[Susan]

This is a most important tool. This is what you'll use everytime you post a thread, reply to a thread or send a private message. This is a biggie. I'll try to cover it all without making anyone cry.

There are 3 different formats that you can select for formatting your text for display on the forums, or in private messages. Here are the differences:

• There are three editor modes available: Basic, Standard and Enhanced mode. When using the Basic editor, there are no vBcode buttons to assist your editing. You must enter any vBcode markup manually in this editor. Save this for the professionals.
• When using Standard mode, highlight the text you wish to modify and press the appropriate button. This will place the proper vBcode tags around the selected text. Pressing a button while not having any selected text, will insert vBcode tags at your cursor. You may then enter your text between the tags. This is a bit easier, but not the most simple method.
• Here's the easy one: Enhanced Mode. When using the Enhanced mode, pressing a button will modify any highlighted text. This mode is a WYSIWYG mode, What You See Is What You Get, where your final post appears the same while being edited . Clicking a button while having no text selected will not have any effect

This is my favorite because I can SEE what I'm doing. Call me crazy, but I like that...it's comforting. To change from one editor format to another go to: "My Account" -> "Edit Options" scroll all the way to the bottom and select the editor of your choice from the dropdown menu in the "Message Editor Interface" section.

Click on the thumbnail below to open the screen with the basic text editor to get going. The one's on the left is shown in standard mode - with the vBcodes added by clicking on the buttons associated with those codes, and one shown in Enhanced Mode - they are actually the same screen, only with the viewing "mode" switched. See the red circle on the top right corner? The button inside that is the one that controls you view - when it's outlined in green, it's in Enhanced mode. Not green? Standard mode.

[Susan]

If that text box seems impossibly small, rest easy: you can grow it. Up and down arrows in the upper right corner to the right of the "mode" view change button will increase/decrease the size of the text box. The one that you type in.

[Susan]

If you are viewing in Internet Explorer, instead of our preferred Firefox (we heart Firefox), you actually have a perk available in the way of a spell check. It's that little button next to the increase/decrease button and it looks like this: Granted, it's something you have to download, but it's a perfectly safe little program that will help you to edit your posts for spelling errors. One caveat: It can't help you with IKEA names.

[Susan]

Few things here. First up is that strange icon, top left - it's circled in red. If you are in either mode and would like to remove the formatting around your text, you can highlight all your text (include the code if you are in Standard mode), then click that button. That will remove the formatting completely. That's the first thumbnail on the left. With that out of the way, let's move on to the more common font formatting tools.

For the next two items, I'm going to discuss them in the Enhanced Mode - they are slightly different in Standard, but not enough to warrant additional words or pictures. You'll figure it out - I have faith.

Ok, next up is your selection of font (arrow #1) -- the default here is Arial - if you want to blend, leave it alone; if you want to stand out from the crowd, you can change it, but bear in mind that changing it to something funky may not display the way you desire on some browsers (pretty safe ones are Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif., Tahoma, Times New Roman, and Verdana - these should be available on most, if not all browsers).

Arrow #2 - Size...yes, it's important. 3 or 12pt is average around here. Please only use larger text sparingly, or if you have an exceedingly difficult time reading smaller text. Please note that Firefox users who have mice with scroll wheels can increase the text size on many pages (including this one) by pressing Ctl and scrolling the wheel. Presto!

Arrow #3 - Color - Again, only change the color if it's necessary to emphasize a point or sparingly for kicks and giggles.

Arrow #4 - Smilies! We lurve smilies. Drop it down, scroll and see the available smilies + their associated meanings. How about this one? = IKEAddicted. We love smilies so much we've made you two ways to get to them...the right hand box of smilies is a quick and easy way to drop one into your text, the one on top works if you need to see the associated meaning. If you're in Standard mode, you'll see the text code for the smilie in your post.

Arrow #5 - Ah, the attachment manager. This is what will help you to, well...manage your attachments. An attachment is a picture or a document that will show up in that nifty little "Attached Thumbnails" box below. This saves space, resources and time for those on dialup or slow connections.

If you click on the paperclip, or the dropdown next to it for that matter, you'll get a pop-up like the one in the second thumbnail below (if you have popups disabled, you may not see this). At the bottom, you'll see a list of the allowed file types and maximum sizes. You can collapse/expand this by clicking on the double arrow to the right of "Attachment Key". At the top are the tools to help you get your attachment attached.

