* alter personal preferences ;
* manage posts you are watching ;
* send and receive private messages ;
* and change the way information about you appears to other users.
To view the UCP, click the 'User Control Panel' link that appears after logging in by clicking on your username, encircled in green.
The UCP is separated into six tabs: Overview, Private Messages, Profile, Preferences, Friends and Foes, and Groups.
Within each tab are several sub pages, accessed by clicking the desired link on the left side of the UCP interface. Some of these areas may not be available depending on the permissions set for you by the administrator.
Every page of the UCP displays your Friends List on the left side.
To send a private message to a friend, click their user name.
Private Messaging is discussed more in depth in the Private Messaging Tutorial.
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The Overview displays a snapshot of information about your posting habits such as the date you joined the forum, your most active topic, and how many total posts you have submitted.
Overview sub pages include Subscriptions, Bookmarks, Drafts, Attachments and Notifications.
How to manage your Subscriptions
Subscriptions are forums or individual topics that you have elected to watch for any new posts. Whenever a new post is made inside an area you have subscribed to, you will be sent an e- mail informing you of the new addition.
To manage your Subscriptions, just click on the subpage "Manage Subscriptions" on the left of the UCP Overview.
To create a subscription, visit the forum or topic you would like to subscribe to and click the 'Subscribe' link located at the bottom of the page.
To remove a subscription, check the box next to the subscription you would like to remove and click the 'Unwatch Marked' button.
How to manage your Bookmarks
Bookmarks, much like subscriptions, are topics you've chosen to watch.
However, there are two key differences:
1) only individual topics may be bookmarked, and
2) an e-mail will not be sent to inform you of new posts.
To manage your Bookmarks, just click on the Subpage "Manage your Bookmarks" on the left of your UCP Overview.
To create a bookmark, visit the topic you would like to watch and click the 'Bookmark Topic' link located at the bottom of the page.
To remove a bookmark, check the box next to the bookmark you would like to remove and click the 'Remove marked bookmarks' button.
How to manage your Drafts
You can manage your Drafts by clicking the tab "Manage your Drafts" on the left side of your UCP Overview.
Drafts are created when you click the 'Save' button on the New Post or Post Reply page. Displayed are the title of your post, the forum or topic that the draft was made in, and the date you saved it.
To continue editing a draft for future submission, click the 'View/Edit' link. If you plan to finish and post the message, click 'Load Draft'.
To delete a draft, check the box next to the draft you wish to remove and click 'Delete Marked'.
How to manage your attachments
The attachment section of the UCP shows a list of all attachments that you have upload-ed to the board.
To manage these, just click on the subpage "Manage Attachments" on the left of the UCP Overview.
Each entry contains a link to the message in which the attachment is contained, the size of the attachment, the number of times it has been downloaded, and the time at which it was uploaded.
Through this page, you can delete attachments from the board. Inline references to a deleted attachment will still remain in the original post, but the attachment will not be rendered in any way other than the file name.
How to manage your Notifications
Notifications alert you to events that have taken place on the board.
They will appear in the Notifications menu at the top of your screen.
Events include:
• New Private Message has arrived
• New topic was created in a subscribed forum
• New post was created in a subscribed topic
• A new post is awaiting moderation (for those with administrative privileges)
• A post has been reported
• Your topic/post has been approved/disapproved
• You have been quoted in a post
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To edit your profile, click User Control Panel in the little menu beneath your Name. On the picture we have encircled it in green.
This will get you to your User Control Panel, with a lot of possibilities to customize your preferences when visiting the Forum.
The second tab is Profile, encircled in green. Clicking this, you can enter personal information : Birthday, Full Name, Interests, Occupation, Website etc.
Please note that this information may be viewable to other members. When including any personal details, be sure that you are comfortable with sharing these.
Don't forget to click the "Submit" button to validate.
How to add, edit or remove a signature
You can make your posts more personal or recognizable by adding a signature. This is a block of text added to your posts, e.g. your name, a pseudonym, a personal motto ...
Just click on Edit Signature, encircled in green. Here you can enter the block of text. There is a 255 character limit.
Just click the "Submit" button to finish adding or editing your signature.
