I'd like to put a few "tutorials" if you will about how the forum works and how you can navigate it a little easier. These posts will maybe show the new and more seasoned forum users how some of the features of the forum work.

If you have any suggestions on what you may have found out works for you, let me know by emailing me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Enjoy!

CHAT:

To initiate the chat function, you must be a registered user of the forum and be logged in. At the bottom right of your screen, there is a "toolbar" if you will that says "Online Friends (x)", where x represents the number of registered users on the site.

To chat with someone, left click on that label. A small window appears where a list of the users appears. If you see someone you want to chat with, left click on their name.


A second window pops up (if you have a pop up blocker, you may have to disable it to see this). This is the chat window, where your chat session takes place.



You will see the other person's avatar, user name, and some smileys, as well as the text window where the chat is displayed. The smaller text area at the bottom is where you type your message. Type your message there, and hit "Enter" on your keyboard, or the "Submit" button.

In order for the two users to chat back and forth, the receiving "chatter" must accept the chat request. When you receive a chat request, a window pops up and a most annoying sound will alert you that you have a chat request. Click "YES" to chat, or "NO" to ignore the request.



To end a chat session, simply close the chat window.

It's that simple. And fun.

TRICKS/STRANGE THINGS:

Special characters sometimes make the chat window go goofy and trunicate messages. Try to avoid using symbols and such. We don't know why, it just happens.

Sometimes, the chat session will time out, even if you have been active. If that happens, just click the "Click Here" to restart chat. Your chat session will still be active and you won't lose your chat log unless you close out of the chat window.

SHOUT BOX:

The Shout Box is a unique and fun way to communicate with other users without having to start a forum topic. This is where we have our "non-hobby topic" conversations, such as the most recent sporting events, or how-ya-doin's. The Shout Box only keeps the 20 most recent posts, and all others are discarded, and therefore, we do like hobby related questions and answers be posted in the forum topics so everyone can enjoy. It is a fun way to converse back and forth.

When posting a link on the shout box, the system truncates the URL and will appear like this: <link>. If you want to post a specific url, without the link, you can enclose it in quotes, like this: "www.kcfishclub.org".

To post smileys, you can click on the "Smileys" link, which will open the list of smileys that are used on the shout box. To type a message for all to see, simply chat in the white text box, and press "Enter" or "Send".

VIEWING FORUM TOPICS:

There are many ways to view the forum, in terms of how the various topics show up. Here are just a few:

Viewing by "Recent Discussions" - my personal favorite
This tab can be clicked on, and the forum posts will appear by the most recent reply, down to the oldest reply.




Viewing by "My Discussions"
This view will first display forum topics you have "subscribed" to or are your "favorites" - more on this later. After that, it will show all the posts you have replied to or created, most recent first.




Viewing by "Categories"
This view allows you to see all categories that are viewable by your profile. This is probably one of the more popular ways to view the forum because you can easily navigate from subject to subject.




Filtering and Searching
You can filter posts by date or category by selecting what you want to see (see purple circle).

You can search posts with keywords by typing that word or phrase into the search field (see red circle). There is also an advanced search function.



There may be other ways of viewing forum topics, such as RSS feeds and the such, which I won't get into here. Bottom line is there are several ways of viewing our forum, and we hope you enjoy it!