NarniaFans New Member Guide

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Tutorial of NarniaFans!

Please Note: New members are not expected to read and memorize this. Instead, think of this as a readers manual for the board. If you ever get into a jam and don't know how to perform a certain task, feel free to refer to this thread for help.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Logging In
3. Control Panel (including how to add an avatar!)
4. The Board
5. Replying to a Post
6. Editing Your Post
7. The Private Messaging (PM) System
8. Conclusion

Introduction

Welcome to the narniafans official forum! This thread is for new members who are a little confused about the board and all the things you can do here. Before you go any further, I recommend you click on this so you can follow along with what I'm talking about!

This can be really long and confusing. However, you do not need to know everything in this tutorial to post on the board. Feel free to refer back to it frequently during your stay at The Dancing Lawn.

Throughout this tutorial you will see words that are a different color. Move your curser over that text and, if the text is underlined, you can click on it and see a link that will help you understand what I am talking about. An example of this text was the this link you pressed on in the above paragraph.

If you still feel confused about anything after reading this tutorial, do not hesitate to post a question in the Suggestion Box And Questions Thread or to PM The Administrator (username: Specter) or any of the moderators (the members with "Staff member" banners).

If there is a specific topic you would like to find, press Ctrl and F at the same time and type in the topic you want to find in the white text box.

If you feel there is anything I have missed or needs more clarification, please PM your concerns to Specter or to a moderator.

So, you have come to the forum. You are scared and confused about what to do. You are about to panic, when you remember that it is all electric data that can't harm you. And no matter what you do, you will not blow up your computer. I promise. So sit back, relax, and get ready to learn how to use The NarniaFans Forum!

Logging In

When you come to the site, the first thing you should do is login. This lets everyone know you are online and looking at the posts in the forum.

Control Panel

The next thing you want to do is create a Personal Profile. A Personal Profile is a page that tells your fellow members about yourself.

The first step is to access your User CP. To do this, go to the top of any window and click User CP, on the left hand side beside FAQ.

Next, look on the left hand side. There will be many links labeled in this menu. Let's start with the first one:

Creating/Editing A Signature This is where you create and edit a signature. The first thing we need to do is click Edit Signature on the left hand side. This is where you can start typing in your signature, which will be displayed at the bottom of every post. Before you begin typing, remember that your signature can be no longer then 500 characters, so try to keep it short. Type in the signature you would like, add any smiles you want, and click Edit Signature. That's it!

Edit Email and Password: The next option in the left-hand side menu is to edit your email and password. You needed to provide an email and password when you registered, so you do not have to go into this menu. You only have to go in here when you would like to change your email or password.
 
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Edit Profile: This option is used to input the information about yourself that you would like to share with your fellow members. Click on this link. There will be a lot of information to put in.

  • Edit Email and Password: See above paragraph. Click on this button to access the Edit Email And Password
  • Birth date: This option is for your birthday. By inputting this information, little announcement at the bottom of the forum will appear on your birthday telling everyone it's your birthday! To input your birthday, just click the arrow to the right of every option, and click on the number/month that applies to you. The first arrow is for the month of your birthday. The second is for the day, and the third is for the year.
  • Home Page URL: Many of us own websites and blogs. This options is used to show-off your website to the forum. If you have a website, type in the URL into the white box.
  • Instant Messaging: This is used so other members can send you an Instant Message using the forum. There are 4 types of Instant Messaging:

    ICQ Number: If you use ICQ as a messenger, type in your number in this white box. This will allow other members to contact you outside the forum on your ICQ account

    AIM Screen Name: If you use an AOL Identity, you can type in your identity here. This will allow your fellow members to IM you on AOL Instant Messenger

    Yahoo! Messenger Handle: If you use Yahoo Messenger, just type in your email address into the white box for your fellow members to contact you on your Yahoo Account

    MSN Messenger Handle: For those of you who use MSN Messenger, type in your FULL address (your_email @ hotmail.com) into this white box, for your fellow members to contact you on MSN Messenger.
  • Additional Information: This section is used to tell us a little about you.

    Biography: This is used to tell us anything about you. Type in anything you want; your addictions, a pet name, or a pet peeve.

    Your Location: This is where you can type in your location, or a little joke.

    Your Interests: This is where you can share with your fellow members what you are interested in (besides Narnia!)

    Press Save Changes and you are done!

