Phorum Help

Introduction  Forum listings, forums versus folders  Viewing forums  Viewing an individual discussion  Adding to a forum  Starting a new thread  Attachments  Adding to a thread (replying)  Searching the forums

Introduction

Forums are also know as threaded discussion groups. Forum contributors post new topics for discussion in a given forum, and other contributors can respond to these topics. The term "threaded" refers to the fact that when someone responds to a forum posting, their response is kept with the original posting. So, unlike when using e-mail to carry on a group discussion, where replies to e-mails are scattered throughout your "In-Box" in a threaded discussion group, the postings on a given topic are kept together thus making it easier to follow the "thread" of a discussion. A "thread" refers to an original posting on a given topics, along with all the responses to that posting. In addition to following a discussion, some forums allow contributors to add a file, or "attachment" to their posting, and in this way forums can be used as a means of sharing files, and sharing work. The team of programmers that has developed the Phorum program uses forums to share ideas and computer code that results in the evolution of the program itself. Many others use forums for web-based special interest groups, while others use them to help manage projects that have many contributors. Forums allow a discussion among members of a team to be seen by all the members of the team. The forums are also searchable, which makes forums well suited to getting up to speed on a given topic of interest.

Forums tend to be arranged in hierarchies much like Internet news groups (another form of threaded discussions). Thus, within a forum on travel, there might a general travel forum, and special interest forums on eco-tourism, cruises, etc.. Within cruises, there might be forums on Caribbean and Alaskan cruises. This hierarchy is reflected in the Phorum program by individual forums, and "folders", which themselves can contain forums or further sub-folders. When a forum is listed, the number of postings to that forum is shown, along with the date of the most recent posting; a brief description of the purpose of the forum is also listed. Folders have a description of the forums contained in the folder, you need to click on the folder to see what forums it contains

In this document, text that appears in quotation marks, and is blue (e.g. "This Text") is meant to correspond to an option that appears on the screen, and is either a clickable link, or a menu/checkbox etc. This is to be distinguished from actual links within this document which help you move about in this help file (e.g. the Table of Contents).

Viewing Forums

To see the topics being discussed in an individual forum, click on the forum in the forum listing. The forum is shown either in a "Collapsed" view (where only the first posting of each topic is show), or in an "Threaded" view (where the topics and the replies to the topics are shown). Topics are listed with the most recently modified topics at the top of the list, and older topics sorted below. An old topic may appear at the top of the list if a contributor has recently responded to that posting. In the "Collapsed" view of the forum, the subject of the first posting of the thread is given, along with the number of replies in the thread and the date of the most recent posting in the thread.

In the "Threaded" view of the forum, the replies to each topic are listed beneath it in a hierarchical relation. In this view the subjects of the postings are listed along with the author and date of each posting. For example, if Bill posts a new topic, and Jean replies to Bill, her posting will appear beneath Bill's message. We have the beginnings of a thread. Now, Sandra might also respond to Bill's original posting, and her response would appear beneath Jean's in the thread. If later Jim adds a posting responding to what Jean had said, his posting would appear not at the bottom of the list, but tucked underneath Jean's posting. As the thread develops you can see visually who is responding to the original posting, and who is responding to the responses. In this way the "Thread" visually represents the thread of the discussion. You can switch between "Threaded" view and "Collapsed" views by clicking on the "View Threads" or "Collapse Threads" link at the bottom of page.

There is a limit to the number of threads and topics that will be listed on a single page, and earlier discussions can be viewed by clicking the "Older Messages" link.

The "Go to Top" link takes you up a level in the hierarchy, from say the "Alaskan Cruise" forum up the the" Cruises" folder.

The "New Topic" link is how you start a new discussion thread in this forum (See Adding to a Forum).

The "Search" link allows this or all the forums to be searched for keywords (See Searching Forums).

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Viewing a Discussion Thread

To view a thread click on the subject for that thread when viewing the forum. You can view the thread in two ways, either in a "Flat" view or a "Threaded" view. In the "Flat" view the responses to the original topic are listed in chronological order. In this view you can read through all the responses to the original posting in sequence, but you lose the "Threaded" character of the discussion, since some of the later responses may not refer to the original posting but to comments made by others who replied earlier. In our previous example the "Flat" view would show Bill's post, followed by Jean's, then Sandra's, and finally Jim's posting. Jim's posting is at the bottom, because it was posted last, but it actually is referring to Jean's posting, which is further up in the list.

Bill

-- Jean

-- Sandra

-- Jim

To maintain the relationship between the posts (who was replying to whom), use the "Threaded" view. In this view, the order of the posts would be different, with Jim's posting tucked underneath Jean's posting, since Jim was commenting on what Jean had said.

Bill

-- Jean

---- Jim

-- Sandra

When viewing a thread you can switch between these two views by clicking on the "Flat View" or "Threaded View" link.

You reply to a given message by clicking on the aptly named "Reply to This Message" link (see the adding to a discussion section).

In threaded view, use the "Next Message" and "Previous Message" links to move forward and backward within the thread. The message you are viewing will be shown in black in the threaded view, the other messages in the thread will be highlighted as links.

