New Members - A few tips {Please keep this thread for tips and questions}

[HenryX]

Hello to Newer Members

and other members who may also find the following information useful.

Welcome to the forum. I hope the following information will help you to actively participate in and negotiate your way around the forum discussions.

{Any suggestions as to how this guide may be improved will be most appreciatively received.}

The following description, to assist in addressing other members in your posts, is given in:

Guidelines & Info   under the heading,

"How can I include other members in my post?"

Following that, I have added a more detailed description of the process of

1.a)  Posting a Comment and Replying to Another Post

1.b.)  Dealing with Error messages or other Complications

1.c.)  Message disappeared and an "Authentication failed" message appears

then

2.  Additional Notes

and

3.  Accessing and Responding to " Your Notifications "

and

4.  Editing Material in a Previously Posted Comment

" Your Notifications " are advice to you about messages that have been addressed to you through your forum address, or from threads in which you have been active.

"How can I include other members in my post?"

{as written in the Guidelines & Info}

"When you write a post, you can add member addresses to include other Forum members in the discussion.

1. Start a new discussion or click 'Reply' or 'Quick reply' on a post.

2. Type @ then start typing a member name you want to include:

3. In 'Reply' you'll see a list of suggested member names.

4. In 'Quick reply', you need to type the whole name.

5. Select or type the member name and you'll see it linked in your post.

6. Add more member names the same way if you like, finish your post and click 'Post'. The member will get a notification saying they've been mentioned in your post.”     {preceding text copied from Guidelines & Info}

I have added the following, more detailed guide, which I hope will be of help in using the functions of the forum. If you have any problems, just ask from wherever you are and someone will offer assistance.

1.a)  Posting a Comment and Replying to Another Post

When you want to reply to a post with someone's Forum Address, e.g.,  @Pseudonym

Forum Name  =  Pseudonym   Forum Address   =   "@" + "Pseudonym"  =  @Pseudonym

1. Click the REPLY oval to the bottom right of the post to which you intend replying.

2. With the cursor in the REPLY box, type the "@" symbol {without quotation marks / inverted commas} This will open a Forum Address drop-down menu with up to five or six Forum Addresses of people who have posted in the thread in which you wish to post your REPLY.

3. The @ symbol cannot be adjacent to any other letter, number or symbol, immediately in front of, or behind it, in order for the Forum Address drop-down menu to appear;        P@,J = X      P  @  ,J  = ✔

4. Selecting a Forum Address from the drop-down menu list will automatically enter that Forum Address into the REPLY box in which your message is to be entered. An alert to the person addressed, when the message is posted, will appear in their " Your Notifications " page-list {see details below}.

5. Repeat steps 2 to 4 to include additional Forum Address entries into the REPLY box.

6. Enter the comment or message that you wish to offer, then click POST once, and click POST again. {Two POST clicks are normally required. Generally, you can ignore the message "Correct the highlighted errors and try again." But, if the comment does not post on the second click, check above and below the message REPLY box for Error Messages.

7. You can ignore the following message, if you see it displayed below the Reply box:

   "Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. The invalid HTML has been removed. Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied."

1.b)  Dealing with Error messages or other Complications

1. If you see the following timeout message before clicking POST,    Don't panic:

   "Authentication Failed.

   Authentication Ticket Mismatched, failed authentication."

   Copy the whole of the message, that you have typed in the REPLY box, to your (digital) clipboard, refresh the page { ⟳ near the top left of browser window}, and, after the page is refreshed, check your message, if it remains in the REPLY box, then click POST once, and click POST again.

2. If the message needs to be re-entered into the REPLY box, paste the copied message, from the (digital) clipboard, back into the REPLY box; complete the message and click POST once, and click POST again.

1.c)  Message disappeared and an "Authentication failed" message appears

1. If, when you have clicked POST, your message has disappeared and the "Authentication failed" message appears, immediately click the page-back <⬅ arrow. You are likely to find the message or an empty message box with a note above it, in blue background, stating

   " You have autosaved content from 00:00 PM.

      Load or Discard "

   By clicking Load, you can now re-"Load" the autosaved message and then POST. 

{The process above is what I originally had to do with this message because I took so long to write the message. That is when the dreaded "Authentication Failed" message most often appears}

That should complete the message process and your message will have been posted, unless there are any other error messages that require attention.

2.  Additional Notes.

{When you are pasting the message, that you copied from the REPLY box onto your (digital) clipboard, after refreshing ⟳ the page, I have found that Forum Addresses do "paste" back into the newly refreshed REPLY box properly, as active links.}

Another way of avoiding the dreaded "Authentication Failed" message, when writing longer messages, is to write the message in your word processor {Microsoft Word, Apache OpenOffice Writer, LibreOffice Writer, etc} and then "copy and paste" the text, from the word processor document, into a newly refreshed or freshly opened REPLY box, add the desired Forum Addresses and post.

Caution: I believe that Forum Addresses do not copy and paste properly from the word processor as functional links, so it is best not to include Forum Addresses in your word processor draft, but to enter all Forum Addresses directly into the Reply box when using a word processor for your draft copy.

3.  Accessing and Responding to " Your Notifications "

Toward the top right of the forum page, just to the right of Guidelines & Info, is placed the word New.

1. Clicking on the word New will open your " Your Notifications " page.

2. The " Your Notifications " page displays a list of notifications, addressed to you. A notification is sent when another member has entered your Forum Address in their message to alert you to that message. In addition to messages addressed directly to you, you can also receive notification of messages that have been posted by other members in threads into which you have previously posted, in which you have been active, or when you are subscribed to the thread.

3. In the " Your Notifications " page, either Left click (4. below) or Right click (5. below) on the link, which will be displayed like this;

   " Re: Henry's Landing Strip & Hangar " {with the prefix "Re:" (No "Re" if it is a First Post in a new thread) but all without quotation marks / inverted commas}

4. A Left click, on the link, will open the link and the included message in the same browser TAB as the " Your Notifications " browser TAB, or

5. A Right click on the displayed link and then Left click on "Open Link in New Tab", at the top of the drop-down banner, will open the link and message in a new browser TAB

4.  Editing Material in a Previously Posted Comment

is done by:

1. Clicking "POST OPTIONS" at the top right corner of the post that you wish to edit. A drop-down banner will appear with "Edit Post" at the top of the list.
2. Click on "Edit Post". Your post will then be presented in an expandable message box in which any or all of your post can be edited, with additions, changes or deletions and then re-posted. When you have completed your edit:
3. Click "POST", as usual, at the bottom right of the message box, and your edit is complete.

If you have any other questions, to which you would like answers or guidance, you are welcome to post them following this message, or in the thread in which you are active and another member, or I will be happy to offer assistance.

With Best Wishes

@HenryX