How to add, edit or remove an avatar
If you want to add, edit or delete your avatar image to your posts and to your profile, choose Edit Avatar, encircled in green.
An avatar is a small picture that represents a computer user on the internet, in games, on forums etc.
Once you have found a suitable image, you may have to crop it to fit these maximum dimensions :
width: 90 pixels, height: 90 pixels, file size: 60.00 KiB.
For uploading the image, click where the red arrow points and this will bring you to your computer files where you can select your image.
Click Upload image and your avatar is in place.
The same menu can be used to edit or delete your avatar. (Choose "Delete image")
How to edit your account settings
Choose Edit Account Settings, encircled in green.
Here you can edit your email-address and change your password.
Notice that to change your password, your email address, or your username, you must enter your current password. Click the "Submit" button and done.
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The Forum allows its users to communicate privately by using Private Messages.
To visit the Private Messages section, you either can click on the "Private messages" link on the left hand side below the forum header.
or you can directly access it through the User Control Panel.
Depending on the communication methods allowed by the board administrator, there can be 3 ways of being notified of a new Private Message's arrival:
1. By receiving an e-mail message
2. An entry will appear in the notifications menu
3. "The Private Messages" link will show the number of currently unread messages You can set the options to your liking in the Preferences section.
You can choose to not receive Private Messages by other users in your Preferences.
Note, that moderators and administrators will still be able send you Private Messages, even if you have disabled them.
Message display
The Inbox is the default incoming folder, which contains a list of your recently received Private Messages.
Messages that have not yet been read, are marked on the left with a red symbol. When the message is read, it changes to grey.
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This will bring you to the User Control Panel, where you then choose "Compose message".
The screen presented while composing a Private Message is nearly identical to the screen for creating a new post.
The main difference is the addition of an address field for adding recipients.
Below are the Fields for adding recipients to a Private Message.
Usernames should be entered into the text area and then either the Add or Add [BCC] used to add the user to the appropriate recipient list.
If you are unsure of a user's name, you can use the Find a member link to search the member list for the user.
This will bring you to the appropriate user in the Member List.
Just place "check" next to the desired user(s) in the memberlist and press "Select marked" to add the user to the recipient field.
The recipients of your Private message will be shown beneath the Fields for adding recipients.
Writing a Private Message to a member that you have selected before as your "Friend" is easy. You will see a list of your Friends on the left side and just selecting "Add" will make them a recipient of your Private message.
Writing a Private Message in itself will work pretty much the same as creating a new post. See the tutorial about creating a post.http://79.170.40.239/netsuke.org/forums ... p?f=260646
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Just like in your e-mail client, all private messages are stored in folders.
The Inbox is your default incoming message folder. All messages you receive will appear in here.
Sent messages will appear in either the Outbox or the Sent messages folder.
As long as the recipient(s) have not yet read the message, it will stay in the Outbox. As soon as someone reads the message it will be archived to the Sent messages folder. You can edit messages after sending them as long as they are in the Outbox and the recipients have not yet read them.
In the example below we see that there is one message in the Outbox and it is sent, but it has not yet been read by the recipient.
Each folder, including Sent messages and Outbox, can hold a board-defined amount of messages.
This is a global setting that only a board administrator can change. An info text displays the current number of allowed messages and the current percentage of space your messages are using at the top of each folder. If no restriction is displayed, you are allowed unlimited messages in each folder. In our Forum it is 150 messages per folder.
Please note that the total amount of messages allowed is a per-folder setting. You can have multiple folders which each allow 150 messages for instance. If you have 3 folders, your actual global limit is 450 messages, but each folder can only contain up to 150 messages by itself. It is not possible to merge folders and have one with more messages than the limit.
More information on how to add Folders is here : http://79.170.40.239/netsuke.org/forums ... 494777&t=7
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This Forum allows you to create your own custom private message folders.
To add a new folder, choose "Rules, folders & settings" in the Private Messages section of your User Control Panel.
Then enter the name of the folder you want to create into the Add folder input box.
If creation was successful, your new folder will appear in the folder list. You can then use it like a normal message folder and move messages into it.
Moving Messages
It wouldn't make sense to have custom folders if you weren't able to move messages between them. To do exactly that, visit the folder from which you want to move the messages away. Select the messages you want to move in the "mark" box.