There are 2 ways to upload.

The first method works if you've got the file on your own personal computer. Click on the browse button to find it, (in windows environments, you'll click open once you've selected the file) then click upload. You should see "Uploading File(s) Please Wait" for a second or two, then the name of your file will appear with a link so that you can check to see if it is the one you intended. Then click close this window. If you preview your message at this point, you should see your attachment as a thumbnail at the bottom of your post. Congrats!

The second method is for when you've got a file saved on another server - whether it be your personal blog or website, or a photohosting account, such as Photobucket, Snapfish or Flickr. Browse to the web location of the file, and copy the URL (unless you know it by heart), then paste it into the Upload file from a URL box and click Upload. Wait a sec or two and voila!

Upload Errors:

Invalid File - file of a type not supported, such as a .png or .pdf. You'll need to abandon your mission or change the file to a different format - changing only the extension will not work, as this baby's smart and will recognize files with the wrong extension.

The Dimension limits for this filetype are 620 x 480. We were unable to resize your file so you will need to do so manually and upload it again. Your file is currently 511 x 628. This is different from the file size, which has its own error message below.

Upload of file failed - In most cases this is because the size of the file is too large. This is not the physical dimensions of the picture, it's the size (in bytes or KB) of the file.

Invalid URL - You got the wrong address.

If your file fails to load, and you don't get any error, check to be sure that you actually clicked on Upload - if you don't click on Upload, it won't. I find that I make this mistake most often when uploading from my computer. I've already clicked Browse, then Open -- I'm done, right? Not so fast...still gotta click Upload.

Please note: This method is only for attaching a file to be displayed as a thumbnail below your post. Displaying a photo inline is a whole different process, discussed in another thread.

Arrow #6 - Undo, Redo. Fix something, put it back the way it was. Endless entertainment.

[Susan]

These next few buttons do pretty simple formatting for your text. These will apply styles to the text that you type.

Arrows #1, 2 and 3 - Make your text bold, italicized or underlined. Either click the button and start typing, then click when you're done to end the style effect, or highlight text you've already typed and apply the effect by clicking the appropriate button. Please use only for emphasis, and refrain from using underlining - people have come to expect underlined words to be text links. There are already enough mouse-clicking injuries each year without our adding to them.

Arrow #4 - These are alignment tools for the text. Left aligned is standard for keyboards in the western world. Centered text is reserved for special occasions, and I'm not sure why you'd want right aligned text in a post, but there it is. Again, either click and type, or type then highlight and click. Your choice.

Arrow #5 - These are for lists. Numbered or Bulleted - take your pick. Click the button and start typing. A paragraph return (Enter) will start a new line with a new number or bullet.

Arrow #6 - Indent, Unindent. No big secrets here.

[Susan]

Arrow #1 - Text Linking - So...you want to know how to turn your text into a link, like this IKEAFANS Forums, huh? Well, with this handy dandy little editor, it's pretty easy really.
Really!

First off, type the text that you want to turn into a link. I typed IKEAFANS Forums. Then, highlight it with your cursor and click on the button above arrow #1 in the thumbnail below. This will pop up a box into which you can type, or paste the URL that you want the link to point to. The box already contains the http:// that is required - make sure you don't end up with zero or two cases of this, or it won't work! So, I typed www.ikeafans.com/forums next to the http:// and clicked OK and I got this IKEAFANS Forums. This is easier on the eyes than posting a long URL - give it a try!

Arrow #2 - Undoes what you just done. If you don't want it undone, don't do it.

Arrow #3 - If you want a link that will send email to someone (preferably yourself), you can click on the icon above arrow #3 and type in the email address. You'll get something like this: webmaster@ikeafans.com Alternatively, you can type a word, such as webmaster, highlight it and then enter the address - then you would get webmaster. Now you're rolling!

Arrow #4 - This is how you would put a photo inline. In most cases, posting an attachment is the better choice, but you may want to have a small graphic or photo inline, and this is how you'd do it. Click on the Insert Photo icon (it looks like this: ) and type in the URL of the photo you wish to display. There is no option to upload directly from your computer as you were able to in the Attachment Manager. See how cleverly I showed you which button to click? I inserted an image inline.

