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Forum Help

Forums And Sub-forums

What are forums?
The Programmer's Heaven forums are a place where you can post questions on almost any software and hardware development related subject and help others who have questions that you know the answers to in return. An individual forum is an area for discussing a particular topic.

What are sub-forums?
Sometimes there are more specialized topics that are popular enough to deserve a forum of their own, but where there is already an existing more general forum where the topic could be discussed. Sub-forums exist within the main forums. For example, within the C++ main forum, we have a C++.Net sub-forum. In the C++ main forum, you can choose to view messages from sub-forums mixed in with the main forum's message, which will include those on the C++.Net forum and any other sub-forums of C++.

Posting

How do I register so I can post on the forums?
In the login box in the left column of the site, you will find a link to the register page. Follow the instructions on this page to register. Registration is free!

How do I post a new question?
First locate the most appropriate forum to post your message on from the list on the forum start page. On the forum message list page, just above the message list and to the right hand side, there is a blue button with the text "New Thread". Click this to post. Note that you need to be a registered user and logged in to post a message.

How do I reply to a post?
Provided you are registered and logged in, you can click the "Reply" link at the top of any message to post a reply to it. If you are logged in and the reply link is missing, this means that the thread has been locked and no further replies are allowed. You must register and log in to post.

How do I edit a post?
You can only edit a post that you made yourself. For such posts, you will see an "Edit post" link, placed next to the Reply link. This leads to a page where you can edit your message. You must enter a reason for the change.

Editing a message other than to make corrections (e.g. changing it's meaning) is often considered bad etiquette. You should not edit a post to remove something stupid you said when other people have replied to it. In that case, you use the Reply button again and write an apology.

How do I delete a post?
Only moderators and the webmaster can delete posts. If your post needs deleting, please contact a moderator or, as a last resort if the moderators do not respond, the webmaster.

Polls

How do I add a poll to my message?
When posting a new message, you will see an "Add Poll" link beneath the message box. Clicking on this should drop a poll posting area down in place of the link, where you can type in the poll question and between two and ten possible answers. You also need to choose how many days your poll will run for (the poll duration).

I can't add a poll in a reply message. Why?
In some forums we've decided to have only one poll at the time because it's best suited for this.

Attachments

What is an attachment and how do I use this feature?
The attachments feature allows you to upload a file when making a new post or a reply. This is useful if you want to provide code that is too large to include with your post or a screenshot, for example.

To attach a file, click on the "Add Attachment" link beneath the message box. This will drop down a file upload box where you can select a file to upload.

How big can a file attachment be?
File attachments can be up to 1 MB in size. If your attachment is over that, you may be able to compress it; we accept ZIP and GZIP attachments too.

What if I want to attach many files?
You can not do this, but we allow you to upload ZIP and GZIP files, so you can package many files inside one of these.

What types of file attachments are allowed?
We allow most common source code file extensions, apart from those that are directly executable and often used for worm-ish scripts (such as .vbs). We allow some image types too. If you want to attach a file whose extension we do not allow, you can always package it up inside a ZIP file. Note that we do not allow any binary executables (.exe, .com and so on), even inside ZIP files. This is to try to prevent the spread of viruses.

If you spot an extension that you think we should be allowing but aren't, get in contact and let us know, so we can add it to the allow list.

Signatures

What is a signature?
A signature is a bit of text that gets appended to the end of posts you make on the forum. You could use it to save you from having to write your name at the end of every post, put a link to your website or one of your favourite quotes. An example signature might look like this:

/JoeBloggs
I never meta-model who wasn't obsessed with reflection.

You're able to format your signature with colors, bold, italic and more.

Where do I set my signature?
Visit the "Forum Settings" page, linked to from the top right-hand corner of every forum page.

Are there any rules surrounding signatures?
We want to avoid signatures taking up too much space on a page, so as to keep the forums easy to follow. Therefore, your signature may be no more than four lines long. Instead of text, you may optionally reference an image, but it must be no larger than 400x75 pixels.

Search

How do I search?
The forum start page has a search box to allow you to search across the entire forum. If you are viewing the message list for an individual forum, there is a search box there that allows you to restrict the search to posts in the current forum.

Notifications, Favourites And Read Tracking

What are notifications?
Notifications are email messages sent to you when a new message is posted in a thread that you are interested in.

How do I control notification?
When you post a new message or post a reply to a message, there is a checkbox that you can tick if you wish to receive notification of new posts that are made in that thread.

This tick box takes its default value from your forum settings; visit the "My Forum Settings" page (linked to at the top right of any forum page) to change this setting.