Then use the pull-down menu to select the destination folder for the marked messages you want to move.
Note
Please note that if after the move, the destination folder would have more messages in it than the message limit allows, you will receive an error message and the move will be discarded
You can also set a filter to automatically move messages into the appropriate message folders.
This is done by setting Rules. To learn about this, please see the tutorial : "UCP - Private Message Folders 3 : Setting Rules to move messages automatically".
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With an example we will show how this can serve you to your advantage.
Let's say that you are writing and receiving a lot of PM's about some new Asakusa netsuke that you have acquired and posted on the Forum.
And you want these PM's to arrive automatically in the appropriate folder that you have created "reactions on Asakusa netsuke".
If you are not sure how to create a new PM folder, see the tutorial : http://79.170.40.239/netsuke.org/forums ... &t=7940235
You do this by setting a rule. In your UCP, under Private Messages, you choose "Rules, folders & settings".
Here you click "Add new rule".
Messages can be filtered based on the following fields:
• Subject - The subject of the message.
• Sender - The username of the message sender.
• Message - The content of the message.
• Message status - Whether a message has been replied to or forwarded.
• Sent to - Whether the message was sent directly to you or to a usergroup you are a member of.
In our example we want to filter from the Subject of the message.
Matching conditions
Several conditions are available for filtering the fields.
• Is like - The field contains the supplied string.
• Is not like - The field does not contain the supplied string.
• Is - The field matches the supplied string exactly.
• Is not - The field's content is not the same as the supplied string.
• Begins with - The field begins with the supplied string.
• Ends with - The field ends with the supplied string.
In our example we want to use the "Is like" condition. E.g. we want that the Subject contains the supplied string : "Asakusa".
Once a message has been matched, an action can be performed on the message. The available actions are:
• Place into folder -> X - Places the message into the specified folder.
• Mark as read - The message is immediately marked as read. Notifications still inform you of a new message, but the message will already be marked as read when you view your Private Message list.
• Mark message - The message is marked as important and highlighted in your Private Message list.
• Delete message - The message is deleted instead of being shown. A message will be shown informing you that messages were received and deleted according to your message rules. Messages sent from board administrators and moderators will not be deleted.
In our example, the message with a Subject that contains the supplied string Asakusa will be moved into the newly created folder "reactions on Asakusa netsuke"
The defined rule will show up under "Defined rules".
In our example, when a message arrives containing the string "Asakusa", it will be found automatically in the folder that is defined by the rules set.
NOTE : Private message rules can not be edited. If a rule needs to be changed, you will have to delete the current rule and make a new one .
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Messages inside folders can have colour markings. Please refer to the Message colours legend to see what each colour means.
On our Forum we use the following colour codes :
Coloured messages can have four different meanings:
Marked message : You can set a message as marked with the "Mark as important option" from the pull-down menu.
Replied to message : If you reply to a message, the message will be marked as this. This way, you can easily recognize which messages still need your attention and which messages you have already replied to.
Message from a friend : If the sender of a message is in your friends list (see the section on Friends & Foes for more information), this colour will highlight the message.
Message from a foe : If the sender of a message is one of your foes, this colour will highlight this.
NOTE : Please note that a message can have only one label and it will always be that of the last action you take. For instance, if you mark a message as important and reply to it afterwards, the replied to label will overwrite the important label.
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You can edit your Board Preferences in your User Control Panel. You get there by clicking "User Control Panel" in the little menu beneath your Name, encircled here in green.
You can edit your Board preferences by clicking the third tab "Board Preferences", here encircled in green
Under Board Preferences you are able to edit
- your global settings
- your posting defaults
- your display options
- your notification options
Let's start with Global Settings. The other preferences you will find in the next tutorials.
Your Global Settings control various overall interactions with the forum's software.
• Users can contact by e-mail: If Yes is selected; users can e-mail you via the "e-mail" button in your profile.
• Administrators can email me information: If Yes is selected; you will receive mass- emails sent out by the board administrator.
• Allow users to send you private messages: If Yes is selected; users can send you private messages via the board.
• Hide my online status: If Yes is selected; your online status will be hidden to users. Note that administrators and moderators will still be able to view your online status.
