Crowsong's Guide and Tips to using Proboards
Aug 9, 2016 19:59:41 GMT -5
TheRealDarkstalker and Lilypaw like this
Post by Ƈяσωѕσηg on Aug 9, 2016 19:59:41 GMT -5
-Crowsong's Guide and Tips to using Proboards-
Hello my fellow clanmates, here I'll be discussing some things about using Proboards and any other free forum building domain associated with them (i.e freeforums). These may be things you already know and things you did not, depends on how experienced you already are with using Proboards. Continue reading if you wish.
So what is Proboards?
Proboards is a free forum hosting site that can be used to build forums for a community of a fandom or business such as ours here, with certain plugins, ad-free pageviews, custom domain and other more advanced settings being the only thing that costs a fee, anywhere from one-time-only to monthly. Proboards makes it easy to build a forum with most needed features built right in, and they allow for pretty much full customization of your forum such as emoticons, icons, avatars, display names, organization and etc.
You can always change your display name!
Even if you sign up to a Proboards forum with a particular name, you can always change your display name afterwards to whatever is deemed appropriate to that forum. However, this does NOT change the name you signed up with, just the name others may see you by. This change can be made via profile > edit profile > personal.
You can always know when your threads have been updated!
Via settings in your profile, you can choose to receive email notifications about threads you've participated in being updated such as a new reply. Unlike the WCF, you don't need to like someone's posts anymore to let them know you've replied to them. Not only can you set up for these notifications, but Proboards has a nifty little button at the top of the page to the far right just below the banner that says "Participated", and there you'll find all the threads you've posted in when clicked on. What's also nifty about that button is it will say "New" next to "Participated" to let you know there's new activity and it will show you on what thread and who posted last when clicked.
Some things can be implemented, and some things cannot.
Although Proboards gives you options to customize your forum, there are also its limitations as well. Some things just can't be implemented, and what can be has either already been or soon will be in the future. I would not bug the mods too much with suggestions, since some things just aren't possible here. This isn't meant to discourage anyone from suggesting anyway, but it is a friendly reminder.
You can friend people!
When you follow a user and they follow you back, you will become friends with them, and they can be found under your "Friends" tab in your profile!
You don't have to worry about losing your posts!
You have the ability to bookmark threads here, and when you have bookmarks they will become accessible via "Bookmarks" at the top in the navigation menu! Or you can use the "Participated" button as previously mentioned to keep track of your threads!
Custom avatars!
Unlike the WCF, you can have custom avatars, which we all know the WCF lacked greatly. You can either upload your avatar from your computer to Proboards via your profile, link an image from a specific url or webpage, or use Proboards's built-in avatar maker! This can all be done by going to profile > edit profile and it will be the first thing you see.
Any image hosting site is accepted!
At least for the time being anyway, as far as I've seen there isn't anything about what sites are allowed and what aren't (minus those that are plainly inappropriate or unsafe), and unlike WCF approval isn't needed. Now you can upload images to your clan's thread page and not have to wait to be accepted or denied unless it breaks a rule listed in our rules here.
YouTube is accepted!
Like image hosting sites, it is for the time being. But if anything that doesn't belong or isn't meant to be here gets posted from YouTube, it may result in unwanted consequences and that privilege may be temporarily or permanently removed.
No one can steal your username!
Once you sign up with a certain name, it's yours. Nobody can sign up with the same name as Proboards will say "Name unavailable" unless they add to it. This does not work for display names, so be cautious.
Reporting system.
Yes like every other forum, there is a report system and the ability to report a member or a post, but you may only report them ONCE! If a member or post makes multiple offenses, you may only report them once. Posts can be reported once each, but a member only once in general.
BBcode is supported!
BBcode can be used to make your posts look all pretty and fancy. Change the colors, the font size, the text, go all out! But try to make sure others can read it too. Not only that, but you can also set what will automatically appear when you go to make a reply such as a set color, and what mode you use (BBC or Preview). This can be accessed via profile > edit > settings.
Interchangeable skins!
Yes, Proboards provides users the ability to actually change what skin theme they see when they log on to the forum! If your forum has more than one theme for it, you are able to switch between them, via profile > edit > settings. Just save and refresh when you're done and voila!
Images are resize-able via BBCode!
Image too large for a post or signature? No program to fix it? Don't worry! With BBCode, you can easily resize an image by adding a width and height value into the [ img ] tag (see code and images below).
[img width="VALUE" height="VALUE" src="IMAGEURLHERE"[/img]100 (width) x 50 (height)
500 (width) x 250 (height) (ORIGINAL SIZE)
That should be all for right now, but if there's anything more to add I'll add it later, and if there's anything I forgot leave a comment about it and I'll add it. Hopefully this will be useful to some users who have never used Proboards before. If you have any questions you may ask here or PM me and I'll try to get back to you.
