twatteaser
02-16-2003, 08:41 PM
There are a lot of things on this board that are pretty obvious and some that are less obvious. Here are a few basic thoughts. If you have any hints or tips, please add them. Viewing Threads Hopefully everyone is familiar with the view new posts (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&action=getnew) link from the forum home page. This is the best way to see all the threads posted since the last visit. It can be annoying though because if you leave half way through reading the posts and come back later, you lose all the posts. One simple solution is to temporarily bookmark the page showing the search results after clicking on view new posts (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&action=getnew) on the first visit, you lose the position in threads but you don't lose the threads. Alternatively you can view posts made in the last day (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&action=getdaily), week (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&action=getdaily&days=7) or month (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&action=getdaily&days=28) by bookmarking these links. People often complain about not being able to find threads, its worth checking whether Default Thread View is set to Show all threads in edit options (http://www.peforum.net/forum/member.php?s=&action=editoptions). If you want to see the best threads in a forum, click on the rating colum header. Likewise you can sort by most replies or views. e.g. General Discussion forum sorted by rating (http://www.peforum.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=4&sortorder=desc&sortfield=voteavg),replies (http://www.peforum.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=4&sortorder=desc&sortfield=replycount),views (http://www.peforum.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=4&sortorder=desc&sortfield=views). Searching When searching with more than one word, if no logical seperators are specified, the result is to search for all the words in a post. If, for example, you wanted to search for posts about 'jelqing' and 'girth' with a focus on excercises. Simply searching for jelqing girth (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&query=jelqing+girth&forumchoice=-1&searchdate=-1&action=simplesearch) will bring back posts that mention 'jelq' but not 'jelqing' but jelq* girth (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&query=jelq%2A+girth&forumchoice=-1&searchdate=-1&action=simplesearch) will. This search will bring back way too many posts, so limitation by forum is probably best, jelq* girth [General Discussion forum] (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&query=jelq%2A+girth&forumchoice=4&searchdate=-1&action=simplesearch). This is still a lot of threads to read though. If you are only interested in manual jelqing you can remove power-jelq threads with jelq* girth NOT PJ* NOT powerjelq*[General Discussion forum] (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&query=jelq%2A+girth+NOT+PJ%2A+NOT+powerjelq%2A+&forumchoice=4&searchdate=-1&action=simplesearch) ('powerjelq*' will match 'power-jelq*' as well). Using NOT has the disadvantage of removing a few threads you probably want. There will still be a few threads but jelq* girth NOT PJ* NOT powerjelq*[General Discussion forum] (organized by post) (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&query=jelq%2A+girth+NOT+PJ%2A+NOT+powerjelq%2A+&forumchoice=4&searchdate=-1&action=simplesearch&showposts=1) may help as you get a preview of each thread. This can increase the number of results but reduce the number of threads you are likely to have to actually view. Searching for a particular post you remember is normally easier. As you can limit by username (jelq* girth - by hobby (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&query=jelq%2A+girth&forumchoice=-1&searchdate=-1&action=simplesearch&searchuser=hobby&exactname=yes&showposts=1)). If you remember the partial title of the thread you can just search by title (*AI* - by johan2, title search (http://www.peforum.net/forum/search.php?s=&query=%2AAI%2A&searchdate=-1&action=simplesearch&searchuser=johan2&exactname=yes&showposts=1&titleonly=1)). Organizing by post also allows you to bookmark and post links by post rather than just thread. Formatting Posts There are a few obvious ways to increase the readability of posts. Simple formatting like paragraphing well can be improved with the use of bold text bold text, italics italics coloring coloring Word based links are also simple and effective: forum (http://www.peforum.net/forum) forum (http://www.peforum.net/forum) There is a whole page on formatting (http://www.peforum.net/forum/misc.php?s=&action=bbcode) and another on smilies (http://www.peforum.net/forum/misc.php?s=&action=showsmilies). Private Messaging Its very easy to not notice when you have new PMs waiting. The edit options (http://www.peforum.net/forum/member.php?s=&action=editoptions) section of the user control panel (http://www.peforum.net/forum/usercp.php?s=) allows you to see a javascript alert when you've received a new message, just make sure Pop up a box when you receive a Private Message? is set to yes.