Tips for using the forum?

CoastsideKevin posted:

Hi moderators, - Hi Kevin

I have looked all over the site and even searched the web, but I can't find a place with instructions on how to actually use the forum most effectively and efficiently. For example, I'd like to learn how to reply to specific text within a post, as well as other tricks. Can someone please point me to a user guide? - There may not be one ?

Thanks! - You're welcome !

Kevin

Not sure about other tricks or a guide, but click on the "Take Action" notation at the bottom right of the post you want to reply to and then hit "Reply With Quote".

That will bring up the old post in a letter box, as above. From there, you can either write your new comments outside the box as I've done here or you can go into the letter box and highlight specific text you want to respond to and add new text, highlight, etc., as above.

You can also click the "Take Action" notation of your own post to edit it after you've posted it, as I've done here.

You can also delete quoted text or photos the save space or make it easier to understand your response. Hitting your delete key backspaces one place and deletes whatever was in that space.

Lew

Richie C. posted:

CoastsideKevin posted:

Hi moderators, - Hi Kevin

I have looked all over the site and even searched the web, but I can't find a place with instructions on how to actually use the forum most effectively and efficiently. For example, I'd like to learn how to reply to specific text within a post, as well as other tricks. Can someone please point me to a user guide? - There may not be one ?

Thanks! - You're welcome !

Kevin

Not sure about other tricks or a guide, but click on the "Take Action" notation at the bottom right of the post you want to reply to and then hit "Reply With Quote".

That will bring up the old post in a letter box, as above. From there, you can either write your new comments outside the box as I've done here or you can go into the letter box and highlight specific text you want to respond to and add new text, highlight, etc., as above. Ok, trying it now.

You can also click the "Take Action" notation of your own post to edit it after you've posted it, as I've done here.

That makes sense and seems to work. Sometimes I see people who have quoted a line or two from an earlier post, then replied/commented, then done that several times on down the page. Each quote is boxed separately, and I'm not seeing how to do that. Thanks again for the tutorial.

Thanks, Lew!

CoastsideKevin posted:

Richie C. posted:

CoastsideKevin posted:

Hi moderators, - Hi Kevin

I have looked all over the site and even searched the web, but I can't find a place with instructions on how to actually use the forum most effectively and efficiently. For example, I'd like to learn how to reply to specific text within a post, as well as other tricks. Can someone please point me to a user guide? - There may not be one ?

Thanks! - You're welcome !

Kevin

Not sure about other tricks or a guide, but click on the "Take Action" notation at the bottom right of the post you want to reply to and then hit "Reply With Quote".

That will bring up the old post in a letter box, as above. From there, you can either write your new comments outside the box as I've done here or you can go into the letter box and highlight specific text you want to respond to and add new text, highlight, etc., as above. Ok, trying it now.

You can also click the "Take Action" notation of your own post to edit it after you've posted it, as I've done here.

That makes sense and seems to work. Sometimes I see people who have quoted a line or two from an earlier post, then replied/commented, then done that several times on down the page. Each quote is boxed separately, and I'm not seeing how to do that. Thanks again for the tutorial.

If you just keep hitting the "Take Action" and "Reply With Quote" buttons, it will keep stacking the replies, one on top of the other, as here.

Usually, there's someone else responding in between that keeps it going.

Richie C. posted:

If you just keep hitting the "Take Action" and "Reply With Quote" buttons, it will keep stacking the replies, one on top of the other, as here.

However, the smart money is to only quote what you're replying to to keep the thread at a reasonable size and also not have a ten screen reply with all repeated information.  Contrast the previous reply to mine.

To add to what John said, the same goes for commenting on previous posts of pictures, as in Weekend Photo Fun. People will quote all ten pictures to comment on one.

You can edit the quoted replies or copy and paste the relevant phrase from a previous reply or post to make your response succinct. (As in photos that posted in the body) 

Another tip is to practice with the advanced search function to tap into the wealth of knowledge accumulated in the forum.

When you are quoting someone, you can correct their spelling mistakes. 

Thanks, everyone. All great tips! Being relatively new to the forums, I have been looking for these sorts of suggestions. 

I wonder if it would be worth having a list of tips and tricks for posting somewhere that is easily accessible for newcomers and more experienced posters alike?

Again, thanks for taking the time to reply. It’s really helpful. 

Another trick useful is to copy-and-paste a photo if you don't want to quote the whole comment.

Lew

What happens when you add an "at" sign in front of a user's name

Like so: @Mikeaa

In another forum I frequent, that lets the person know they were mentioned, but not sure what it does here.

Same here @MIKEAA, you should have gotten a notification.

Thanks, @gunrunnerjohn

Thanks for the quick response!