Finally, if you find a thread that you are interested in and want to be notified about, or if you are receiving notifications on a thread and no longer wish to do so, visit the page for that thread and there is a link at the top to turn notifications on that thread on and off.

What is a favourite forum?
If you are a registered and logged in user, you can add forums and sub-forums to your favourites list. You do this by visiting the forum and selecting the "Add To Favourites" link near the top left of the page.

You can view a list of your favourite forums by going to the Forum Home page and clicking on the "My Favourite Forums" tab. This allows you to more rapidly get to your favourite forums. Additionally, if you visit any forum and select "My Favourite Forums" in the forum scope dropdown, you can see posts from all of your favourite forums together on one page.

If you no longer wish to have a forum in your favourites list, visit that forum and click the "Remove From Favourites" link or use the remove link beneath the forum's name on the "My Favourite Forums" tab.

What is read tracking (or why are some posts shown in bold and some not in the message list)?
Read tracking keeps track of which messages you have read. In the message list, unread messages are shown in bold; messages that you have read are shown in normal type.

Why does the site forget what posts I read between visits to the site?
When you visit the site you have a session. In this we store details of which posts you have read. However, the session ends when your visit to the site ends. If you are logged in, we save the read posts with your account. If not, the data is discarded, since we will have no way to associate it with you in the future. Therefore, you need to be logged in get the most utility out of read tracking and have it remember what posts you read between visits to the site.

Moderator, bad reports, miscellaneous

How do I use the advanced message list features?
Not everyone likes the message list presented in the same way, so we provide a default that will keep most people happy and then allow you to tweak away.

The two main settings are always displayed.

• The first is the date range, which allows you to display all posts from the last week or since the last time that you logged in. The default is to show all of the posts that were ever made.
• The second allows you to select where posts are taken from to display. The default is the current forum that you are viewing, but you can choose to mix in posts from all other forums, your favourite forums (only works if you are logged in) and any sub-forums of the forum that you are currently viewing.

If that is not enough, you can click the "More" link and a box expands down with numerous other settings.

• You can choose to see only threads that you have been involved in (the created or replied to option) or just threads with no replies (so you can see where help is needed).
• The show threads option controls whether you only see the first post in a thread or if you see the entire thread structure beneath it.
• Sort by lets you sort the threads either by activity (when a thread was last posted in) or the date that the thread was created. Sorting by activity tends to bring the current hot topics near to the top of the list.
• You can choose how many threads or posts are shown per page.

Changing these settings when viewing a board only lasts for your current session. If you want to change the default settings for every time you visit the site, you must use the Forum Settings page.

How do I view posts in a threaded/page per post/linear style?
Scroll to the top of the read message page and you will see a dropdown entitled "Thread View Mode". There are three options that you can select.

• Linear mode shows all the posts in the thread sorted ascending by the date they were posted. Note that with this view mode you miss out on the thread structure. Alas, it is popular in many forums today, so we support it for those of you that like it.
• Single post per page mode only ever shows one post on a page. Beneath the message, the thread structure is shown with links to all the other messages. This was the only view mode available in an earlier version of the PH forums, and we have retained it for people who prefer things that way.
• Threaded mode is the default. Like linear mode, it shows all of the posts in the thread, however it indents them slightly so as to indicate the thread structure. You may be familiar with such a layout from sites like Slashdot.

Changing these settings when viewing a thread only lasts for your current session. If you want to change the default settings for every time you visit the site, you must use the Forum Settings page.

What is a moderator?
A moderator is a person that the webmaster has appointed to help keep an eye on a forum. A forum may have multiple moderators. Moderators have the power to edit, move and delete posts, but must use their powers in accordance with our Moderator Rules.

What forum software do you use?
Our forum system is home grown. We built it on top of the Programmer's Heaven web framework and used the CSLA framework to generate much of the code for the business objects. Building our own system allowed us to develop whatever features we wished and get seamless integration with the rest of Programmer's Heaven.

You use JavaScript! Why?
You can use most features of the forum without needing JavaScript. We've mostly used it to hide and show layers, so we can provide features while avoiding clutter in the common case.

How can I request that a new forum is created?
If you feel that we are missing a forum on an important topic, visit the Suggest A Forum page and tell us what you're looking for.

How do I report an unsuitable/annoying/bad post?
With each message there is a link to report the post as abusive. The webmaster will look at the post as soon as possible and remove it if it violates the rules of this site. Most forums also have moderators, who should be checking the forum regularly and have the power to delete bad messages.

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