    Edit Options: This section is used to edit everything from Private Messages to your time zone. Click on the Edit Options link on the left to get started.
  • Use Invisible Mode: If you do not want to appear online when you login, just click on the white box and it will turn into a checkmark. When you are online, no one will know.
  • Allow vCard Download: This option is used to allow other members to download a VCard that has your email and username. If there is a checkmark, you have enabled this. To change from enable to disable and vice-versa, just click on the white box.
  • Receive Email from Administrators: If you would like to receive emails from the administrator, make sure there is a checkmark in the white box.
  • Receive Email from Other Members: If you would like to receive email from other members, have a checkmark in the box.
  • Default Thread Subscription Mode: Subscribing to a thread means you will receive an email notifying you that someone has posted a reply to that thread. This option lets you choose if you would like to not subscribe to any threads by posting in it, receive a weekly email notification by posting, to receive a daily email, to instantly receive an email, or to subscribe to the thread but not get an email. Just click on the arrow beside Do not Subscribe and choose which option you would like to use.
  • Private Messaging: To learn more about the PM system, please scroll down to The Private Messaging (PM) System section. You can choose to disable the PM system by unselecting the checkmark in the box. I would advice NOT doing this, as this is an easy way for your fellow members to communicate with you. The second option is if you want to receive an email in your inbox every time someone sends you a PM. Click on the box to remove the checkmark. The last option is to receive a pop-up notification of a PM. Though this may sound bad, this is actually an easy way for you to be notified of a new PM while browsing the forums. Click on box, and remove check mark if would not like to receive pop-ups.
  • Visible Post Elements: The next section is for viewing other people's posts. You are already selected to view a poster's signature, avatar, and attached images. If you would like to deselect any of these options, just click on the white box to the left of the option, and remove the jolly ol' checkmark.
  • Thread Display Mode: This is where you can select how you would like to view the posts on the forum. Click on "this page help" to view what every mode means. To change your mode, just click on the arrow, and select the option you want.
  • Number of Posts Shown Per Page: Select how many posts you want to view on each page before you have to change pages. Click on the arrow and select the option you want.
  • Default Thread Age cut Off: Select how old a thread has to be before they are not shown to you on the forum. Click on arrow, select option.
  • Time Zone: Select which Time Zone you are in, so the time on the forum is accurate to your time. Click on arrow, find your time zone from the list, and click on it. If you do not follow Daylight Savings Time, change the DST correction option to DST Corrections Always Off by clicking on the arrow and selecting the option.
  • Start of the Week: If you start the week on a day other then Sunday, click on the arrow and select the day that you start the week on.
  • Message Editor Interface: Do not change
  • Forum Skin: The skin of the forum is all of the colours, fonts, and images you see on the board put together. If you would like to change the skin of the forum, click on the arrow, and select the skin you would like to use. Currently, we have three types of skins: The Default, and Alien Blue Skin, and the Animation Narnia Skin.

Press Save Changes. And you are done!

Edit Avatar: The next option on our panel is updating your avatar. An avatar is the picture beside a person's post that adds a little personality to the post.

If you would like to use a Custom avatar, you must have a picture that is:
  • 80 x 80 pixels or smaller
  • Must be less then 19.5 KB
  • Must be in a .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, .png, or .bmp format

The easiest way to see if your avatar fits these descriptions is to test it. If your desired picture does not fit the descriptions, a little warning will come up that tells you what was wrong with the file. Fix the problem and try to upload it again.

To add an avatar, you first need a picture. I suggest going to www.avatarity.com (thanks Inkspot for the link!) for a list of possible avatars, or use the trusted Google. After you get a picture, you will notice there are two white horizontal rectangles. One is for the URL address (for example, www.narniafans.com is a URL address) of the picture you want. The second is for a picture off your computer.

If you are using a URL: Copy (highlight, then click ctrl+C) the URL address of the picture. In narniafans, click on the top rectangle (the one that has http://www.) and just paste (ctrl+V) the address into the rectangle

If you are getting a picture off your computer: Click on the Browse button, next to the bottom rectangle. Find the picture you want to use, and then click open.

Now click Update Avatar. Congratulations! You have now created an avatar!

Profile Picture: This picture will be displayed beside your personal profile. This is not the same thing as an avatar (but it can be the same picture) but rather a picture that will only be seen in your personal profile. A profile picture has to be:

  • 100 x 100 pixels or smaller
  • Less then 64.0 KB
  • Must be in a .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, .png, or .bmp format.

To upload the picture, just follow the same instructions in Edit Avatar
 
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The Board

Now comes the part where you learn how to view the posts in the forum.

To start, go to the forum index by clicking on the big animated Narnia collage at the top of the screen. Scroll down a little bit and you will notice blocked off sections, like Tea With Tumnus, and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, where if you bring your curser over top of these text, they will turn blue. These texts are used to direct you to the forums. To the left of them, there is a lamp post. If the lamp post is lit (yellow), then someone has posted a new reply in that forum. If the lamp post is out (white) then there are no new posts in that forum.

