Guide for New Users of the AEHS Bulletin Board
The Aircraft Engine Historical (AEHS) Bulletin Board allows
Society members to communicate among themselves. Some of the forums on this
Board are public and can be read by anyone on the Internet. Others are private and can only be
read by AEHS members. You must be a member of the AEHS to post messages to the
Board.
The Bulletin Board is implemented using phpBB software.
This edited excerpt from the phpBB 2.0 Users Guide covers those features
enabled as of August 1, 2003. We hope you find this useful. We believe that
this document when used in conjunction with the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
that appear on the AEHS Bulletin Board Forum Index (home) page will be all you need navigate
and use the Bulletin Board. If not, please post your questions in the Help
Forum.
phpBB 2.0 is forum software. It allows people to post ideas, opinions, and
information in an organized way. Posts are organized in a way that makes it
easy for people to find the information they are interested in, but without
having to wade through unrelated information.
Postings
in phpBB 2.0 are organized into five subdivisions:
Bulletin Board - A Bulletin Board is a communication facility that
promotes dialog between members. This dialog can take the form of public forums,
private forums, private messages, e-mails, etc.
Category - A category
is a collection of forums with a central theme. For example, the Air Racing
category may have one forum dedicated to the Reno Air Races and another dedicated to
General Air Racing topics.
Forum - A forum is a container for topics. Forums often
have a general subject that the topics within are about. For instance, we have an
Air Racing - Reno forum, which contains topics in which
people discuss various aspects of the Reno races and their opinions about them.
Topic - A topic is a collection of posts. The posts are
organized in chronological order. The idea of a topic is that there is a
single post that contains the topic of discussion. The rest of the posts in
the topic are replies to this first post and to other replies. Topics are sort
of like conversations, allowing many people to state their opinions about an
idea, or debate an issue.
Post - A post is a piece of information submitted by a
single user. It may be a new post, which starts a new topic, or a reply to an
existing post. Posts are typically a sentence, paragraph, or a few paragraphs.
Navigating through posts in phpBB
2.0 is based on the structure described above.
Generally, a user will start at the Forum Index. The Forum
Index shows a list of forums. If you click on one of the forums, you will
be shown the View Forum page, which is a listing of the topics in the
forum. By default they are sorted in chronological order by
the most recent post in each topic. If you click on a topic, you will be shown
the View Topic page, which is a listing of the posts in that topic. By
default, the posts in a topic are organized chronologically, with the
oldest post first.
Information about one's current location in the navigation structure is in the
top left corner of each page. By clicking on the logo or the "enginehistory.org
Fourm Index" links, one may return to the Forum Index at any time. Similar
links are provided for the active forum and current topic.
phpBB 2.0 is based on a user system. When a user is logged in, his/her username
will be shown with each post he/she makes. Each user may also have some custom
settings which allow them to control the look and feel of the board as they use
it.
In order to log into the board you must be a member of the
AEHS and use the username and password that was sent to you via Email by the
Board Administration. Registration, as it normally applies to other forums, is
not pertinent to the AEHS Bulletin Board.
If you provided an Email address when you joined the AEHS, you are automatically
a member of the AEHS Bulletin Board. You should receive an Email at the
address you specified stating the terms and conditions of use and instructing
you how to get onto the Board for the first time.
In
order to post using your username and use your custom settings on the board,
you must log in. To log in, you must use the small login form at the bottom of
the
Forum Index page.
Alternatively
you may click the small
Login link at the top of any page to be taken to
the
Login Page.
Enter
your user name and password, and click
Login. You will be taken to the
page you were previously using, but will now be able to post with your
username, change your profile, check private messages, etc. To log out of the
board, click the small
Logout [<your username> ] link at the top
of any page.
If
you are not logged in and attempt to do anything that requires a login, you
will be taken to the login screen. After you log in, you will be taken to the
page you were attempting to go to before logging in. Things that require login
include changing your profile, checking your private messages, posting to
forums, etc.
