First of all, you'll notice that there's a little toolbar right above where you compose your message.

Now you can easily make words bold - just highlight what you want bold (or italic, or strikeout) and whoosh your text is updated.

There's a few other text formatting items up there.

Here's a handy review, starting at the left.
Globe thing with 2 chain links - Make a linkto a web site. Click this, enter the address of the site, then the text you want linked.
Envelope - Link selected text to an email address. Works the same as the Globe thing, but for email addresses.

Icon with triangle and circle. Insert an image from another web site. How to do this:

• Find an image you want to show here somewhere on the internet.
  
• Right Click on it and "View Image", then copy the web address of the image, or right-click on the image and then "Copy Image Location"
  
• Back here at the forum, click on the image icon, and paste the address

Helps you make a list with bullet points (like the list just above)

Bold, Italic, Underline & Strikeout are pretty self explanatory.
is the symbol to quote some text. Click on it and you'll see two tags - . Put your quote text in between those two tags and it will



lets you show code in a post (I used that tag to demonstrate the quote tag above).

Geek Warning. This function is for PHP tag wrapping. If that's gibberish to you, ignore it.


Add one of several smileys to the post.

Change the color of your selected text.

Now you can change the font of your ] text. Handy for online ransom notes.
[img]http://forums.equipped.org/images/markup_panel/default/fontsize.gif[/img] And if you feel the need to make your text big bigger and biggest or small and smaller, this is what you use.

There's a little pair of arrows:
[img]http://forums.equipped.org/images/markup_panel/default/smaller.gif[/img] [img]http://forums.equipped.org/images/markup_panel/default/bigger.gif[/img]

They make the area where you type your message smaller & bigger respectively.

Finally, there's POLL MANGER and FILE MANAGER added to the bottom of the message composer. You can create a poll with Poll manager and upload an image file with File Manager and these will be attached to your post.

Hope that helps!


Marty

Uh, Martin, a toolbar? What toolbar, where? Or is it only available for people who use Exploder, rather than Firefox?

Update:
Nevermind. I was in the quick reply. I hadn't hit the reply button. Silly Raven.

it's Firefox, IE and pretty much everything else.

Martin, you should have kept reading. I figured out what the problem was.

OK, I've got a question. Is there any way to tell what I have already viewed and what I haven't? On the old format they were different colors, here everything looks blue on white, except the one thing I happen to be looking at right then, which is black. Soon as I go to another one, the new one turns black, the one I just left goes back to blue. The little icons to the left look the same on all, and don't seem to change. I have already had to re-read several things. Am I missing something here???

Update: Think I answered my own question. It looks like the little file folders on the left change color. Not as easy for old eyes to see, but now I know what to look for...

Another update: Nope, that's not it. At least not completely. Went to a post that I looked at earlier this morning, all the little file folders were the same color (white), yet there were two I had not read. $%^&*(*&^%&*(*&^&*!!!

Actually, I've been ducking in and out all evening, and I can't see any patern of marking what I've read at all. I just have to look to see what has been updated since I last posted.

Worse, is that it is bumping the newest post to the default view, and that sucks IMO becuase they are out of context. I can't see a way to change it so that the oldest post is the one that it comes up with.

where is the view last 24 hours up date?

Wonderful, but

Is there a way to move the calender ..etc. from the right to the bottom ?? It is wasting too much space on the right and squeezing things too much !

It's definitely all pretty cool, but I hope folks don't get nutty with the font sizing.

It could get a little crazy trying to read posts.

I agree, calendar, "who's online" and Newest members can go on the bottom. I would move the search bar into the top menu, or completely remove it, there is already a link to search function next to FAQ.
Also agree that is hard to tell what has been read and what haven't. But, will probably get used to it.

In the other thread about forum changes, JCWohlschlag has given the answer :



Thanks JCW,
I can now enjoy the whole page.

I really miss the "all posts in the last ..." I always use "all posts in the last 7days" feature and read every post. Now, I am having problems figuring out if I have read ervry post or not.

Pete

When you enter a forum, you can select DISPLAY OPTIONS. Unfortunately it is at the bottom of the screen. The choice is not saved.

If DISPLAY OPTIONS was incorporated into MY PREFERENCES, a lot of time would be saved.

OK, everyone....

Go to "My Stuff"
Then to "My Preferences"
Then set things the way you like them.
You can turn off the right column entirely, that's how I have it too.

The looking up of items over the Past 24-48 Hours 7 days is under Active Topics

Let Doug know how you want the main page to go - it's completely customizable w/ left and right (though no top/bottom).

Martin, there is a way to set it so when you click on a thread, it starts with the origional post. And it works for the current session in forums you haven't opened yet.

Then when I log back on, that's slipped. Or rather, the preference is still set that way, but the forum is again going to the most recent post not the starting post.

I don't get it. It looks like it should be working the old way, and it isn't.

In "my stuff" there is this option:
By default should anything added to your Watch Lists be emailed to you?

Does this mean that when someone replies to a thread I should be getting a notification by email?
I am not getting any notifications at all.

I think that's actually OFF at the admin level.

Like this post, for example. I did not get a notification.
Do folks here get notifications if a person replies to their post?

I have a similar problem ...
I noticed that when there are new posts, the little folder icon is yellow .... but not always.

i.e. ...today when I logged on the Forum, on the main "Forums" page, the folders were yellow for each sub-forum (Survival, Around the Campfire, Long Term)
But when I entered the Long Term Forum, all folders where white, even those threads with new posts; these new posts having white icons in front of them.
But (again...), in the Camp Fire forum, there were yellow folders... with yellow folders in front of the new posts ..

So, it seems to work but not in every forum ....

SMTP was broken in the previous release, I upgraded the forum software to the newly released UBBThreads 7.1 which seems to have fixed that.

now, posts I have already read, have yellow folders again ??

I guess I will just wait for all the new features/config/mod/param changes/etc.. to settle a little bit...

I've seen that once a new reply is posted, the folder changes color, but that's been my observation only.

I've seen the same thing Frenchy is describing. I'll read a post, go to another message in the thread, and the one I was just reading will be shown with a yellow folder.

AFAIAC, the "yellow folder" for new posts works OK in the "Survival forum" and in the "Around the Campfire" sections.
But not in the "Longterm" section.

Another difference : in the "Longterm" section, when opening a thread with new posts, the first (origin) post is opened. In the two other sections, it's the new post which opens.


Hope this will help our software specialist, HTMLSPINNR.

One thing you may want to try is to go to the My Cookies board function (use the link provided, or look at the bottom left of any forum page) and manually expire your forum cookie. Make sure to try and catch up with your forum post reading beforehand, because after you do this, everything will be marked as read.

I erased cookies, using the option in my IE browser.
That seems to have solved another problem (yellow folders even after having read a post).
I will try the Cookies board function too...

OK; done...now I just have to wait for someone to post anything in the Longterm forum ....