Now, you may wonder how to read other people's posts. Let's say we want to read the latest post in Tea With Mr. Tumnus. All you have to do is click on one of the text, and you will be redirected to a new page.

Each forum contains threads. A thread is a discussion within the forum where the members talk about a specific topic, outlined in the title. Many times, the threads must have something to do with the forum it is located in. For example, in Tea With Tumnus, we would not expect to see a thread about Lord of the Rings.

Let's say we want to view the Introduction Thread. All you have to do is click on the name of the thread you would like to view (in this case Introduction Thread!) and you will see a new screen. This new screen is where you can view the posts in the thread made by other members and possibly yourself. If you reach the bottom of the screen, and would like to continue reading through the thread, just look under the last post and on the right hand side there will be numbers going up by one. To view the next page, just click on the next number. In this case, you would press 2. If you would like to view the latest post in the thread, click Last Post. The screen will then show the last post that was submitted.

When viewing a post, there are many pieces of information you can discover about the member who made the comment and the actual post itself. At the top of the post, there will be a burgundy box, where there will be, starting on the left:


In the navy box underneath the burgundy box, we can learn even more about the member who posted the comment. Starting on the left, we can see:

  • The member's avatar
  • The screen name of that member (underlined and enlarged)
  • The member's ranking underneath their screen name
  • A little button looking image. If the button is not turned on, the member is offline. If the button is on and shining a green light, then the member is online.
  • The month and year that member joined Narniafans
  • The location of the member (underneath the Month they joined)
  • The amount of times that member have posted on Narniafans (Post Count)

Replying to a Post

You see a post from another member, and you want to share something with that member, or add something to the thread. Now, before you do anything drastic, young grasshopper, you must first know how to reply. This next article will help you learn how to post, and how to use all the cool options in posting.

Before posting, make sure you have read and understood The Rules of the Forum

Next, go the main index by clicking on the animated collage at the top of the screen. Next, click on Tea With Mr. Tumnus, and then on Introduction Thread.

There are two ways to reply to a post. You can click on the Add Reply Button at the bottom of the screen, or you can click on the Quote Button at the bottom right corner of every post.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

When replying to a topic, you are replying to the general conversation, usually answering the topic's question or point.

When quoting a post, the quoted post will appear on the top of the white box, surrounded by [QUOTE ] and [/QUOTE ] tags. When quoting, you are commenting directly to what someone is saying. This is especially useful to replying to a specific point in a post.

In the grand scheme of things, it does not matter which one you use. The Quote button is just used to clarify what you are saying. Do not worry if you use the wrong one. :)

After pressing on one of the buttons, the screen will change. This is when you can comment on a post a fellow member has submitted. You should notice a big white box on the screen. This is where you will type in your comment. Click in the box, and try typing in an introduction Go ahead! Do it now! Type in "Hi. My name is *user name* and if you want, type in a little about yourself. You have now typed up your post. Now what? Well, you CAN click on the submit reply at the bottom of the screen, but that would wreck the all the fun. We still need to show you all the cool effects you can do.

You see those smilies to the right of the white text box? If you click on one of them, the smilie will appear in your post! So click on the first yellow smilie face. Are you wondering why the :) didn't show up in your text box? Well, wonder not. The good news is you didn't do anything wrong. If you look in your post, you will notice that a : ) has just appeared in your text box. This is going to be your smilie when you post. When you are typing in your post, there will be many codes in your text box. They will mean nothing now, but they are actually telling the text what to look like when it is posted. That : ), when you submit your post, will turn into :)

So now you have a smilie. Lets learn how to custom make your font. Let's pretend you want to bold your text. First, highlight the text you would like bolded. Now above the white text box, there will be a B button. Click on the B, and you will see a code at the beginning and end of your post that will look like this: [B ] *your text here* [/B ] When you post your comment, that text will be bolded like this!. To post in italics , Highlight your text and click on the I, and for underlined text highlight and click on the U. To unselect your bolded, italiced, or underlined text, just remove the coding ([B ] and [/B ]) at the beginning and end of your text.

You can also do the same thing for making your text a different font, size, or colour. If you wanted to change the font of your text, highlight your text, and click on the arrow beside [Font], and select the font you want. Let's say you selected the Arial font. You will have coding around your text that looks like and [/FONT ] Your text will now have am Arial font. For your text to have a different size or colour, just repeat the same steps. Highlight the text you want changed, click on the corresponding arrow, and the coding will be before and after your text. Your text will be changed when you post it.