If
you forget your password, go to the
Login Page. Click
I forgot my
password.
You
will be taken to a form to enter your username and email address. A new
password will be created, and sent in an email to you. When you receive the
email, you need to click the new password activation link. The new password
activation link exists so that if someone else enters your information into the
Forgotten Password form, your current password will remain intact.
After you have activated your new password, you may log in with it. You may
change your password to what you like in your profile. For more information,
see
4.7 Profile Settings.
There are two primary ways to create a post. In the
View Forum and
View
Topic pages, you may click
New Topic. This will take you to the
posting form, and, when you have posted, will create a new topic with your post
as the first one in the topic. In the
View Topic page, you may also
click
Reply. This will take you to the posting form, and, when you have
posted, it will add your post to the topic you replied to. To reply to a
specific post, you may also click the
Quote button in the upper right
corner of that post. For more information, see
4.2.6 Quoting Messages.
When
you post a new topic or post a reply, you are taken to the posting form, where
to enter your post.
Subject - The subject of your post. If this is a new
post, the subject is required, and it will be the name of the topic. If the
post is replying to another post, the subject is not required, but may be
added, and will be shown at the top of the post.
Message Body - The Message body is a large
text area where the body of your post is input. Plain text is the only thing
allowed in this text area, but special formatting, links, smilies (emoticons),
images, etc. may be added through the use of
Smilies,
BBCode
and/or
HTML (if they are enabled). This is most easily done through use
of the tag buttons above the message body window or the Smilies buttons to its
left. The strange codes generated by these buttons in the message text get
translated to formatting and emoticons when the message is viewed.
Smilies - Smilies (also called emoticons) can be added to
posts. You may only use smilies in your post if they are enabled on the board
you are using. To see if smilies are enabled, look in the lower left corner of
the posting form, you should see "Smilies are
ON/
OFF". If
smilies are enabled and you would like to disable them in your post, check the
box next to
Disable Smilies in this Post. For more information, see
4.2.6
Smilies
BBCode - BBCode allows you to add special formatting to your posts.
By default, BBCode is enabled. If you would like to disable it in your post, check the box next to
Disable BBCode in this Post. The board administrators recommend that you
leave BBCode enabled. For more information, see
4.2.5 BBCode.
HTML - You may use HTML to format your posts. You may only use HTML in
your post if it is enabled on the board you are using. To see if HTML is
enabled, look in the lower left corner of the posting form, you should see
"HTML is
ON/
OFF". If HTML is enabled and you would like to
disable it in your post, check the box next to
Disable HTML in this Post.
Signature - You may add a signature to your post. To do
this, check the box next to
Attach Signature. You may change your
signature by editing your profile. For more information, see
4.7 Profile
Settings.
Reply
Notification - When you post, you
may be interested in knowing when that topic is replied to. If so, you may
check
Notify me when a reply is posted. For more information, see
4.6
Watching Topics.
Announcements are a special type of topic that the forum
moderator may insert from time to time. In the View Forum page, Announcements
appear above all other topics (at the top of the forum). Announcements will
also appear on every View Forum page. For instance, if you had 75
topics in a forum and 50 on each page, announcements would appear on the page
with the first 50 topics and on the page with the last 25 topics.
Sticky topics are a special type of topic designated Sticky
by the forum moderator. In the View Forum page, Sticky
topics appear above all other topics except for Announcements. Sticky topics
only appear on the first View Forum page.
Polls
are a special type of post that allow community members to vote on an idea or
issue. The forum moderator my insert polls from time to time. Polls can only be made from the top post in a topic.
Poll
Question - This is the subject of
the Poll, the question that is being answered by the poll. The poll
question appears at the top of the topic, above the poll options.
Poll
Option - Poll Options are the possible answers to the poll question.