I got a notification, but it had the same wording as the notifications I get on other threads that I'm following or posted in.  So it wasn't readily apparent that you used the "@" sign to alert me.  But it good to know.  I guess I'll use it next time I refer to someone in a post.

@Mikeaa

It's actually a little different, specifically the first line of the email says this...

You were mentioned by Mikeaa in the following topic reply.

AFAIK, that's the only time you'll see that statement in a notification email.

I just learned something here with the @username. Wasn't aware of that one, and thanks for the tip!

For a serious response, having a simple page that details each feature of the forum and how to use them would probably be helpful to some folks.  As far a forums go this one has pretty basic features and it wouldn't take long to make such a page, or perhaps even a short video on the subject.  

On the snarky side, it is 2019, the forum is rather basic, and hovering your mouse over options tells you what they do.  To be blunt, as far as computer things go there's nothing you can do on this forum that your average 8 year old would have difficulty with.  

There are some things that are glitchy when you want to edit quoted replies where you have to edit things in the source to get it right, and I have never managed to get the code tags to work in a useful way, but over all it's pretty straight forward.  

I wouldn't mind some effort put in to preventing massive quote inside quote replies all to give a 2 word response to something.  Even a sticky post asking people not to to it and telling them how to avoid it would be helpful.   Would also be nice to see a warning message on posts more than, say, 90 days old that it is an old post and would probably be better to start a new one unless you're absolutely sure you want to raise the old thread from the dead.  It gets rather confusing when a thread from 2015 reappears.  

CoastsideKevin posted:

That makes sense and seems to work. Sometimes I see people who have quoted a line or two from an earlier post, then replied/commented, then done that several times on down the page. Each quote is boxed separately, and I'm not seeing how to do that. Thanks again for the tutorial.

Is this what you mean?

Richie C. posted:

If you just keep hitting the "Take Action" and "Reply With Quote" buttons, it will keep stacking the replies, one on top of the other, as here.

Usually, there's someone else responding in between that keeps it going.

While the text posted above describes what I did to get this (which is I think what CoastsideKevin was asking about), I only saw quotes within quotes up to this point in the thread. (not separate quote boxes with replies to each in between)

Figured I'd add this example in case this is what he meant.  (I'll call it "nested quotes" vs. "stacked quotes")

Note in the second one, it was originally "nested quotes" (reply to reply to reply....), but I deleted all but the last response.  To do this , I just select the text starting after the leading blue quotation mark that I want to delete, down to the end.  I then may be left with a single blue quote in a box, but a single hit of the backspace or delete key takes care of that.  (I honestly forget which, and don't think about it that much while doing it.  I'll suggest the "ctrl-Z" key for undo on a PC is your friend here, in case you tap delete and it doesn't do what you thought it would, it's a quick way to go back a step or 2).

Back to the topic of multiple quotes, to do this, just hit Reply with Quote for each individual post.  I find it's helpful to go down the the Add Reply box at the bottom of the screen and hit the enter key after hitting Reply with Quote for each one, if not it can be difficult or impossible to get your cursor in between the different quotes, and you will end up typing your reply within the original quoted text.  IMHO, bad form (see expansion on this thought below, if you agree, or ignore me if you don't ).

You can only do this for posts that are on the same page of the thread, but luckily there is a way to get more posts on a single page if you run into this problem.  Threads that run multiple pages have a "how many posts per page" link that shows up at the lower left of the final post of each page.  The options are 20, 40, 100, or 200.  So as long as you are not on a super long thread that has more than 200 replies, you should be able to quote as many people as you want in a single reply as I did above, just select the higher posts per page before doing so.

(off topic, but a HUGE pet peeve of mine, particularly when someone just starts typing their own thoughts randomly mixed within the original quote (same generic formatting, etc) - they know what their thoughts were, but the reader needs to go back and try to figure out what's different than the original text.   That's an Easter Egg hunt (or "Where's Waldo" effort) I am not willing to do in most cases, so if I see a quoted reply with no text outside the quote box, I will generally skip it.  If the person quoting bolds stuff, changes the color, etc, then I will read it.)

Welcome to the forum!  It's not hard once you get used to it.

-Dave

Dave45681 posted:

CoastsideKevin posted:

That makes sense and seems to work. Sometimes I see people who have quoted a line or two from an earlier post, then replied/commented, then done that several times on down the page. Each quote is boxed separately, and I'm not seeing how to do that. Thanks again for the tutorial.

Is this what you mean?

Yes, it is. And I just now finally figured out how to do it with your help. Trick is to put cursor at end of previously quoted text, and hit enter a couple of times to get below it. Hadn't understood until now. Thank you!
Kevin