Forum tricks

[Caduceus Mercurius]

We'll post some tricks for using the forum here.

Posting hyperlinks

[ url=http://www.link.extension/what.html]This is the text[/url]

remove the space after the first [ to make it work.

Say, if you wanted to link to a site, http://www.god.com/joinus.html and have a text ("please click here") as a link instead of the link, you would type:

[ url=http://www.god.com/joinus.html]please click here[/url]

without the space after the first [, it will turn out like this:

please click here

In other words, you can post a URL by placing before and after it, or selecting the URL and clicking the URL button. For example:

[ url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9xCwM9osW0&feature=rec-HM-rn[/url]

Remove the space after the first [ and you get this:

But if you write it as follows (you'll have to adjust the tags manually):

[ url=

Lilly - Through the Center of the Mandala[/url]

...you get:

John Lilly - Through the Center of the Mandala

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Front page posts (News, Research or Blog)
Because the first posts of these threads appear on the front page for a couple of days, it's nice if they contain an image. But using the image tags [ img] will not do. You have to attach an image to your first post, i.e. upload it to the Psychonaut server to make it appear on the front page.

How to do this? Well, first download a fitting image to your own computer, for example using Google Image search, or from the article you're referring to itself. Then compose your message, and use "Add an Attachment" below the message body editor to upload the image. It will then appear attached to your news item, as can be seen below.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Search
Don't use the Search engine you see right now in the upper right corner. Instead, go to the Forum Index and choose thes second blue hyperlink at the top of the page (to the right of Q&A). That will take you here:

http://www.psychonaut.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=11&page=search

It's a much better search engine.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

View posts since last visit
Below the Search link on the Forum Index page there's a link called "Posts since last visit". On this page you see all the threads with new posts, a longer list usually than the one on the front page, and it shows page numbers, so you can immediately go to the last page of each thread. Use right click and open these in a new tab.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Careful! Website sometimes unstable!
If you're the type of person who likes to write long messages, make sure you save or copy the text just before posting, or write it in a regular text editor. It's really frustrating if you've spent hours and a gram of Haze writing a long discourse, only to lose it all when something goes wrong when you post it.

 

[Forkbender]

second blue hyperlink

mine is green. (Yes I use the boring green theme as I don't want to burn out my eyes).

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Resizing images
Images that you link to on the web (using the img tag) cannot be resized. But you can resize the images you upload from your computer. If you have Windows, you will also have Paint. Open Paint, open your image, and change the size. Damn, my Paint is in Dutch so I don't know how to describe this one step for step. Is there anyone who would like to explain it? I think it's 'Image' -> 'Change size' -> and then reducing the image to 70% or 50% or whatever may be necessary. Or you can also directly adjust the qualities of the image, and in that case you should reduce the image to about 600 pixels wide (or less), and then save it.

 

[Forkbender]

http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/ImageResizerPowertoySetup.exe

you can also get this plugin from microsoft (if you use windows XP) to resize pictures with 1 rightclick.

 

[MelloTrip]

Resizing images (bis)

If you want to resize a web-hosted image, downloading it, resizing it on your computer and then uploading it on a server can be time-consuming and is not the easiest way to proceed.

I advice using http://imageshack.us for exemple. This website allows you to upload images from your computer (select "Image" in the top menu), or from an internet adress (select "url").

If you want to resize the image so it fits on forums, tick "resize image" and select the appropriate screen resolution (640*480 or 800*600 for forums is best).

When upload is complete, just copy-paste the given forum code ("Hotlink for forums") on your post, and you're done.

 

[Brugmansia]

Tricks? It's called HTML.

 

[restin]

it's magic.

 

[Brugmansia]

http://www.quackit.com/html/

 

[Forkbender]

Actually, it is BBCode. :wink:

 

[restin]

Don't destroy the magic by giving it funny names!

 

[Forkbender]

True magic can never be destroyed!

 

[restin]

Touché!

 

[TheFerret]

Something I've been wondering -

What's up with the "Watch this thread" option at the bottom? Shouldn't I receive notifications when somebody replies to a post I'm watching? As far as I can tell, nothing happens. :?

 

[Forkbender]

I don't know, but I subscribed, try posting again.

 

[????????]

the "watch this thread" thing usually works, though, sometimes, threads become unwatched spontaneously, specially the long ones.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

I clicked it an hour ago, an now got a notification email.