Site tutorial

This forum is for suggestions and discussion about this site. What would you like to see?

Moderators: 52D, Tom F, Rlangham, Atlantic 3279, Blink Bonny, Saint Johnstoun, richard

Post Reply
John Atkinson
NER Y7 0-4-0T
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 3:53 am

Site tutorial

Post by John Atkinson »

Once again, I am not computer literate and have no experience whatever of computer forums. My first attempt at using this one resulted in everyone getting a personal message. My apologies once again if the same thing happens this time. In the many replies I received one kind member offered to help me if I contacted him. I didn't know how to at the time and now I cannot find the message for another try. Is there some basic guidance somewhere for someone like me? I understand and use emails prolifically. Inbox, Outbox, Save as a draft, File in a folder and Delete I understand but I'm afraid I find this site is beyond me at the moment.
davidwest
GER D14 4-4-0 'Claud Hamilton'
Posts: 337
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2009 12:18 pm
Location: West Midlands

Re: Site tutorial

Post by davidwest »

I'm not aware of a tutorial.

With a bit of time you will get the hang of it.

David
wehf100
GCR D11 4-4-0 'Improved Director'
Posts: 486
Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2007 3:42 pm
Location: Cambridgeshire

Re: Site tutorial

Post by wehf100 »

I hope Richard doesn't mind me pitching in as it is his forum- I'll happily remove this if he wants.

If you've managed to post a new 'topic' on here, then it looks like you already have the hang of it! There really isn't much else to it.

Basically, like any forum, LNER.info uses a hierarchical structure- i.e there is the forum as a whole, which on here is called the 'board index', within which there are various sub-fora. When you want to make a new topic for discussion you simply go to the relevant sub forum and click 'new topic' to start a discussion 'thread'

The layout of the forum is thus:

-BOARD INDEX
----LNER Discussion
-----------LNER News
-----------General LNER Discussion
-----------LNER Locomotives and Rolling Stock
-----------LNER People
-----------LNER Photographs
-----------Model Railways
-----------Classifieds

----Non-LNER Chat
-----------Railway Chat
-----------General Chat

----Official
-----------Official Announcements
-----------Suggestion Box

_______________________________

Once you have navigated to the sub forum in which you wish to post a new discussion, you simply click 'new topic' and fill in all the relevant boxes. There are various buttons along the top where you can add emphasis by adding italics or bold. These are again simple one-click functions where it should be clear what to do. The smiley faces on the left hand side should in fact be illegal in this country, so please don't use them.... :(

When you are finished, click 'submit' and bobs your uncle! If you click 'preview' you can see what your post will look like when it is up on the website. This is primarily of use if you are inserting images or doing somehting odd with the formatting which makes you think you might have cocked something up. If you are simply typing plain-text, there is no benefit in previewing your post.


Reading topics can be a time-consuming task. This forum includes a neat feature where you can 'view active topics'. This will allow you to review all the topics which have either been created (or replied to) since you last logged on to the website. The 'View active topics' button is situated on the top left hand side of every page of the forum, just under the blue LNER logo. It is the button I always press first when I visit the site.

To reply to an existing topic, you once again navigate to the relevant sub-forum and open the desired topic. You do this by simpply clicking on the title of the topic that interests you.

Once you have opened a 'topic', you will see what is termed the 'thread' of discussion. All the comments to this opening post will be saved underneath in chronological order for you to read. You can then add a reply yourself by simply clicking on the 'post reply' button. You then fill in all the relevant text boxes, and click 'submit'. Your reply will be added to the end of the thread, which is arranged in chronological order. An individual response within a 'thread' is called a 'post'.

When threads get very long and have several people chipping in, it can be difficult to make it clear if you want to respond to a specific post that went before you. A useful tool to avoid this problem is to use the 'quote' function to reply to a specific post. All you have to do is click the 'quote' button at the bottom of the post you are responding to. This then copies the other members message in to your own. You can then reply as normal. Using this format makes it very clear which comment you are replying to, but be mindful that with over-use it can make things very convoluted indeed- many fora are ruined by people quoting a quote of a quote and so on.... Used sparingly however, it is very useful to make things clearer.

Anyway, that should get you going. You can play around a lot with adding files and photographs, and any user on here will be very willing to talk you through that, as and when the need arises!

I think Richard should be praised for keeping LNER.info simple. A certain popular UK railway modelling forum which I shall not name seems hell-bent on becoming so complicated that even someone like me, (who spends the working day staring at a computer, doing modestly technical work), despairs! All I would say is over-complicating a forum is not clever, and it's certainly not funny!

