AMProSoft Message Board Help File [ The Parts of a Post | Posting a Message | Post Codes | Quoting | Searching the Message Board ]
The parts of a post

Message Title - A brief headline or introduction to your post. Remember that some people look through messages by title so having a title that relates to your post is helpful. Message Body - The actual content of your post. May be a one liner as shown or a lengthy message. Message Poster - The name of the person posting the message. If the name is underlined you should be able to click on their name to EMail them or place your mouse on their name to get their EMail address. Poster's Website - The poster may choose to leave a website link here. They may choose to leave nothing at all or an unlinked message also. Post Checkbox - Click inside this box and leave a checkmark if you would like to reply to this message or have it under your posting form to look at when you post. Time & Date Stamp - This tells you when a post was posted. Post Number - Each post has a post# to tell you the order in which it was posted.

Posting a message [the posting form]

| In order to post, locate the "Post Message" button at the top of the message board and click it. This will take you to the posting form where you can compose a message. Fill out the posting form and click the "Submit Your Post" button [item #8] in order to add your post to the message board. If the person in sharge of the message boards has validation turned on your post will not show up until they come to approve it, otherwise your post will show up right away. You do not have to fill out every box in the form, only your name and a message are required. It is strogly recommended that you also leave a title. Your Info - Enter your name or a nickname in the top box. Then if you like you can enter an EMail address and a website for yourself. What you leave in the box next to "Your Website's Name" will show up on your post, and what you leave in the box next to "Your URL" is what it will be linked to. If you leave the website's name empty, nothing will show up for people to click on. If you leave the URL empty the name of your site will show up but it won't be linked to anything. Title - Here you can leave a headline or brief intro to your post. Leaving a meaningful title will help people who want to find your post be scanning through titles. Post - In the text box you will leave your message. For more detailed information on entering a message, read the next section of this help page. It contains more information on formatting your messages. Formatting Buttons - Use these buttons to automatically add formatting codes to your post. Color Palette - Click on a color and the color code for that color will appear in your post. Icons - Click on one of the little pictures and the picture code will appear in your post. Post Colors - Click on the radio button of the background color you want for your post and the forground color that you'd like your text to start in. You can still change the text color with the color palette as much as you want during your post. Submit Button - Use this button to add your post when you are completely finished with your post. Preview Post Button - You can use this button to see what your post will look like and proofread it before posting. Help Button - This button brings you to the help screen you are currently reading. Refresh - You can use this button to erase your entire post form and start over again with a new post form.

Post Codes [formatting your text]

AMProSoft Message board codes allow you to use colors and text effects in your posts. There are buttons to put these codes in for you so there is no need to memorize them. This section of the help file is here just in case people want to know which codes do what. Codes begin with a parenthesis and two zeroes followed by a letter. To terminate the effect you type the code in reverse order with a close parenthesis on the end.
Code | Purpose | Example | Result
(00B | bold | (00B Bold Text B00) | Bold Text
B00) | end bold
(00I | italics | (00I Italic Text I00) | Italic Text
I00) | end italics
(00L | large | (00L Large Text L00) | Large Text
L00) | end large
(00M | center | (00M centering M00) | centering
M00) | end center
(00T | tiny | (00T Tiny Text T00) | Tiny Text
T00) | end tiny
note: If you'd like to show people how to use codes in your message you can type codes with the letter O instead of the number 0 and they will show up in your posts as 0s. For example if you want to tell someone how to use large text just type (OOL into your post and it will show up in your post with (00L which is the actual code for Large Text. If you were to type in (00L to show them, the (00L would not show up and the rest of your post would be in large text. note: Posts already begin in bold mode so you have to use an end bold code before bold codes will have any effect. note: There is also a (00R code which is how the computer will store carriage returns. Since it's easier to just hit the carriage return there's not much reason to use this code. Color Codes are similar to the other codes except that you put a beginning code, the name of a color and the ending code and then whatever you type after that will be that color. Do not put any spaces between the start color code, the color itself and the end color code. Then use the kill code (00K when you want to return to the normal color. Color names include red, blue, white, yellow, cyan, pink, orange and most other common colors names. If you are familiar with how html colors work you can use the 6 number codes to produce any color imaginable. For example instead of typing in red you could type in the number #990000 and get a dark red color. If you just want your whole post to be one color you can type a color start code, the color and an end code and then just type in the whole post without using the color kill code.
Code | Purpose | Example | Result
(00C & C00) | color | (00CredC00) Red Text. (00K | Red Text
(00C & C00) | color | (00CYellowC00) Yellow Text. (00K | Yellow Text
(00C & C00) | color | (00C#999999C00) Gray Text. (00K | Gray Text

Quoting

Quoting is a nice feature that helps remind people what you're responding to. It's accomplished by use of the Quote codes (00Q and Q00) . You can just type a (00Q and then type in whatever they said or cut and paste it in and then type a Q00) and you will end up with a quote box that looks like the one in Post #1 (seen in the diagram to the left). There is however, an easy way to set up a very nice looking quote box like the one in post#2 (in the diagram to the left): 1st - Identify the post or posts you'd like to quote and click their checkboxes to put a checkmark in them. 2nd - Click the "Post a Message" button and locate the posts beneath the posting form. 3rd - Click the Quote button on the lower left corner of the posts and the codes for a nicely formatted quote box will appear up in your message box in the post form. 4th - Type out your reply to the post. note: Whenever you use quoting, remember to double check to make sure your (00Q and Q00) are both there otherwise your post may come out strange. You can sometimes accidentally end up with your whole post inside a quote box or something else strange like that. It is a good idea to use the preview post feature when quoting. note: When responding to only a small portion of a long post you should go in and delete the sections of the post you are not replying to. It makes your posts more readable and it helps the message board run more smoothly.

Searching the Message Board

| You can use the Archive Box at the top of the message board to read old posts or search for posts you've read before. Use the range from and to boxes to specify which posts you'd like to see. If you leave these boxes blank it will show you the most recent messages. Use the search box to enter a word to search for. If you read a post and don't remember where it was but you remember it had the word store in it, type the word store into the search box and enter how far back to search in the range to and from boxes and it will show you all posts with the word store in them. Upper and lower case will not matter. Use the Titles or Full Posts selector to indicate whether you'd like to see the full posts when you search. If you choose to see the titles only you can see a list of the titles of posts and who posted then and can click on the post # of posts you want to see all of. Use the Newest First or Oldest First selector to indicate whether you'd like new posts at the top and old posts at the bottom or old posts first followed by newer posts. When you have filled out all of the information on your search click the "Search Archive" button to begin your search. You do not have to fill in any information before hitting the Search Archives button but that will just show you the same posts over again. You can of course use all of the search options together. For example you can enter a search word, supply a range, change the order they're shown in and tell it to only show titles and it will all work together.

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