Use the "Newer Topic" and "Older Topic" links to move to news and older postings in this forum.

Click the "Go to Top" link to return to the listing of threads in this forum

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Adding to a Forum

Starting a new discussion topic.

When viewing a forum, or an individual discussion thread, you can start a new topic for discussion by clicking on the "New Topic" link. This will put up a form for you to fill out. You will need to enter your name, and your e-mail address; this will allow people to reply to you by mail if they wish. You are required to enter a subject for your message. The subject should be something informative, so that it can be picked out from a list with many postings. Try to avoid subjects like "Help" or "A Question", since people will have to look into your message to see if it is something that they can help with.

If the forum allows attachments, there will be a space for the attachment file name, and a "Browse" button. If you want to post an attachment file click on the browse button, and find the file on your computer. Attachments are a great feature of forums, but they must be used with care and consideration. Posting large attachments will take up space on the server, and can be a way for open forums to be attacked (which is why most open forums don't allow attachments). Posting attachments made with programs that other users don't have doesn't really serve the purpose of sharing information, since the other users won't be able to open your file. Finally, for your browser to know what type if file the attachment is you will have to adhere to certain naming conventions. You will have to end your file name with a three-letter extension that specifies the file type. Some of the supported file-types are shown below (others may have been added to your forum by your administrator).

Once a message with an attachment has been posted, the file is uploaded to the server, and there is no need to keep it in a particular place on your hard drive. People are not seeing the copy of the file on your computer (which they wouldn't have access to), so if you make revisions in the file you'll have to post that new file as a follow-up to you own message.

There is a text area for you to enter your message. What you type here becomes what is called the "body" of your message, and is what people will see when viewing your thread. This text is also searchable, so you might want to put keywords at the bottom of your message so that it will show up when searched using those keywords.

Users may use Phorum Code to spice up their posts. Phorum Code is much like the standard methods used by many message board systems to mark up messages.

Creating a linked URL using the URL itself as the link text:

    [url]http://phorum.org[/url]

Creating a linked URL using specified text as the link text:

    [url=http://phorum.org]phorum.org[/url]

Creating a linked email address:

    [email]email@address.com[/email]

Embedding an image within the body of a message:

    [img]http://phorum.org/logo.gif[/img]

Emphasising text with bold, itaics or underlining:

    [b]Bold Text[/b]
    [u]Underlined Text[/u]
    [i]Italicized Text[/i]

Centering text within the message:

    [center]Centered Text[/center]

Indent text to make it stand out from the surrounding text:

    [quote]Does this quote text?[/quote]

Phorum will also automatically link URLs that are inside <> characters, i.e. <http://phorum.org/> will become http://phorum.org/.

Tags can be combined to create the usual HTML-style effects, such as embedding a linked image with:

    [url=http://phorum.org][img]http://phorum.org/logo.gif[/img][/url]

If this feature is enabled for your forum, you'll see a checkbox to e-mail replies to this thread to your e-mail address. This is very useful for being notified when someone replies to your message. The e-mail that gets sent to you says that someone has replied to your message, and it also contains a link that will allow youto jump straight from you e-mail, to your thread in the forum.

Finally, there is a button labeled "Post" for submitting or posting your message to the forum. When you post your message, you will be taken back to viewing the forum with your message at the top of the list.

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Adding to a discussion topic (Replying).

When viewing a discussion topic (a thread), each individual message (posting) will have a link after it labeled "Reply to This Message". This link will take you to a form very similar to that for adding a new discussion topic (see above). The principle difference between replying and posting a new topic is who your message will be displayed. We discussed above how messages are displayed in a hierarchical fashion. Which message you reply to will determine where in the hierarchy you new message will appear. If you would like to add your comments to those of other respondents, you should probably click on the "Reply to This Message" link associated with the first posting in the thread (the posting that started the discussion). In this case your posting will appear at the bottom of the list in threaded view, indicating that you are the most recent person posting in response to the main topic. However, if there is a particular respondent's posting that you'd like to comment on, then you should click on the "Reply to This Message" link associated with that response. In this way, you are creating a sub-thread within the main thread. In this case your posting will appear in the middle of the threaded view, beneath the respondent's post that you wished to comment on.

For an explanation of the fields in the form, and advice about attachments see the section on starting a new discussion above.

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Searching forum discussions

The discussions in a forum can be searched in much the same way as using a search engine. You enter one or more keywords to search for, and the forum is searched for these keywords; the results are given in the order of how well they match your keywords.

There are several options that dictate how your search gets done. You can limit the search to just a single forum, or to all the forums on the server using the drop-down menu options "Search This Forum" or "Search All Forums". You can limit your search to just the most recent postings, or to all the postings using the drop-down menu options "Last 30 Days", "Last 60 Days", "Last 90 Days", "All Dates". You can select whether "All Words", "Any Words" or just your "Exact Phrase" need to match using the drop-down menu with those names. Finally, you can determine which part or parts of a posting will be searched using the "Author", "Subject" and" Message Body" checkboxes.

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