BBCode
is a system that allows you to format your posts in special ways. Although
you may type in BBCode as part of your message, it is easier to use the
buttons above the message box. You will notice that when you use the buttons,
a strange text appears that you may be unable to read unless you are a member
of the small priesthood that has dedicated its existence to the study of such
things. Have faith and leave the code alone! It will be correctly translated
when the message is read into the formatting and emoticons you intended. The BBCode system uses tags in a way nearly identical to HTML. The primary
difference between BBCode and HTML is that BBCode uses square brackets [ and ]
instead of angle brackets < and >. When the message is read, the tags are
translated into the text formatting and emoticons that you have specified. For a more detailed description of
how BBCode works, click the small
BBCode link on the lower left corner
of the
Posting Form. You may also go to
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/faq.php?mode=bbcode.
Here is a list of sample BBCode and its output:
[b]Bolded Text
[/b]
Bolded Text
[i]Italicized Text
[/i]
Italicized Text
[u]Underlined Text
[/u]
Underlined Text
[color=red]Red Text
[/color] or [color=#FF0000]Red
Text
[/color]
Red Text
[size=24]Bigger Text
[/size]
Bigger Text
[quote]This cheese is delicious
[/quote]
[quote="The
Cheese Man"]This cheese is
delicious.
[/quote]
[code]if ($cheese == "tasty") { return true; }
[/code]
[list]
[*]Cheddar Cheese
[*]Limburger Cheese
[*]Cottage Cheese
[/list]
- Cheddar Cheese
- Limburger Cheese
- Cottage Cheese
[list=1]
[*]Cheddar Cheese
[*]Limburger Cheese
[*]Cottage Cheese
[/list]
- Cheddar Cheese
- Limburger Cheese
- Cottage Cheese
[list=a]
[*]Cheddar Cheese
[*]Limburger Cheese
[*]Cottage Cheese
[/list]
- Cheddar Cheese
- Limburger Cheese
- Cottage Cheese
[url=http://www.phpbb.com/]Visit phpBB!
[/url]
Visit phpBB! (Link URL: http://www.phpbb.com)
[url]http://www.phpbb.com/
[/url]
http://www.phpbb.com/ (Link URL:
http://www.phpbb.com)
[email]no.one@domain.adr
[/email]
no.one@domain.adr
[img]http://www.phpbb.com/images/phpBB_88a.gif
[/img]
Again, for more info, see
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/faq.php?mode=bbcode
Smilies
are small images that appear in posts. Usually they are small images of faces,
and are often used to show emotion.
To
use smilies in your posts, you can either enter a series of characters or use
the smilie buttons on the posting form to insert the appropriate character
sequence. Common
character series are :) for a happy face
![Happy](icon_smile.gif)
, :( for a sad face
![Sad](icon_sad.gif)
,
etc. Another common style for smilie character sequences is
:emotion:
(i.e. the emotion the smilie shows, with a colon ":" before and after this).
Examples of this are :wink: for a winking face
![Wink](icon_wink.gif)
, :lol: for a
laughing face
![Laughing Out Loud](icon_lol.gif)
, etc.
Quoting
messages allows you to include other's posts in your own. It is useful for
showing that you are replying to a post, or part of a post.
To
quote all of someone's post, look at the top right corner of their post and
click
Quote. This will take you to the posting form, and will allow you
to reply to the post. It will also automatically add the appropriate
BBCode
to your post to quote the post you are replying to.
The
proper syntax to quote a post is:
[quote="
<name
to quote>"]
<text to quote>[/quote]
<name
to quote> is the source of your
quote, and
<text to quote> is what you are quoting. So to quote
the user
Cheese Man saying "Power the behold of cheese."
[quote="Cheese
Man"]Power the behold of cheese[/quote]
For
more information, see
4.2.5 BBCode.
Editing posts allows you to go back and fix errors, remove incorrect information, or
add new information to your posts. To edit a post, look at the top right
corner of your post and click Edit. You will be taken to the posting
form to edit your post, and then click Submit to enter it into the
database. If you edit a post after it has been replied to, a small message
will appear at the bottom of it indicating how many times it has been edited,
and when and by whom the last edit occurred.
