Useful tips for using the forum software

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Bylo Selhi
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Bylo Selhi »

Jo Anne wrote:To avoid this, click on the box beside Disable smilies at the bottom of your post, and you will get the correct characters. This happens a lot when people post numbered lists.
Or just insert a space between the 8 and ) or wrap bold/italic tags around the ) etc.

8) becomes 8)

space 8 ) becomes 8 )

bold 8) becomes 8)
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by kcowan »

I cannot seem to post a picture. It keeps saying it must not exceed 600 pixels high and I have tried 600 and 599 without success.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

kcowan wrote:I cannot seem to post a picture. It keeps saying it must not exceed 600 pixels high and I have tried 600 and 599 without success.
Check your PMs.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

Did you know that logged in members have control over the date format that is displayed in various parts of the screen?

While you are logged in, go to User Control Panel->Board preferences (direct link http://www.financialwisdomforum.org/forum/ucp.php?i=173) and look at the bottom setting.

The setting that controls things is: My date format: and it contains a dropbox that look like:
My date format menu.PNG
My date format menu.PNG (9.65 KiB) Viewed 5042 times
The dates and times are the current values, so your menu will have different values.

I recently experimented with the options and found the "less than a minute ago / 25 Nov 2014, 16:23" suits me and my forum browsing habits. It gives me a board index page that looks like (click for bigger):
Board index.PNG
Personally I find this new date format much more helpful in keeping track of when things were posted. YMMV, so give the various options a try.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by newguy »

I thought there was a "reason for edit" box when editing a post. I can't find it in this new theme. Maybe I'm confused and this was on some other platform. When I edit my post (or someone else's post) on StackExchange, there's a field for explaining the edit.

newguy
I'm adding this as an edit but I don't a box for reason??
Last edited by newguy on 17 Jan 2015 20:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

newguy wrote:I thought there was a "reason for edit" box when editing a post. I can't find it in this new theme.
There is one, although I'm confused by the "in this new theme" statement. Please clarify.

To answer your question, the behaviour depends on whether or not you are editing the last post in a topic. From the phpBB support forums
[url=https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=13493136#p13493136]Oyabun1[/url], a Support Team Member wrote:It depends who edits the post and if it is the last post in the topic. If a user edits their post and it is not the last one in the topic then details of the edit are automatically added. If a moderator edits or the edit is by the poster to the last post in the topic the edit details are optional, if they don't choose to add a reason then no details are shown.
Now that I've posted after you, if you edit your post, in the Options box below the edit window, you should see an input line to enter "Reason for editing this post:"

Does that address your concern?

A reminder, on FWF per forum rules, "Any poster can edit or delete their own post after submitting it, so comments made in haste can be rephrased or deleted within 48 hours." (my bold)
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by newguy »

I see the edit details after I edit, but there is no explanation as to why I edited. I thought there used to be a box where you could enter a reason for your edit.

The new theme is whatever theme I'm using now. I got a message from someone, maybe you, to start using prosilver so I switched themes.

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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

Yes it was me that suggested the change to prosilver.

I'll need to investigate why the Reason for editing this post: input box isn't appearing. I've managed to reproduce the problem.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

My apologies, I've been busy on the wiki, which requires an edit summary for every change so I wasn't thinking clearly on the question. It is further complicated because as one of the administrator there are extra features enabled in my user interface, such as the ability to include a Reason for editing a post.

So let me try again.
newguy wrote:I thought there was a "reason for edit" box when editing a post.
Only for administrators and moderators. Unfortunately the forum's software does not provide a setting to allow regular forum members to enter a reason. This has nothing to do with your recent change in board style. The FAQ has some information on the subject, see FAQ: How do I edit or delete a post?

Again, my apologies for the confusion I might have created.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Bylo Selhi »

Peculiar_Investor wrote:Unfortunately the forum's software does not provide a setting to allow regular forum members to enter a reason.
That was my understanding all along. Perhaps newguy is confusing phpBB with other forum software packages that do allow regular members to include an optional short text "reason" when they edit their post.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by kcowan »

No problem. Just add a comment in parenthesis stating your reasons why you had to change your post later.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by newguy »

kcowan wrote:No problem. Just add a comment in parenthesis stating your reasons why you had to change your post later.
Yeah, I was confused. I looked and that's what I've done in the past. finiki , and other sites, have a edit reason field.

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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Inquisitive »

Edit: Well, that will teach me to preview before submitting. Once submitted, they reappeared. ________________________________________________________________________________

I no longer get the yellow Smilies when I click on one; instead I get, for example, :shock:

I searched Tips, and discovered the "disable smilies" box. It was not checked, however.Just in case I was down a Rabbit Hole I did check it, but that did not enable it. :(

Is there some other way they might have become disabled?

Inq
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

Members who want to test of forum software features, there is a new Testing sandbox forum that replaces the previous 'Do your test posts here' topic. The forum is configured so posts will automatically be removed 10 days after the last post or the last viewing, so please don't post anything here that you want retained.

Enjoy and happy testing.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by biker »

Why has the front page of the Forum changed completely. I can no longer get "unread posts ' nor edit ??
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Norbert Schlenker »

Sure you can. View unread is now under Quick links (top left) or you can bookmark http://www.financialwisdomforum.org/for ... nreadposts. Edit a post by pushing the pencil icon on the top margin of the post itself.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by newguy »

Bylo Selhi wrote:Or just insert a space between the 8 and ) or wrap bold/italic tags around the ) etc.
So I'm looking at the source to see if it's any easier to scrape and I see your user id is 8

So here's the list
3) shakes
5) yielder
7) norbert
8) bylo
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

biker wrote:Why has the front page of the Forum changed completely. I can no longer get "unread posts ' nor edit ??
I presume you missed or hadn't yet read the announcement that Version 3.1 is alive!.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

Peculiar_Investor wrote:Members who want to test of forum software features, there is a new Testing sandbox forum that replaces the previous 'Do your test posts here' topic. The forum is configured so posts will automatically be removed 10 days after the last post or the last viewing, so please don't post anything here that you want retained.

Enjoy and happy testing.
One useful tip. If during your testing, you discover something that might be valuable or helpful to other members, please don't hesitate to post the end results of your testing back here so that others can benefit.
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Normal people… believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet. – Scott Adams
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by gsp_ »

How do members embed YouTube videos in their replies? I see the youtube button when composing a post but simply pasting the YouTube link or the embed link does not seem to work.

Tried to search this forum but to no avail.

Thanks.
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Insomniac »

gsp_ wrote:How do members embed YouTube videos in their replies? I see the youtube button when composing a post but simply pasting the YouTube link or the embed link does not seem to work.

Tried to search this forum but to no avail.

Thanks.
You just need the YouTube ID for the video. I just copy and paste. E.g.

Video URL is ""

The characters after the v= (tkAQLLbJbDw in this case) is the ID you want. Copy this ID, hit the youtube button above and paste the ID between the tags:
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by gsp_ »

Thanks. :thumbsup:
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by CROCKD »

Where do I find a Draft of a post I saved?
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

CROCKD wrote:Where do I find a Draft of a post I saved?
User Control Panel->Manage drafts
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Re: Useful tips for using the forum software

Post by CROCKD »

OK. Thanks P_I
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