Will
User avatar
strang steel
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
Posts: 2353
Joined: Tue May 18, 2010 3:54 pm
Location: From 40F to near 82A via 88C

Re: Site tutorial

Post by strang steel »

John Atkinson wrote:Once again, I am not computer literate and have no experience whatever of computer forums. My first attempt at using this one resulted in everyone getting a personal message. My apologies once again if the same thing happens this time. In the many replies I received one kind member offered to help me if I contacted him. I didn't know how to at the time and now I cannot find the message for another try. Is there some basic guidance somewhere for someone like me? I understand and use emails prolifically. Inbox, Outbox, Save as a draft, File in a folder and Delete I understand but I'm afraid I find this site is beyond me at the moment.
Dont worry about it John.

I have no problems with getting your PM by mistake, we all have to start learning somewhere.

Just use the reply or new topic buttons to begin with. You can always scroll down your reply and press Preview to make sure your message looks right before pressing 'save' or 'submit'.

Yes, there are some forums full of spiteful know-alls who merely take pleasure in putting others down, but fortunately this is not one of them.
John. My spotting log website is now at https://spottinglogs.co.uk/spotting-rec ... s-70s-80s/
John Atkinson
NER Y7 0-4-0T
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 3:53 am

Re: Site tutorial

Post by John Atkinson »

Many thanks to those who responded, particularly Will, who took the trouble to compose an "Idiots' Guide". This is exactly what I needed!
John (Merry Hampton)
User avatar
richard
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
Posts: 3385
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:11 pm
Location: Wichita Falls, Texas
Contact:

Re: Site tutorial

Post by richard »

John: it sounds like you are working things out. You are able to post to the public forums.

I've moved this thread to the "Official" section (which is more appropriate) although this means it goes under "Suggestion Box"!
I've left a "shadow" thread in place (this is in the old location and points here), so you shouldn't lose it.


Richard
Richard Marsden
LNER Encyclopedia
Multiprinter
LNER Thompson L1 2-6-4T
Posts: 89
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2010 4:29 pm

Re: Site tutorial

Post by Multiprinter »

wehf100 wrote: I think Richard should be praised for keeping LNER.info simple. A certain popular UK railway modelling forum which I shall not name seems hell-bent on becoming so complicated that even someone like me, (who spends the working day staring at a computer, doing modestly technical work), despairs! All I would say is over-complicating a forum is not clever, and it's certainly not funny!

Will
I'm only too happy to second that Will !

This post also illustrates that a quote can be edited to just leave the relevant bit, about which one wants to comment.
User avatar
manna
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
Posts: 3790
Joined: Sun May 24, 2009 12:56 am
Location: All over Australia

Re: Site tutorial

Post by manna »

G'Day Gents

I also have to admit there's bits I can't work out, I can't work out how to send a PM to someone off hand I can reply though, and I've never been able to use the Quote button :? :?

manna

PS, then again I've never worked out how to program our video recorder, even whilst following the destruction's :oops:
EDGWARE GN, Steam in the Suburbs.
User avatar
richard
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
Posts: 3385
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:11 pm
Location: Wichita Falls, Texas
Contact:

Re: Site tutorial

Post by richard »

Try clicking on "User Control Panel" in the top right. This lets you do various things like change your settings.

The Private Messages is then in the menu on the left.

Richard
Richard Marsden
LNER Encyclopedia
User avatar
manna
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
Posts: 3790
Joined: Sun May 24, 2009 12:56 am
Location: All over Australia

Re: Site tutorial

Post by manna »

G'Day Gents

I can get to the 'Compose Message' but then there is a line that says 'To' and beside it there is the word 'NONE' and I can not get a name in there, that's the bit that I'm stuck on. ??

manna
EDGWARE GN, Steam in the Suburbs.
User avatar
StevieG
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
Posts: 2331
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2009 9:08 pm
Location: Near the GN main line in N.Herts.

Re: Site tutorial

Post by StevieG »

Hi manna.
I reckon you have to ignore where "None" is actually shown, but instead go over to the left to the empty field below where it says "Send to", type in the username of who you want to send the PM to, then click the adjacent 'Add' button.
If you're not sure of the correct username/spelling, clicking on "Find a member" just under "Send to" opens a new window, where to get the name, you can type in part of it, or fill in one or two of the other fields, or you can work your way through the 41 pages of members' names and pick from those.

Hope that's about right and ends up helping.
BZOH

/
\ \ \ //\ \
/// \ \ \ \
Post Reply