To centre your text, highlight the text you wish to centre, and click on the center button. Repeat the process if you want your text to be left or right
 
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Next, let's learn how to post a website. The easy way to post a website is to just copy and paste the URL. I personally don't like this because it makes the post messy to look at. Instead, I click on this button at the top of the text box to input the website I want to use. So go ahead and click that button. Next, enter a title for your link. This just personalizes the link when you post it on the forum. Type anything you want into the text bar and click OK. Now insert the website you would like to input. Just type or copy and paste a website into the text bar, and click OK. Now, you will see a big long line of coding that says URL=http:// www. your website. here*text for your website* When you post your message, your text will be underlined, and when you move your curser over it, the text will turn blue.

Below Post Options, there are different smilies and symbols. These are used to post a smilie at the top of your post. Just click on the white circle to the left of the smilie you would like to use, and when you submit your post there will be a smilie in your subject bar.

Now for attachments. Attachments are files that are put on the post from your computer. It can be a picture, a word file, or anything else. If the file is a picture, everyone will be able to see the image you attached. If it is a Word file, your fellow members will be able to click on your attachment and read the file.

To attach files, scroll down the screen until you see section called Additional Options, underneath the Submit Reply button. In this section, there will be a button called Manage Attachments. Click on this button and a new window should pop up. You will be asked to tell the computer which file you want to upload. Click the Browse... button, and another new window will pop up. Find the file that you want to be attached, and then click Open. The window will disappear, and the white box next to the Browse button will have text in it. Now click Upload. The file will now be attached to the post! Yay!

Editing a Post

So, young whipper-snapper, you have submitted a post on the site. You look at your perfect post, and realize that it isn't perfect! You made a spelling mistake, or you forgot a piece of information, or something funky happened! You panic and think the world will explode before your very eyes! Well, fear not! You can fix all of those problems by editing your post. Just follow these instructions to get you started.

First off, go to the desired post you want to edit. As an example, let's edit the post you just created. At the bottom right-hand corner of your post, you will notice an edit button that looks like this. Click on this button, and you will go be back to the page where you created your post. The text and coding of your post will be in the big white text box. Make the desired change(s) to your post: correct spelling and grammar, add a piece of information to your post, or take out a part that you think would break one of the rules. Finally, click Save Changes. The changed you made will show up on your post, and all will not be lost.

The Private Messaging (PM) System

The PM system is a way for members of the forum to communicate with you without using your email address. This system is especially helpful for asking your fellow members questions, and to report to the moderators someone who is breaking the rules. This section is used to teach you how to send and read a PM.

Let's start by teaching you how to send a PM. Find the member you would like to send a PM to. To do this, click on Member's List at the top of the screen, in between FAQ and Calendar. Then click on the letter that member's name starts with. When you find the member you want to send the PM to, go into their personal profile by clicking on their name. You will see a lot of information about that member on the screen. Scroll down a bit, and on the right-hand side of the page there will be a section called Contact Info. Click on the link that says Send a private message to *member's name*

A screen will come up that looks suspiciously like the Post Reply page. Type in the message you want to send your fellow member in the big white text box. You can use every trick you learned in the Reply to a Post section to help enhance your message. After you finish typing up your message, click Submit Message. Your PM will be sent to your desired member.

When you get a Private Message, a little pop-up will appear on your screen as soon as you log into Narniafans. It will say "*member's name* has sent a reply entitled *Name of PM.* Would you like to view it?" Click yes, and another pop-up will come up that says, "Would you like to view your PM in a new window? (Click Cancel to view in this window)" If you click OK, another pop-up will come up. If you click Cancel, you will view the PM in the same window. Your message will come up, for you to read. Yay!

**NOTE** If you use a pop-up blocker, your computer may block the pop up window from Narniafans where you can view your PM. To prevent this, go to Tools - Pop-Up Blocker - Pop-up Blocker Settings. Type in www.narniafans.com/forum into the smaller white box, and click add. Your computer should now allow pop-ups for your PMs from the forum index.

If you would like to reply to a PM sent to you, click on the Quote button at the bottom-right corner of the PM, and the big white text will come up. Type away and when you are finished click Submit Message.

If you would like to view the PMs sent to you anytime you want, go to the navy box that you used to log in, and click on Private Messages. As a note, you can only have 50 PMs on your inbox. When you reach 50, you will not be allowed to receive any more PMs. To delete unwanted messages, click on the white box to the right of the message. Then, below all the PMs, there will be a light blue box. In this box there is an arrow. Click on the arrow, and select from the drop down Delete. Then click Go beside the arrow. Those selected messages are now deleted!

Conclusion

This tutorial should only be used as a starting point at Narniafans. There are many cool things you can do here that I have not even touched on in this guide. Feel free to experiment a bit in the forum any time you want. Your fellow members on Narniafans are more then happy to help you with anything on the forum. Always feel free to ask questions, and have as much fun on these forums as I have.

TERMS OF SERVICE: Read this...seriously READ IT.
 
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