TravelTalkOnline

Some hints

Posted By: Carol_Hill

Some hints - 12/26/2017 04:42 PM

I thought I would do a little note about some of the changes here, to help people get a bit better acclimated. I only saw the new board yesterday, the same as you guys, so I am no expert at all, just stumbling through like you guys, but here are a few things I have learned.

1--Your profile settings and board preferences are under "My Stuff"

2--Under Preferences, you will find your options for flat mode or threaded. Not sure which one is the default, but you can choose whichever one you want.

3--Under Preferences, under Your Preferred Forum Style, you can pick what color you want the background to be. You click on a color and hit Preview Style and that will show you what the board will look like with that color. Most of the colors are pretty self-explanatory, but Marshmellow in particular (which is what I am using), is BLUE. How many blue marshmellows have you seen?? crazy Anyway, you can click and Preview any or all of them. But when you preview it, it brings up another window to preview the color scheme, which, once you preview it, you have to CLOSE that window, as you cannot go anywhere in that window. Once you decide which color scheme you want, you have to scroll ALL the way to the bottom and save your changes.

4--There are a bunch of other options there under preferences. Most of them are pretty close to what they were before. Again, if you change any of those settings, make sure you scroll all the way down and save your changes.

5--Under email and private message options, as of this exact moment, the email notification of new PMs is not working, but hopefully that will get fixed soon. Under the last item there "From time to time we send out emails regarding this community. Do you wish to receive these emails", that's talking about a blanket email to all users. We have not done that in the past, and as of now, I doubt we will, so I wouldn't worry about that one, either way.

6--Under your profile you can put in your birthday if you want, upload an avatar, etc., the same as before. What's NEW, is at the bottom, under your Social Links, if you WANT to, you can list your Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, or Linked In accounts. Again, for any changes, make sure you scroll all the way down to the bottom and save any changes.

7--There is a FRIEND list there now, under your Profile. Not sure how that works, as I had some in mine already.

8--Under Miscellaneous under My Stuff, all the way at the bottom, there is an option for Chat. We haven't used that yet, but will need to check it out soon.

9--Again, under Miscellaneous under My Stuff, if you have been using the "who's online" feature before, it's there under Miscellaneous now.

10--If you need to clear your cookies, that's also there under Miscellaneous at the bottom.

11--As of now, the photo upload option does NOT work, but Eric will be working on that and hopes to get it working sooner or later.

12--Again, as of now, there is not a link to the Cruise Calendar or to the Travel Calendar for the SXM and BVI forums. Soon come, should happen soon.

13--When replying on the board to a note, the DEFAULT is Quick Reply. Quick Reply does NOT allow you to insert links, pictures, quotes, smileys, etc., (unless you have memorized the UBB code for what you want to do). If you want to do any of those things, you need to scroll down to the Use Full Editor button, located below the Quick Reply box. Frankly, I think that is a PITA, not sure whether we will be able to change that setting or not.

14--For you Facebook folks, we now have a LIKE button.

15--On the FRONT page, the one that lists all of the forums, the weird looking three dots to the LEFT of the icons for the individual boards for SXM, BVI, etc., indicate whether there are new posts on that particular board since the last time you visited. To begin with, once you have read the notes that you are interested in, you need to MARK ALL READ, so that is re-set for the future, the next time you come to the board. To do so, scroll ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE WHOLE BOARD, ON THE FRONT PAGE, below the General Travel Photos Forum, and click on Mark All Read. You only need to do that once, the first time you're reading the board.

16--Within the individual forums, there are boxes which show which threads have new posts. The color of the box is dependent on which style sheet color scheme that you have picked.

Well, that's a couple of things that I have learned so far anyway.
Posted By: LauraTheTshirtGal

Re: Some hints - 12/26/2017 05:05 PM

This is amazing!!! wow!!! thank you guys so much for your hard work!!!
Posted By: Carol_Hill

Re: Some hints - 12/26/2017 05:17 PM

Laura--Eric does all the hard work. I just go along for the ride! grin
Posted By: Eric_Hill

Re: Change your time zone - 12/27/2017 03:36 PM

By default, everybody got moved to the UTC time zone. So when you are looking at time stamps it is by the UTC time zone unless you change it in your profile.

Go to My Stuff then Preferences.

Mid way down the screen is where you select your time zone. It will default to the UTC zone if you have not already changed it. The different zone are listed in time order. So in most cases you will need to scroll up to get to the time zone for the US and Canada, etc. Find one of the time zones and areas that is closest to your and select it. In my case I choose NY time. There were several to choose from, but that one was easy for us on the East Coast.

