Major Geeks General How-to (new Forums)

As you may know, we have switched over to a different forum platform (Xenforo). We believe the transition should go pretty smoothly, but there will be some changes in functionality.

I would suggest exploring your Profiles and the Preferences within there to customize things, but here are a few quick things that you may be interested in.

To access all your settings, click on your Username in the top right of your screen. If you select 'Personal Details', you will notice that brings you to your UserCP where you can go through the left side options and customize your settings.

For a few specific options, see below.

Avatars:

Forum supplied Avatars from vbulletin did not transfer over here, so if you used one, you have most likely noticed you no longer have one. Take this as an opportunity to create a new one for yourself. You may also be able to find the vbulletin ones somewhere online if you really liked yours. If you do an image search for 'Forum Avatars', thousands of options come up.

Any pictures you use must be uploaded from your computer. If you find something online and it's not a square icon ("It is recommended that you use an image that is at least 200x200 pixels."), you will have have to edit it either with software you have on your computer or an online site. Here is an online photo editor that is fairly easy to use: https://pixlr.com/editor/

In order to upload your Avatar to Major Geeks, go to your Preferences by clicking on your username and then selecting "Personal Details". Click on the avatar box and upload your photo.

Thread Display:

Some people like threads displayed from oldest to newest posts, while other like threads displayed with the newest posts first. The way to change that is to click on a forum (Example: Software) and scroll down to the bottom of the forum. You will see a Tab in the center of that forum for 'Thread Display Options'. You can set your preferences there.

Sadly, it does Not look like you can set the same option within a post. There is, however, a way to go straight to the most recent post in the thread (thank you Eldon). When you are in the forum you would like to view, instead of clicking on the thread title, click on the date in the "Last Message" column on the right of the page.

How to View Threads by Topic Instead of by Individual Posts.
To routinely view all posts in thread form (instead of page after page showing every single post), do this: In Preferences tick "Automatically watch threads that you create or when you reply," then, on arriving back at the Forums page, click "Watched Threads" on the menu bar, then "Show all watched threads" in the lower dark option/menu bar. Now all threads are displayed, read and unread. Clicking the "Unread Watched Threads" link from this page will toggle back to - you guessed it - the unread threads you are watching.

Browsing Preferences:

Click on your Username on the top right. That will bring up a drop down box where you will see a number of options. Click on Preferences. Here you can go through and edit your Time Zone if you need to, Enable/Disable Signatures, and a few other general options. Please note that if you do not uncheck the first option, by default, you will be automatically subscribed to all threads you start.

'Alerts':

You may have Alerts already that you have noticed when you logged in. By default, all available Alerts are enabled. To set your preferences, click on your Username in the top right of your screen. In the drop down box you will see the option for Alert Preferences. You will then be able to uncheck any of the options you do not wish to receive alerts for.

Subscribing to a thread:

In each thread you click on, there is the option to 'Watch Thread' at the top right of the first post on that page. All your Watched Threads are easily accessed by clicking on the 'Watched Threads' link at the top left of the forum.

Report a Post:

As before, please report Spam or problem posts by clicking on 'Report' which you will find next to the date at the bottom of each post.

Quoting:

If you hit reply to a specific post, it will automatically put that post in quote format.

Saving your Posts to a Draft:

The new forums have a 'Save to Draft' feature for both replies and New threads. If you click on the floppy disk save icon in the tool bar of your reply field you will have the option to save any unfinished posts you would like to work on later. In order to access it, just click on the thread you were in or hit the 'Start Thread' button in the forum you were in. You're work should be there when you open things back up again.

 

Sadly, it does not look like Xenforo has that option, Eldon. I did a search and did not come up with anything. If anyone finds a different answer to this, please let us know.

 

Notice to our members---- some of the threads did not transfer. You need to repost if you cannot find your original posting.

 

How does one 'mark a forum as read' please?
This option used to make all posts unbolded as if i'd seen them already.
Thanks

 

Hi Emma...That option is at the top left of each forum on the green tool bar. You can either do it within each forum, or you can choose to mark all threads on MGs as read.

 

Oh I don't know how I missed that. Thanks Laura : - )

 

Laura, if you have anything to add to my FAQ, you can as well.

 

Just as an fyi for anyone who is interested in this tip...

The new forums have a 'Save to Draft' feature for both replies and New threads. If you click on the floppy disk save icon in the tool bar of your reply field you will have the option to save any unfinished posts you would like to work on later. In order to access it, just click on the thread you were in or hit the 'Start Thread' button in the forum you were in. You're work should be there when you open things back up again.

I don't know about you all, but when I've been doing something with tabs and have accidentally x'd out of the post I was working on and lost everything and had to start over. I think this is a great feature.

It works in PM's (Conversations) as well.

 

Yep, it's been altered recently. The colour has changed around our names/avatars too

 

Yep...I think it's just a 'feature'. There isn't anything we can do about that. I'm sure there's a reason the creators of this forum software did it, but I don't know what that is. I have to say I do like it for those people who like to come in and not use any capital letters at all. This way they don't have a choice.

 

Got it. Thanks You always find the outlook spam for me.

 

We let him out once in a while.

 

Hi Laura,

I haven't discovered yet how to delete Conversations once they begin to accumulate.

 

Thanks, _nullptr.
I was specifically looking for the word Delete in the dropdown.

 

Just as _nullptr and Eldon said...you just "Leave". Kind of like real life. lol

I guess they are trying to make the terms as RL as possible with the "Conversation" and "Leave"

 

I believe Eldon meant the main forum page as the Home Page listed on here takes you straight to our downloads which aren't linked to the forums.

Also if you want the most convenient way to find your threads with one click, I would suggest 'Watching' them. That way you can just click on the "Watched Threads" button up top and they are all there in thread form. You'll have to click 'Show All Watched threads' just at the bottom since just the ones with new posts in them show up immediately.

 

Looks great and I will put it in the front post. Thank you.