• My board style: Allows you to specify what style the board utilizes. This setting may not be available if the board administrator has selected to override users' styles.
• My language: Allows you to specify what language pack the board utilizes. Note that this setting applies only to board language strings; posts will be rendered in the language they were written.
The following languages are supported on our Forum : British English, American English, Dutch Informal, French, German Informal, German Formal, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Mandarin
The above is not to be confused with in-post translations, which is covered here : viewtopic.php?f=260646&t=7940228
• My timezone: Allows you to specify what timezone board times should appear in.
• My date format: Controls what format times are rendered in. You may select one of the options in the dropdown box.
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You will find these settings under your User Control Panel, then click the third tab Global settings. You will find Posting defaults as the second option.
The following default posting editors can be changed :
• Enable BBCode by default: When Yes is selected, BBCode is enabled within the post editor.
• Enable smilies by default: When Yes is selected, smilies will be rendered within your posts.
• Attach my signature by default: When Yes is selected, your signature will be appended to your posts.
• Notify me upon replies by default: When yes is selected, you will be notified by email when a reply to your post is made.
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Display settings control how posts and topics are rendered in the various board views.
You will find these settings under your User Control Panel, choose Board preferences and then click the third option "edit display options".
The following settings control how the contents of posts and private messages are rendered.
• Display images within posts: When Yes is selected, images will be displayed.
• Display Flash animations: When Yes is selected, Flash animations will be rendered.
• Display smilies as images: WhenYes is selected; smilies will be rendered as images instead of as their text equivalent.
• Display signatures: When yes is selected, user signatures will be displayed.
• Display avatars: When yes is selected, user avatars will be shown.
• Enable word censoring:When yes is selected,the text of posts and private messages will be censored according to the word censor list defined by the administrator.
The following settings control how topics are displayed in the forum view.
• Display topics from previous days:This setting limits the age of topics which should be displayed. By default, all topics are shown.
• Display topics ordering by: This setting changes the order of how topics are shown. Topics can be ordered by author, post time, number of replies, subject, or number of views.
• Display topic order direction: Topics can be displayed in either ascending or descending order.
The following settings control how posts are displayed in the topic view.
• Display posts from previous days: This setting limits the age of posts which should be displayed. By default, all posts are shown.
• Display posts ordering by: This setting changes the order of how posts are shown. Posts can be ordered by author, post time, number of replies, subject, or number of views.
• Display topic order direction: Posts can be displayed in either ascending or descending order.
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Notification settings control which events will trigger a notification and how you will receive the notification.
You will find these settings under your User Control Panel, then click the third tab Global settings.
Under the fourth option you will see Notification Settings :
The following settings control events related to posting.
• Someone replies to a topic you have bookmarked: A user has posted a reply to a topic which you have bookmarked.
• Someone replies to a topic to which you are subscribed: A user has posted a reply to a topic which you have subscribed to.
• Someone quotes you in a post: A post you made has been quoted by another user.
• Someone creates a topic in a forum to which you are subscribed: A user has posted a new topic in a forum which you have subscribed to.
The following settings control events related to moderation.
• A post or topic needs approval: A user has made a new post or topic which requires approval.
• Someone reports a post: A user has reported a post.
The following settings control various other events.
• Someone requests to join a group you lead: A user has requested to join a user group which you are a leader of.
• Someone sends you a private message: You have received a private message.
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Usergroup membership can be managed through the Usergroups section of the UCP. The page lists groups for which the user is a member of, a leader of, and all other usergroups. Groups which are open for membership have a radio button allowing the user to request membership. Users may also remove themselves from groups in which they hold membership. If a user has the Can change default usergroup, they change choose which group to be their default here. The default usergroup dictates the user's username colour which is shown throughout the board.
Users who are designated as a group leader are able to manage the group's membership. Users can be added, removed, pending join requests can be approved or denied, and have their default usergroup changed here.
Users can be marked as a Friend or a Foe in order to allow for filtering of their messages. If a style supports it, posts made by users on your Foe list will be hidden from view and posts from users on your Friend list will be highlighted. Private Message rules can make use of the Friend and Foes list for filtering incoming PMs.
You can add friends by entering usernames. The option to Find a member can be useful.
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