All About the Dgrin Forum Control Panel

DavidTO

If you want to change any of your settings, or just review what's available in our forum's software, go up to the navbar at and click on "You!"



When you click on "You!" there will be a menu of options on the left hand side of the window :



Index(clickable links):
Edit Signature
Edit Email and Password
Edit Profile
Edit Options
Edit Avatar
Private Messaging

DavidTO

Edit Signature.



Editing your signature is much like making a post in a forum. Type in what you want, and make sure you preview before saving.

DavidTO

Edit Email and Password.


1) To make any changes on this page, you must first enter your current password.

2) If you want to change your password, you then type in the new one, 2x, in order to make sure you didn't fat-finger it.

3) You can also change the email address tied to your username. Again, you need to type it in 2x. NOTE: Changing your email address requires that you re-verify your email. This means that you will temporarily not be able to post until you've verified your email.

When done, save your changes.

DavidTO

Edit Profile


1) Dgrin by default assigns User Titles based on the number of posts you've made. If you want to override this, and enter your own, this is where you do it.

What's a User Title? It's the line that appears below your Username in your posts, like this:


2) You can enter your birthdate, including year, if you choose. You also have the option to hide your birthday, your age, or birthday AND age.

3) This is where you enter your homepage. This becomes a clickable link if someone were to click on your name in a forum, like this:



4) If you want other users to be able to IM (as opposed to sending a Private Message), then you can enter your IM username in the appropriate box.


My Gear and More



1) Enter the gear you own here.

2) Put the stuff you'd love to have, but haven't bought yet here.

3) This is where you put your location (city, state, province, region, country, GPS coordinates, or whatever you want). *NOTE: For some unknown reason this field will not show up unless you've got something in the other fields in this box. Here I've put in "." in each box. This will allow the location to show in your posts. Otherwise, Location is invisible, even if you've entered it.

4) This is where you tell us what kind of photography you most enjoy, or other passions.

5) Your profession goes here.

DavidTO

Edit Options
Edit Options has 5 subsections. We'll do each one at a time.

Login and Privacy



1) You can be stealthy by ticking the "Use Invisible Mode" checkbox. This will make you invisible to other users, if that's important to you.

2) Unless you want your address card shared with just about anyone, leave this box unticked.



Messaging and Notification



1) Leave "Receive Email from Administrators" checked. This is an important form of communication that the administrators have with you. It is used very seldom.

2) It's up to you whether or not you want other users to be able to send you email. Your email is not revealed to them, unless you reply to that email.

3) You can set subscriptions on a thread by thread basis, but this is where you save your default settings. These are your choices:



4) Private messaging is a great way to communicate if you don't want to use email.

5) It is recommended that you enable PMs. A notice of new PMs appears in the upper right of the window, on just about any Dgrin page you could navigate to:



6) If you want email notification of new PMs, check this box.

7) This enables a pop-up window when you receive a new PM and are logged onto Dgrin. Pop-up blockers can interfere with this.


Thread Display Options



1) You can turn on/off signatures, avatars and images here.

2) This controls how messages are displayed within a thread. You have 4 options:
a) Linear-Oldest First (default, recommended). This displays the messages in a "flat" view, with the oldest messages first. A useful function with this form of display is "View First Unread," which will take you to the first post that you've not yet read.
b) Linear-Newest First. This sorts the posts in reverse chronological order.
c) Threaded. This view shows the first post only, and above it puts a tree of all the posts in the thread, which you can click on one by one to view. This way only one post is visible at any given time.
d) Hybrid. This view is like threaded, but also shows any replies to a given post.

3) This sets how many posts will show up on one page. It defaults to 10. One thing to note: Google searches are based on 10 per page.

4) You can make threads older than a given time period not appear. There are many options here.


Date & Time



Set your timezone, Daylight Savings Time and start of the week options here.


Miscellaneous Options



1) This changes the editing interface of the "Reply" function in Dgrin. You can have a basic editor, the standard editor (with more functions), or a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface. The WYSIWIG editor shows you exactly what your post will look like. You can use buttons to style your text, and insert images. The Standard editor will also have the buttons, but will not show the formatting. Instead it will show the code for the image, instead of the actual image. The Basic editor will show only text/code and no buttons

2) You can also change the skin, or look, of Dgrin. Note: you can also change the skin you're using to view Dgrin at the bottom left of any page.

3) You can clean up the forum view to your preferences. If you never visit and just aren't interested in some of the forums, you can exclude them from your view here. NOTE: on the Mac you'd use the Command key instead of the Control key to select multiple forums.

DavidTO

Edit Avatar
An Avatar is an image that shows up next to your posts, like this:





1) If you don't want to have a Avatar, then tick this.

2) To use a custom Avatar, tick this.

3) It is not recommended that you link your Avatar.

4) We DO recommend that you upload your Avatar from your computer.

DavidTO

Private Messaging


1) Your Private messages can be accessed in two places. One is in your control panel (on the left), and the other is at the top right of just about any Dgrin page.

2) You can also export your PMs to XML, CSV, or Text. If you don't know what those mean, export Text.

This is what it looks like when you're creating a new Private Message:



1) Click New Message to make a new message.

2) Enter recipients here. Note: unlike email, recipients won't be able to see if the message was sent to multiple recipients. If you are sending to more than one person, it's good manners to let everyone know. Also, this field will auto-complete from the list of registered members, for your convenience.

3) You must enter a title.

4) Write the body of your message here. It's much like making a post. You should preview the message before Submitting it.

Don't overlook the options below the Message Entry Window!


You can even make Folders to store your PMs in, like mailboxes in your mail client:


1) Click on "Edit Folders".

2) Enter Folder names to create new Folders.