tutorial: How to use the forums

UPDATED: Mar 27, 2006

Please see:

https://allnurses.com/forums/f246/

Here will have resources for members to learn how to use the many features of allnurses.com. There is a good "getting started video" here as well as several other features.

Hello, I hope you are enjoying the new forum software and layout. There are many improvements and changes that I’m sure you will all enjoy once you get used to them. I put this brief tutorial together to help show you some of the new features and help you navigate the new design.

1. First, let’s get familiar with the yellow navigation bar at the top of every page.

User CP: User Control Panel, here you can set your profile options and your preferences and see your subscribed forums and threads (discussions).

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

Member List: Browse through our Member List

Calendar: Here you will see member birthdays, and other events. Soon, we may have other calendars for nursing conferences and other events.

New Post: Clicking this, will display all the new post since your last visit, a very handy tool to catch up on the discussions.

Search: Clicking this will bring down a search box, where you can quickly search the all the forums, or you can click on advanced search, which will take you to a more search forum with multiple search tool options. (see image)

Quick Links: Clicking this, will pull down a handy menu with links to several common functions on the forum. (see image)

Log Out: Clicking this will log you out of you account.

2. Now let’s discuss features that are available once you go in any forum (i.e. General Nursing Forum)

At the top of each forum, you will see another handy pull down menu called Forum Tools (see image)

Post a Thread – clicking this will allow you to post a new thread (discussion topic)

Mark This Forum Read

Subscribe to This Forum – Clicking this will bring up a pull down menu with three options to allow you to subscribe to get Daily or Weekly updates for that forum, you can also elect not to get any e-mails. (See image) All three options put a link to this forum in your User CP as well, then at anytime, you just need to click on User CP and you will see your subscribed forums. You can easily unsubscribe and mangage your subscriptions at anytime in your User CP List subscriptions option as well.

Inside each forum, you also have a search form, where you can search just the forum you are in at the time, or link to the advanced search form.

3. Now let’s discuss the options you have inside a thread (discussion).

At the top of each thread, you will see another handy pull down menu called Thread Tools (see image)

You can use this to show a printable version of the thread, e-mail the thread to a friend or colleague, subscribe or unsubscribe to the thread.

SEE IMAGE

Show Printable Version - shows the same thread in a cleaner format for printing.

Email this Page - allows you to e-mail this particular thread to friends/colleagues.

Subscribe to this Thread - will bring up the following window with options on subscriptions:

You can easily unsubscribe and mangage your subscriptions at anytime in your User CP List subscriptions option as well.

Inside each thread, you also have a search this thread option, which can be helpful if there is long multi-page thread. (See image)

You can also rate each thread with a pull down menu with a 1-5 star rating. (See image)

At the bottoms of many threads, there is a Similar Threads section, which will have links to similar threads (See image)

That pretty much covers the basic functions of the forums. I hope you found this tutorial helpful. Please feel free to post any questions you have in the new forums support forum.

There are many, many other features that are not mentioned in this tutorial, this is only meant as a quick starting guide.

Thanks and Enjoy!