This guide covers our old ProBoards v4 software. Click here for the ProBoards v5 Help Guide.

Navigating discussion forums is simple. The navigation buttons at the top of the forum and the Forum Jump feature at the bottom right of each page will take you to any part of the forum quickly and directly. Below is an explanation of each navigation button and a description of the options on each page.

Home

The home page button will always return you to the main page of the discussion forum.

New Topics

The new topics button will take you to a page displaying the discussion topics that have been updated most recently on the forum and is ordered from the most recent to the oldest.

Help

The help button will take you to our extensive online forum help guide for explanations on almost everything you can do on a forum.

Members

The members button takes you to a page listing all registered members of the discussion forum. The members page also has a few sub-links to help refine member search results:

View All Members: Provides a list of all members registered on the discussion forum and is displayed in alphabetical order sorted by member display name (name column).

View By Letter: Allows you to view forum members by the first letter of their display name. You can search by letters A – Z, and numbers 0 – 9 as results are sorted alphabetically by display name.

View Top Posters: Exhibits forum members ordered by total post count and allows you to see who your most active members are.

View Staff Members: This will display a list of just the discussion forum staff members.

Calendar

This brings you to the forum calendar. Data provided here can include member birthdays as well as events set by forum staff. View different months using the drop-down menu in the top-left corner of the calendar or, change months with the selector arrows at the top-center of the forums calendar. In the top-right corner of the calendar, you may also find two additional buttons:

View All Events: This allows you to view all events set by forum staff, including past and future events.

New Event: This button will only be available if your account has the appropriate permissions as event creation is generally limited to forum staff. When clicked, you'll be brought to a posting page where you can describe your event. Enter the event title in the Subject area which will be displayed on the calendar. Below that, enter the date of your event. Add details of your event in the Message box. Like a post, you can use BBCode or smileys in your event description. When finished, click Add Calendar Entry and your new event will post to the calendar.

If you'd like to modify/delete an event, click the event on the calendar and you'll be taken to the event details page. Here you can Modify or Delete the posting using the buttons in the top-right corner of the page.

Admin

The admin button will only display if your account has the appropriate staff permissions. Clicking the admin button will take you to the admin panel where a complete list of forum features is displayed. With the appropriate permissions, many of these features can be customized in numerous ways. Please refer to the Help Guide for detailed descriptions of each feature.

Profile

This button will take you to the profile page for your forum account. The profile page displays information you provided for your account, as well as a preview of your avatar and Signature. Here you also have access to the following:

Modify Profile: Allows you to modify account information like your avatar, signature and time zone. You can also change critical account settings like your password, email address, and display name.

Bookmarks: This page lists bookmarked message board threads and provides a link to Manage Bookmarks. The Manage Bookmarks page lets you set notification options for your bookmarked threads. Please refer to the Help Guide for more detailed information on Bookmarks and Notifications.

Social Networks: Here you can link to your external social network accounts. This allows you to quickly login to the discussion forum as well as share posts on popular social networking sites.

Logout

Clicking this button will log your account out of the discussion forum. Once logged out, you will be viewing the forum as a guest.

Chat

If live chat is available on the forum, a chat button may appear in the menu bar. You can use this button to access a live chat area within the discussion forum where you can chat with other members in a traditional chat room setting. Please refer to the Help Guide for more detailed information on forum Chat.

Forum Jump

Forum Jump can be used to quickly access different boards and areas of the forum and can always be found at the bottom right of every page. Click the Forum Jump drop-down menu and you'll be presented with a list of categories and boards you can jump to.

The drop-down menu will display like the main page of the forum, showing topics defined and separated by categories and boards. Categories are represented by the » icon while boards are represented by the - icon. Selecting a category from the drop-down will take you to that category's location on the forums main page. Selecting a board will take you directly to that board's thread listing page.