Crestline Soaring Society

Here are some notes about using the new forum.

Posting: Simple or Complex - Your Choice

1. Plain Text posting to the new forum is pretty simple - just pick some categories, type away, and click 'Submit' or 'Preview' and don't fool with the options. You can use BBCode or a subset of HTML tags to enhace your posts. BBCode is the default input format - to use Filtered HTML (if you really want to) expand the 'input format' link and choose from the list. This post was formatted using BBCode tags. Carriage returns and blank lines are automatically detected; to ensure a blank line appears, type a space before the carriage return.

2. Reply to a forum post with the 'Post new comment' box at the bottom of the page. If you want to reply to one of the comments that have already been posted be sure to click the 'reply' link below that particular comment.

3. Images can be uploaded and inserted into posts. Uploaded images should be categorized (with an obvious drop-down box) so that they will be displayed properly in the Gallery section. You can also post images directly to the galleries without attaching them to a forum post by clicking the 'Add Content' item in the navigation menu and choosing 'image'.
   
   Here's an inserted image:
   Anemometer Rime: The big March 2006 snowstorm walloped Crestline, knocking out power and making our weather station's instrument pole lean waaay over.
   To insert the image I clicked the 'Body' textbox in the location where I wanted the image to appear and clicked the little plus-sign-and-image icon below the Body box. After specifying the file, gallery, and descriptive text, I clicked 'Preview'. Then I was able to specify that it should be shown as a thumbnail with a link to a pop-up window, and left the other options at default settings. After clicking 'Submit' the Image Assist window went away and there were bbcode-like text tags in the body where I wanted the image. I then clicked 'Preview' at the bottom of the page to see how the post would look.
   
   Image Size: A 640x480 size image wouldn't upload, but a 400x269 version did. Odd - I've set the limit at 640x640 pixels, but for some reason large images often have problems. I suggest you leave the description field blank after specifying the image, and then click Preview to make sure the image will upload, otherwise your description may be lost. If you get a 'Page cannot be found' message in the Image Assist window, image size is likely the problem. You can right-click in the window and choose 'back' to try again.

4. Files can be attached to Forum posts by users. Allowed file types: jpg jpeg gif png txt doc xls pdf igc kml kmz trk gdb wmv mov

   To start, the limitations are:
   max 1Mbyte per file
   max 20Mbytes of files per user

   One could insert a small image into a post and attach a larger version. I don't know how going over the 20M limit is handled - presumably you'd have a chance to delete old attachments.

   (I'd like to figure out some kind of website section for sharing GPS logs, maybe combining them to show a bunch in Google Earth. Any ideas on how to organize it? Seen any examples?)

I suggest that we try to keep some continuity by posting replies to existing forum topics in the new forum. You can go to the post in the old forum that you want to reply to and copy your browser's address/location box content and paste it into your post on the new form; you could also paste relevant text from the post. Web addresses wil be automatically converted to links and email addresses can be entered freely since the software takes some steps to obscure them from search engines.

Other Site Content: Comment or Contribute
Additionally, users can post comments about other content, such as the Launch & LZ Info page, and I encourage you to make suggestions regarding corrections, omissions, expansion, etc. Regular users can be given Contributor status, which allows one to edit or add content directly - if you want there to be an overview of flying PGs XC from Marshall or something, ask to be made a Contributor and you'll be able to do it. You don't need to know HTML, though that or BBCode formatting tags can be used to enhance content.

Old Forum Users, New Accounts:
I've created accounts for all users who have posted here in the last year. Your username will be retained, but you'll get a random password, which you can change after logging in. You'll get an email notification when your account has been created, with instructions for logging in. Without the email, you can go to 'Request New Password' and enter your old username - if the account has already been created then you'll be sent an email. To create a new account, simply register. Each account must have a unique email address.

Pilot Info: Your Profile
There is a Pilot Info tab in the my account|edit page where you can indicate what you fly, ratings, and other things. Your profile will be publicly viewable, but I can restrict it to logged-in users if that's what most people want.

Questions and Help
Many of you will have questions about using the new Forum and the site in general. Please take the time to read the linked documentation and help from the various input forms. If you have questions or something simply isn't working for you, log-in and post a comment to this topic (below)
so that I can answer right here and perhaps others can benefit.