A lot of us like the "old" message board's look and feel, but the new one doesn't quite behave like the one we got real familiar with. Thanks to some useful tips from John "Gimp" Edwards, and a lot of experimenting with the settings, I've come up with the following suggestions for your personal settings which make this approximate the kind of function of the "old" board.

The closest I've come to figuring out the best settings is as follows:

Click on My Home near the top of the screen.
Scroll down to Main Configuration section and click on the Edit button the Display Preferences line/row.

Do you want the main page to list categories or forums? Choose:<font color="blue"> Forums </font>
Default aged threads to be displayed:
Choose <font color="blue"> Active in the last day </font>
Default Sort Order:
Choose:<font color="blue"> Descending Date </font>
Display Mode:
Choose <font color="blue">Threaded Mode.</font>
Default View:
Choose <font color="blue">Collapsed Threads.</font>

Set that other stuff according to your own preferences...

What happens is that everything basically falls into the 3 or 4 sections they have. When any one of several topics gets a post under one of the sections, then you will see the light bulb symbol on the Main Index page display. Click on it and then you should notice that there are some threads which are lighter in color, and others which are obviously a bolder color (depends on your color scheme, I've changed mine) The bolder ones are the threads with new posts on them, the lighter color ones are threads that you've already read/seen before. Only threads (the equivalent of the front page of the old board) with new posts on them are hightlighted in a bolder color. When you click on one of them, it'll take you right into the conversations. The topmost post that you see is always the very first post on the topic...which I think is cool because it reminds everyone constantly what the orginal topic was to begin with...then the posts will sort downward according to time, but because someone can reply to one specific post or the general topic you will probably want to pay closer attention to this...do you want to respond the topic (at the top) or the particular post that you are reading. Clicking on any of the bolder ones will let you read that topic or post. You might have to scroll down a long way through that list to find a bolded response...like on the Round Rock thread... :D

Default aged threads to be displayed:
Choose <font color="blue"> Active in the last day </font>



I changed mine to <font color="blue"> Active in the last week </font>. Personal prefrence...


Choose <font color="blue">Threaded Mode.</font>



Yuck. I hate the threaded mode. Keep it in <font color="blue">Flat Mode.</font> That way you don't have to click on each individual post to read it. Just click on the thread and scroll through the posts. I also changed my Posts per page to 25.



Click on it and then you should notice that there are some threads which are lighter in color, and others which are obviously a bolder color (depends on your color scheme, I've changed mine)



Mine didn't do this with the default color scheme, but when I changed to <font color="blue">Desert</font> it does. Makes a huge difference.

I prefer to use the Black and Blue format. The bold orange for new posts is easy to see. Everyone should take a minute and see how they like the different color schemes for viewing the board.

Hint about using photos on your posts. Go find a photo online, copy the web address and paste it the spot for your pic. Remember that "http;//" is already included, so make sure you don't double it.

I think the instant message feature is great. It is fun to reply personally to posts. Some folks are lurkers who don't want to post replies for the whole world to see. It also will cut down on the amount of back and forth chatter on the threads.

Get a pic in your profile today!

If you're somewhat verbose, you may want to change <font color="blue">TextArea rows?</font> from 5 to something larger so you can actually read your message while you're writing it. 8-12 seems nice. Nick will probably want to make it 35 or so.

Is there any way to feature the Search function more prominently on the Discussion Board? Perhaps spike it out to the left of "Main Index" and "Who's Online?" It seems like many users are not aware of the search function and are constantly creating duplicate threads with the exact same subject nature of other existing threads.

I've also seen that those who have tried the Search function have limited success with it. Perhaps they are not choosing the radio button to search threads that are older than one month. Could we possibly change the Search function default settings from "Search posts within the following range" to "Search posts made on any date?"

you get total garbage results from the search feature unless you put a plus sign "+" in front of every word. This includes one word searches.

Not very intuitive for newbies.

I agree. I use the "search" function regularly. At first it was frustrating because i wasn't setting the correct time frame. I have it all figured out now, and would also like to see other users using it,

Thanks, Rhett.
That's been bugging me for MONTHS!!!
:p

Now that daylight savings time is here, message board users may want to adjust the time offset in their profile. <ul type="square"> Click on My Home To the right of "Display preferences, number of shown threads, languages, colors..." click on Edit Underneath the area that says "Current server time is: xx/yy/zz xx:yy:zz Choose your time offset in hours (..,-2,-1,0,1,2,..)" choose the setting that is appropriate. For those in the Eastern Standard Time Zone of the U.S., the setting should be 3.5.

Why it's not a whole number such as 3 or 4, I have no idea. But 3.5 gets you close.[/list]

its because whoever runs the webserver has not set its clock properly. server time was 10:13 when actual time was 12:54. i understand you need an offset to account for timezone, but not having the minutes set correctly makes it impossible to get teh DB time to match actual time.

2.7 offset for those in Central DST gets close.

Yeah, I found 3.7 for EST is the closet I can find. About a minute off. I still want to know why the server clock is off in minutes...

Post deleted by Moderator

Can't somebody just fix the clock?!

/usr/sbin/ntpdate -u clock.redhat.com

cron it.

Okay, now it looks like someone adjusted the clock properly. An offset of 3.0 hours for those in EST and 2.0 hours in CST will get the proper time displayed next to posts.

<ul type="square"> Click on My Home To the right of "Display preferences, number of shown threads, languages, colors..." click on Edit Underneath the area that says "Current server time is: xx/yy/zz xx:yy:zz Choose your time offset in hours (..,-2,-1,0,1,2,..)" choose the setting that is appropriate. For those in the Eastern Standard Time Zone of the U.S., the setting should be 3.0.

[/list]

Testing 1, 2, 3...

Now that daylight savings time is here, message board users may want to adjust the time offset in their profile. <ul type="square"> Click on My Home To the right of "Display preferences, number of shown threads, languages, colors..." click on Edit Underneath the area that says "Current server time is: xx/yy/zz xx:yy:zz Choose your time offset in hours (..,-2,-1,0,1,2,..)" choose the setting that is appropriate. For those in the Eastern Standard Time Zone of the U.S., the setting should be 2.4. [/list]
Why it's not a whole number such as 2 or 3, I have no idea. But 2.4 gets you close. :cool: