Useful Definitions
Icons and What they do
Using the forum

• Public Forum: Public forum is where everyone can participate without registration. Everyone is allowed to read and post new threads.
• Protected Forum: Protected forum is read-only for non-registered members. That is, if you want to post your own messages, you must first register.
• Private Forum: Private forum is only accessible by registered members with one of the following user group: admin, moderator, and member. In order to access the forums, however, the moderator of each forum must grant access on user to user basis.
• Lobby: Lobby is the 'front door' of the forum. This is where all available forums in all conferences are listed. In addition to names, forum description, number of current threads, and forum moderator name is displayed.
• Main: Main is where the listing of threads for a given forum are displayed.
• Thread: A thread is the page containing threaded messages for a given topic.
• Top: Top of a given thread. Equivalently, the Table of Contents.

There are several icons in each pages. Here's what they do:

For Everyone

FOLDER icon...If you are logged on and you are on the Main page, the threads with this folder icon does not contain any new messages.

NEW FOLDER icon...If you are logged on, the threads with this folder icon contain new messages.

LOGIN icon or [Login/Logout] textlink...If you choose to, you can login at the beginning of your discussion session. This will allow the script to display which threads contain new replies since you last MARKed a forum (See MARK button below).

NEW icon or [New Messages] textlink...If you are logged on, clicking on this ICON will bring up all new messages in forums that have been marked.

LOBBY icon or [Lobby] textlink...can be accessed from both MAIN page and from each messages. It takes you to the LOBBY.

MAIN icon or [Main] textlink...it takes you to the main page of a given forum.

HELP icon or [Help] textlink...displays this page.

MARK icon or [Mark Forums] textlink...time stamp to mark the last time you finished reading threads in given forum. If you MARK for the LOBBY, it will mark all the forums.

POST icon or [Post] textlink...button can be accessed from the MAIN page. It is used to post a new topic (thread).

EMAIL icon or [SEND EMAIL] textlink...this is displayed if a poster submits his/her e-mail address. You can click on this button to directly e-mail him/her. Be sure to remove the phrase 'REMOVE_THIS' from the the email address.

PROFILE icon or [PROFILE] textlink...this is displayed if the author of given message is registered user and has his/her profile setup.

EDIT icon or [EDIT] textlink...it is used to edit your message. This feature is only available to users who are registered. Of course, you must be the owner of the message in order to edit it.

REPLY icon or [REPLY] textlink...it is only accessed from each THREAD. You can reply to a given message by clicking on this icon.

TOP icon or [TOP] textlink...let you jump to top of a THREAD. Takes you back to the table of contents.

SEARCH icon or [SEARCH] textlink...allows you to search the discussion forum(s) - you can search either current threads or archives.

ALERT icon or [ALERT] textlink...button allows you to alert administrator of bad message. You must be a registered member in order to use this function.

If you'd like to participate in the forum, you must first register. Registration form can be accessed by clicking on the 'Login' icon. 'Register' button will be displayed on the login page if the administrator of this site has enabled it. You can also edit your password and profile.

Getting around the forum is easy: you can navigate either by using icons or using hyper links. For example, you can use the forum links at the bottom of each page to jump from one forum to another. Or, you can instead use the Lobby icon to go back to LOBBY and choose a forum from there.

You can start a new thread by clicking on the POST icon. If you are trying to post a new thread to a private forum, you will need to log-on first.

You can reply to any given message by clicking on the REPLY icon directly below the message you are replying to. If you click on "Include Original Message on Reply" check box, the original message will be included in your POST REPLY form.