To
delete a post, click Edit and check Delete this Post. Click Submit
to finish deleting the post. You may not delete a post if it has been replied
to (i.e. it is not the last post in the topic)
Private
messages allow users on a board to contact each other out of the public eye.
Private messages can be described as a cross between email, instant messaging,
and phpBB 2.0 forum posting. Because some members may choose not to display
their email addresses, the board administrators recommend using Private
Messages for member-to-member communication.
To use private messaging, you must be logged in to the board. Look at the top of
any page, and click
You have X new message(s). This will take you to
your private messaging center.
There are three primary ways to send a private message. First, you may go your
private messaging center and click New Post. Secondly, you may click Post
Reply from a private message you are reading. Finally, you may click the PM
link on any user's profile or post.
The
posting form is identical to the normal posting form with a few exceptions:
Username - The username of the person you want to receive
the message. If you are replying to a PM, or clicked the PM link
in someone's profile, this field will be automatically filled for you.
Additionally,
PMs may not be Sticky Topics, Announcements, or contain Polls.
There
are three ways that one may be notified of a new private message. Most obvious
is the Private message link at the top of every page. It will display
You
have X new message(s), where X is the number of new messages you have. You
may click this link to take you to your
Inbox.
You
may be informed of new PMs by an email sent to the email address your username
is registered to. You may also be informed of a new PM by means of a small
window that pops up while you are viewing the board. Email and pop-up
notification will contain a link to your
Inbox. Email and pop-up
notification may be enabled/disabled in your
Profile (for more
information, see
4.7 Profile Settings)
Sometimes
you may be informed of a new PM, but when you go to your Inbox, there is no new
message. This is not a bug, it simply means that the sender must have deleted
the PM before you read it. For more information, see
4.3.3 The Outbox.
You
may delete messages by selecting them and clicking
Delete Marked.
Alternatively, you may delete all messages by clicking
Delete All. You
may also sort/display messages by age by using the dropdown list box in the
upper right corner.
When
you send a PM, the message goes to your Outbox. It remains in the
Outbox until the recipient visits his/her Inbox, at which point it is moved
from your Outbox to their Inbox. While the message remains in your Outbox you
may edit or delete your post if you like. The message remains in your control
until it is received.
The Savebox is provided as a place to keep important PMs. Often it is used to save
valuable messages from the Inbox, and then you can use the Delete All
function to discard the rest.
You may save messages in your Inbox by selecting the messages (with the checkboxes
next to each message) and clicking Save Marked.
Usergroups allow a group of users who have a specific
set of things in common to interact with the Bulletin Board and with one
another in a uniform way. Users may request membership in open groups (ones
whose members are visible to everyone, even non-AEHS members) as
described below. Users may also discover that they are members of other groups
(hidden groups) that they have not joined. These groups are used by bulletin board moderators
and administrators to control sets of user permissions within the board.
To join an open group, you must be added to the group by the
group moderator.
To
join a group, click the small
Usergroups link at the top of any
page.
Choose
the group to join from the
Join a Group dropdown list shown, and click
View
Information. This will take you to the
Group Control Panel. Click
Join
Group to request membership in the group. The
Group Moderator will
receive an email informing them of the request, which they must approve before
you become a member of the group. Please note that if you join a group the
fact that you are a member of that group will be available to all bulletin board
readers.
Group types may be changed by
the group moderator or a board administrator.
Open - All users may see the group and group members.
Users may request membership to this group. For more information, see
4.4.1
Joining a Group.
Hidden - The group and its members are only visible to AHES members.
Users may be added by the group moderator.
phpBB
2.0 has a search system that will allow you to find topics you are interested
in. To get to the search page, click the small
Search link at the top
of any page.
Search
for Keywords - You may search for
words in the content of topics. Enter the words to search for into the text
field.