Look by the time you are -- the list is not alpha, but listed by time. So if it is 10:30 am now your time, scroll to that time frame on the list. The time is on the right side of the listings.

After changing be sure to scroll down and press the save changes/submit button. It will then automatically change the time stamps on your screen to your time zone.
Posted By: Kirk

Re: Some hints - 12/27/2017 07:45 PM

The new look threw me for such a loop I couldn't for the life of me remember my password! duh Thanks for the upgrade!
Posted By: Sunnykm

Re: Some hints - 12/28/2017 01:52 AM

Hi Carol

Love the new look and feel of the site!

Curious about something...on the left there is a box listing the visitors to the blog. Names of registered TToLers, guests and "spiders"--shudder!!

What are the spiders??

Karen
Posted By: Eric_Hill

Re: Some hints - 12/28/2017 12:29 PM

Spiders are seach engine bots that are indexing our content. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.
Posted By: GlennA

Re: Some hints - 12/28/2017 01:14 PM

One thing I haven't figured out. How do you return to the forum index after viewing and commenting on a thread? I have been backing up through the previous pages.

I see a "Hop To" box at the bottom but it is just a drop down list of forums but no actual Hop button.
Posted By: louismcc

Re: Some hints - 12/28/2017 02:04 PM

On my screen at least, at the top there is navigation bar that shows "TravelTalkOnline > Forums > British Virgin Islands..." Click on Forums to get to the Forums Index.
Posted By: Carol_Hill

Re: Some hints - 12/28/2017 02:09 PM

Yes, it is a PITA to get back to the Index. In order to get there, you have to go all the way to the top and click on that British Virgin Islands there. The "hop to" box at the bottom only works to switch to a DIFFERENT forum. I don't know whether Eric can do something with it or not.
Posted By: GlennA

Re: Some hints - 12/28/2017 02:10 PM

True, but you have to scroll back to the top of the thread (or use the Top option atthe bottom) to get to it. Most forum software, like the old TTOL system, have a return button at the bottom of the thread.
Posted By: lonewolf1977

Re: Some hints - 12/28/2017 02:11 PM

I can't use internet explorer. Every time I clicked on a thread, it logged me out. Having to use Chrome. Just a suggestion to anyone else having issues.
Posted By: Eric_Hill

Re: Some hints - 12/28/2017 02:17 PM

Until I can get the bar at the bottom the easiest way is:

At the bottom of each post on the left side is a top button. Click that and it takes you to the top of the screen where the menu bar has the forum you are in and the message that you are reading.

For Example it would show: traveltalkonline>british virgin islands>thread you are in. Then just click on the british virgin island and it will take you back to the post list.
Posted By: Eric_Hill

Re: Some hints - 12/28/2017 02:19 PM

Quote
like the old TTOL system, have a return button at the bottom of the thread.


That is high on the list of things to do.
Posted By: Eric_Hill

Re: Some hints - 12/28/2017 02:24 PM

What version of IE are you using. Working fine with edge and an older version of IE that I have tested with. So far no one else is reporting that issue. I might be that you have the cookies being blocked, that could account for it.

To check or add, look at your internet options -- privacy tab.
Posted By: snowdog

Re: Some hints - 12/29/2017 04:08 PM

I like the new look. Thanks for the tips. One comment/question: we used to see the number of unread replies in a given thread. Now I just see the thread title is bold if there is 1 or more unread replies. Is that something that can be added back in?
Posted By: Carol_Hill

Re: Some hints - 12/29/2017 04:30 PM

That has been mentioned by some, not sure why it is not automatically in the new version. Eric hopes to be able to do some more tweaks to things this weekend or next week.
Posted By: LauraTheTshirtGal

Re: Some hints - 12/29/2017 07:52 PM

Hi Carol, I can't find the "like" button anymore...that was a cool add on... banana
Posted By: Carol_Hill

Re: Some hints - 12/29/2017 10:11 PM

Laura--we have heard that the Like button was really buggy, and that they are in the process of modifying the code for that, from the company who created the software. Eric thinks that he might able to put it back up this weekend, in another form.
Posted By: LauraTheTshirtGal

Re: Some hints - 12/30/2017 12:42 AM

thanks Carol!! Happy New Year!!
Posted By: jphart

Re: Some hints - 12/30/2017 02:34 AM

Seems to work fine on an Apple iOS. But I don't see how to go to last read. Or maybe next that I haven't read. As in the old fourm. Or other forums

Easy enough to go to the top quickly in iOS and then back arrow.
I'm using an iPad iOS11 as an example.
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