posting

[bubba]

In the last couple times I have tried to post something since the upgrade was done, I have both tried to use the quote feature as well as one of the smiley faces and neither worked.

When I tried to use a face, it just clicks me back to the beginning of the site. When I tried to use the quote, it did nothing. Then when I gave up on that and clicked reply, it put the entire original article under the topic I was addressing into the quote area, which I simply erased before posting.

Didn't know if others reported this problem or not, but it never happened before the upgrade, so I figured it was related.

Thanks,

pat.

[bradl]

When I tried to use a face, it just clicks me back to the beginning of the site.

Oh dear. That's unusual. When you are in the post screen and you click on one of the 'clickable smilies' it bounces you somehow? I suspect this has something to do with your browser's setting for handling javascript. To use the clickable smilies you'll have to enable javascript in your browser. You can 'cheat' by entering the code for a smiley instead of clicking on it. If you click 'show all' a window will pop up that shows all possible smilies - in the left column is what you can type to make them appear in the Preview or final post. For example to use the smiley you could type the following in the post box:

:lol:

and it will replace the letters colon-l-o-l-colon with on preview and on posting.

When I tried to use the quote, it did nothing. Then when I gave up on that and clicked reply, it put the entire original article under the topic I was addressing into the quote area, which I simply erased before posting.

Good for you - thank you for trimming the quoted part that isn't needed. Doing that helps keep the database smaller, which I appreciate. This new version has quite a few replying options and you are not alone in being a bit confused. I had to learn some of it just by trying things out. Here's what I've learned about the various buttons and the best ways to use them.

For a quick reply - no quoting, hand formatting - just hit the FastReply button at the bottom of the last post in the topic. A small text box opens up at the bottom of the page - just type in your message, hit Add Reply and you're done. If you want to use a smiley in the Fast Reply you can type it as above. Any formatting you want to do has to be done by entering in BBCode directly. Or, you can click the More Options button to open up the usual post box with all the various formatting options.

For 99% of all replies you will ever make - this button is after the LAST post in the topic. Normally you should read all replies before posting, so that's why it's there at the bottom. This button brings up the standard post box, with no previous message quoted.

Reply to THIS post, quoting it - this button quotes just the one post and seems to have replaced the button that used to be called Quote in the previous version.

To quote one or more previous posts - press the quote button on the post(s) you plan to quote; the button will change color showing that you have selected that post to quote, THEN hit the Add Reply button and the post(s) you selected will be quoted. Be sure to trim out the parts you are not specifically responding to. There is no real need to quote the whole previous post because it's right there for anyone to read already. The add/remove quote button is sometimes called the 'multi-quote' button because you can select several posts within a topic to quote. It is a toggle - if you select it again, it will turn off quoting for that post and the color switches back to blue. I find it's an interesting but rarely necessary capability. The 'snapback' tag is there to provide a link back the post you are quoting. Unless you are multi-quoting there is seldom a need for snapback either, so I often delete that part of the quote as well.

I hope this helps a little. Feel free to practice in the Test forum, or ask further questions.

edits: spelling