If
you select Search for any terms or use query as entered, then topic containing
ANY of the words you entered will be displayed. You may use the AND, OR,
and NOT operators to indicate which words you want to search for. Use AND
to indicate that multiple words MUST be found. Use OR to indicate that
a word is optional/alternate. Use NOT to indicate that a word should
not be present in the topics displayed.
If
you select Search for all terms, only topics containing all of the words
in the query will be displayed. Selecting this option has effects comparable
to using Search for any terms or use query as entered, with the AND
operator between each term.
You
may use the asterisk(*) wildcard character to broaden your search. The
asterisk will match any number of characters. So *cheese* will match cheese,
cheesewheel, wheelcheese, or wheelcheesewheel. Likewise cheese*fudge
will match cheesefudge, cheeseyfudge, or cheese597fudge.
To
increase the speed and decrease the overhead of the search utility, only words
may be searched for. Phrases (such as "cheese wheel") may not be searched for,
except by their component words. The minimum size for words is four
characters, and the maximum size is twenty characters. Any non-alphanumeric
character (e.g. white space and punctuation) is a word boundary.
Search
for Author - You may search for
posts by post author. Simply enter the author's username into this text
field. You may use the asterisk(*) wildcard in author's names to broaden your
search. Again, the asterisk will match any number of characters.
Forum - Select the forum you wish to search in, or All
available. To search multiple forums, search by Category.
Category - Select the category you wish to search in, or All
available.
Display
Results as Posts - Search results
will be displayed as a list of the posts. Part of the post that matches the
query will be displayed, and the search terms highlighted. For each post there
is a ling
Display
Results as Topics - Search results
will be displayed as a list of Topic titles. For each topic there is a link to
the forum it is in, the topic itself, and the author of the topic.
Search
Previous - This dropdown box will
allow you to specify the maximum age of posts to display as results of the
search. There are also radio buttons here that will allow you to search only
the body of posts, or the subject(title) of the posts as well.
Sort
by - This will allow you to
specify how search results are organized. You may sort by Post Time, Post
Subject, Topic Title, Author, or Forum. The sort may be in ascending or
descending order alphabetically (or chronologically where appropriate)
Return
first - When Display Results as
is set to Posts, this dropdown box will allow you to control how much of
the post is displayed in the search result.
You
may subscribe to topics in phpBB 2.0.0. When a topic you are subscribed to is
replied to, an email will be sent to the email address that your username is
registered to. The email will contain a link to the topic that has been
replied to. You will only receive one email per topic until the next time you
log in to the board.
To
subscribe to a topic, look at the lower left corner of the
Topic View
page. Click the small
Watch this topic for replies link.
Additionally,
if you post or reply to a topic, you may check
Notify me when a reply is
posted to subscribe to a topic.
To
unsubscribe from a topic, look at the lower left corner of the
Topic View
page. Click the small
Stop watching this topic link.
Alternatively,
you may look at your notification email. At the end of the email (right above
the signature) there is a link that will unsubscribe you from the topic.
To
edit your profile, click the small
Profile link at the top of any page.
The default settings should work fine, although most users will probably want
to change their time zone.
You
must be logged in to edit your profile. To make changes to your profile,
change the values on the form and click
Submit at the bottom of the
page.
Username - Your username on the board, the name you use to log in.
This name consists or your first initial and last name and can only be changed
by the Board Administrator.
Email - The email address your account is registered
to. This e-mail address is only available to Board Administrators and
Moderators. All emails from the board to you will go to this email address. You may
change the email address if you like. If you change your email address and the
board is using
User activation, then you will need to activate your
changed email address. You will be sent an email (to the new address) with an
activation link if this is the case.
Password - The password you use to log in. If you change
your email address or password, you must enter your current password. If you
are changing your password you will need to enter the new password twice to
verify it.
Fields
in the
Profile Information are self-explanatory.
Always
show my Email Address - If
Yes
a link to email you will appear in your profile and in each message you post.
