but we need to explain everything from whether or not to ask for the login to be remembered, to the meaning of adding topics, replying, subscribing, watching, profile, messaging, Math Required!........

Has anyone written the book!?

Here's what I have started with. I have put together a pdf with screenshots to hand out also. I will fiddle with this over coming months.
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1. Become a member of the Forum. Assuming you have an email address you will receive a Username and a Password.
2. When your computer is connected to the internet open a web browser, probably Internet Explorer: or FireFox or Safari.
Click into the address bar at the top and type in
hsccforum.shoalhavenheads.net.au
then press the Enter key. The Forum website should open.
3. Have a look around. You will see a couple of major headings and a couple of Forums which are available to any visitor to the website.
You will also note that You must be logged in to post or read member only forums
Click the Login button.
4. Type in your Username and Password.
Note that if you click on Remember me so that there is a green tick in front of it then your computer will remember your Username and Password and you will not have to type them in again. This is handy but only on your own computer! Don’t leave your username or password on computers where you don’t want other people to use them. Note also that sometimes your web browser might often ask you the same question.
Click the Login button.
5. Now you will see more forums.
Have a browse around them. Click on the title of one of them to see what goes on there. Follow the thread of some of the postings (the submissions there).
6. You will soon find a topic where you can place your own posting which might be a question, a comment or even a reply to someone else’s posting
If you are adding a new topic to one of the main Forum areas, click the button to Add Topic.
If you are responding to a posting already there, click the Reply button.
Don’t worry about whether you are asking the right question in the right place; there are Moderators watching the Forum and they will move your posting if they think it will help.
7. On the next form you can give the new topic a name and type in your question.
Below the form on the left there are two options to choose from (there might be more but they’re not much use to you!)
If you click on Subscribe to this Topic so there is a green tick in front of it then you will be sent an email to tell you when someone replies to your posting - very handy!.
If you click on Watch this Topic so there is a green tick in front of it and someone replies to your question you will see a number in your Watching box on the top of the page next time you login.
You can change these settings later if you wish.
(The Watching and Subscribe buttons are near the top of every page. Clicking one of these will tell you which parts of the Forum you are watching or are subscribed to so you can easily jump to them.)
Below the form on the right is a bit of mental arithmetic with a different calculation to do each time you make an entry. This is to make sure that it is a genuine human being making the entry, not someone using a computer to make unwanted and irrelevant entries; i.e. spam.
Put in the answer to the maths test, click the button and your question will be posted.
8. You will know someone has submitted a reply when
8.1 You subscribed to the topic and received an email telling you there has been a reply
8.2 You subscribed to the topic or you switched on watch the topic and when you log into the site see that there is a number beside either the Watching or the Subscribed buttons.
8.3 You click on the New/Recently Updated Topics select list; a topic which is New or Recently Updated will be in red. Perhaps yours is one of them.
9. To Reply to a posting (the name of submissions, questions, answers etc) you click the Reply button and follow the same steps described for Adding a Topic. In this case you are adding to the thread of a discussion rather than starting a new one.
It may be that several people will reply to your question, each adding to the previous comments. Perhaps you will follow up with an answer or another question looking for clarification.
The result is that we develop an ever-increasing and ever-more useful collection of information about things that matter to the members of the club. The more the forum is used the more useful it becomes.
10. What if you don’t know where to look? Try clicking the Search button to get to get to the Search form
At first leave the green ticks where they are but as the Forum grows you might need to be more specific in your searches.
11. Navigate around the Forum in one of several ways:
11.1 Jump backwards by clicking on the navigation chain (a row of pages you have been to below the Search button)
11.2 Go to the Home page and select a Forum (as in step 5 above). Do this either by clicking the Title bar at the top of the Forum, or the Forum link in the navigation chain.
11.3 Click on the New/Recently Updated Topics select list or the Select Forum select list to choose one.
12 Logout
When leaving the Forum click the Logout button, especially if using someone else’s computer. This stops an unauthorised person using your login to access the Forum. Completely closing your web browser has the same effect as logging out (completely, that is: just closing a window or tab does not do the job.)
13. Some other buttons
Profile This button takes you to several pages where you can enter information about yourself. While this is not necessary it can add interest. For example, some people supply a small image called an avatar, an on-line “personality”, and a signature which appears on each posting.
Members This button shows you a list of members of the Forum and lets you see the topics and entries they have made and their Profiles. It also lists Member, Moderators (people who have authority to move, remove or edit entries) and Administrators (people who run the Forum and have full control over it). There may be other groups depending on the needs of the Forum.
Send PM Click this button to send a Personal Message to another member. It is not sent by email but stored in the Forum to be collected by the addressee when they next login.
Inbox If someone sends you a Personal Message this will result in a number listed in your Inbox button; click the button to read your Messages
Quote When you want to reply to a posting an alternative is to click the Quote button; this places a quote of the posting you are replying to in your own posting.
Report If you find a posting which you believe should be edited or removed click this button to report the matter to the Moderators or Administrator.
Smilies are the little symbols below the entry area. They can be used to express emotions.
Tags When a Topic is created you can add Tags to it to provide another set of keywords which people can use to search the Forum.

I will continue to poke around with this.

There is a PDF version of the one for hsccforum.shoalhavenheads.net.au available from poweringon.com/UsingHSCCForumA4.pdf