IF SET TO "YES", YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS WILL BE AVAILABLE TO ANYONE ON THE INTERNET. If set to
No,
your email address will only be available to board administrators and moderators. By default, this will be set to
No.
The board administrators and moderators strongly and emphatically suggest that you
leave it this way in order to prevent those who would send you unsolicited email
from getting your email address. Instead, communicate with other members via
Private Messaging. If you need to exchange email addresses, this can be done
privately using Private Messaging.
Hide
your online status - If
Yes
you will not be visible to members and non-member readers in the
Who is Online? list at
the bottom of the
Forum Index.
Always
notify me of replies - If
Yes
then the
Notify me when a reply is posted checkbox on the posting form
will be checked by default. You may still uncheck it each time you post.
Notify
on new Private Messages - If
Yes
an email will be sent to your registered email address each time you receive a
private message.
Pop
up window on new Private Messages
- If
Yes you will see a pop up window notifying you of new Private
Messages you receive while browsing the forums.
Always
attach my signature - If
Yes
then the
Attach signature checkbox on the posting form will be checked
by default. You may still uncheck it each time you post.
Always
allow BBCode - If
Yes then
the
Disable BBCode in this post checkbox on the posting form will be
unchecked by default. This is the default setting for your profile . The Board
Administrators recommend that you leave it set to
Yes.
Always
allow HTML - If
No then
the
Disable HTML in this post checkbox on the posting form will be
checked by default. This is the default setting for your profile . The
Board Administrators recommend that you leave it set to
No.
Always
enable Smilies - If
Yes
then the
Disable Smilies in this post checkbox on the posting form will
be unchecked by default. This is the default setting for your
profile . The Board Administrators recommend that you leave it set to
Yes.
Board
Language - Selects the language of
board messages/text. Any text from other users or administrators is
unaffected.
Board
Style - Selects the look and feel that you see when you are on the board.
phpBB
2.0.0 allows you to specify the date format that you see on the board. This is
done by allowing you to specify the format using the PHP syntax. For full
details on how this works, see
http://www.php.net/date.
The
date string is a series of letters and punctuation. Each letter will be
replaced with a part of the current date and time, and the punctuation is used
to organize this information in a way that makes sense to you.
The
default string for this field is "D M d, Y g:i a" This will display your date
in the form
Sat Apr 09, 2002 4:09 am. All of the punctuation and
spacing remains intact, and each letter is replaced with part of the
date/time.
D is the first three letters of the day of the week.
M is the first three letters of the month name.
d is the numerical date, with leading zeroes.
Y is the year, four-digit format.
g
is the hour, 12-hour format
without leading zeroes.
i is the minutes, with leading zeroes.
a
is am/pm, in lowercase letters.
To
see the complete list of letter substitutions, go to
http://www.php.net/date.
To
have the board time show correctly, please select your time zone. The time in
phpBB 2.0.0 does not work with Daylight Savings Time, so if you have Daylight
Savings Time, add 1 to your GMT modifier. So if you are in GMT-5 and have DST,
you will need to set your time zone to GMT-4.
Avatars are small pictures that display each post. Each user may choose
his/her own avatar.
Gallery
Avatars - You may choose your
avatar from a gallery of avatars. The gallery is a collection of avatars
stored on the server that the board is running on. To select an avatar from
the gallery, click Show Gallery. You may use the dropdown list at the
top of the gallery to navigate between categories of avatars. To choose an
avatar, check the radio button underneath it and click Select Avatar.
Remotely
Linked Avatars - You may use an image that is hosted on another site as your
avatar. To do this, just enter the URI into the text field. It is
recommended that the images are small and do not deform tables or distract
people.
Uploaded
Avatars - If you have an image
that you would like to use, you may upload the image to the server that the
board is on. You may upload an image on your computer by clicking the Browse
button. You may also upload an image by entering the URI that the image is
located at. Uploaded images have an admin-controlled limit on file size and
image size. The file must be a .jpg or .gif image of no more than 6,144 bytes
and no larger than 80 x 80 pixels.