Arrow #5 - Use this if you want to quote someone. For instance, you can copy text from someone else's post, plunk it down in yours, highlight it, click on the icon above #5 and it will wrap your highlighted text with quote marks.

Quote:
Use this if you want to quote someone.
One note: For whatever reason, this one does not show up in the full Enhanced mode the way it will once you post it. It looks the same as it would look in standard mode, with the quote codes around it. Who knows?

[Susan]

At the bottom of your text editor, you'll see a list of icons, some similar to smilies, some a little different. These are to give other members an indication of the content of your post. If you had a bright idea, you might attach a lightbulb icon to your post. Not necessary, but it's an option.

The default is no icon, and that is what a lot of people will use. Remember the story about the boy who cried wolf? hmmm.... I've attached a "thumbs up" Post Icon to this post just so you can see what it looks like. When you select one, it will show up to the right of the Title box at the top of your text editor, but then when you preview or submit your post, it will show up to the left. Go figure.

[Susan]

I've jumped down a bit to show you a couple other options available when you're posting a thread or a reply.

The first thumbnail on the left shows the set of options you'll get when starting a new thread. You can choose to show your signature or not, to parse links, and/or to disable smilies. Automatically parse links means that if you type in a web address, it will automatically turn it into a link, like this http://www.ikeafans.com. If you don't have the http:// in there, it won't do anything. Also, if you've previewed or posted with the text parsing on, and then you decide you don't want the text parsed, you have to completely remove the text/link, uncheck the box and try again. It's stubborn and has a memory.

Below that is a quick way to Attach files if it's a new thread, or to check out the attachments you have, and change or remove them if you want. It opens the same popup window as when you first clicked on Manage Attachments a few screens above.

You can choose what type of notification you'd like for an individual thread. You can also choose not to receive any notifications (it defaults to sending you one automatically), or to receive email notifications immediately, daily, or weekly. IF, you have your general settings in your Options in My Account set to receive daily email notifications, but for this one you'd like to know about new posts immediately, you can override your default settings here. Fun, huh? Also, if you've got multiple folders in your Subscriptions area, you'll get that second drop-down box to indicate which folder you'd like the notifications to go to if you've subscribed to the thread.

Quickie clarification:

• A Subscription or Subscribed thread is a way to receive links to the threads that you've posted, replied or chosen within the IKEAFANS forums. You will find these "subscribed" threads in your My Account and you can check out the action as you please.
• An Email Notification sends an email to your personal Inbox on your own computer, outside of the IKEAFANS forums. It will also include a link to the thread, and it will come from webmaster@ikeafans.com. If you choose to have email notification, please be sure that your spam filter is set to allow emails from that address.

If you are starting a new thread where you want to post a poll, this is where you would find that option. Click on "Yes...." and pick the number of options you want to have. Fill them in, click ok and submit your thread. Watch the votes flood in.

The "chevron" symbol, or the double arrow at the top right of this pane will collapse or expand it as you wish.

If you are replying to a thread, you will also see an additional pane below the Additional Options -- this one's for Thread Review. This gives you the chance to roll back through the existing replies and the original post so that you can focus your reply or find details that you need. The previous posts are listed from the most recent first, and if there are more than 5, then at the bottom you'll see a link to open a page with the whole thread to review. This is pretty cool!

[Susan]

Ok, so you've done all the tweaking and editing you want to do, you've attached attachments, checked your options and set up your poll. Now what? You want to get your message out there to the world, right? Click that Submit button!!

Ah, but wait...not so fast. You have the opportunity, nay the responsibility to preview your post. Please take advantage of this opportunity to allieve your post of any misspelled words, unclear phrases and/or bad links. The easier your posts are to read for others, the more response you'll get. Try it, you'll see. So...click that Preview Post button.

Check it out

• Have you overused punctuation????!!!????
• Are you YELLING BY USING ALL CAPS?
• Have you misspleed words?
• R U sure U R not tlkng N [code]?
• Are there more than words?
• Have you checked to be sure the attached photo is the one you intend, and not that special one you took last Valentine's day?

Check it over and when you're sure, and only then...Click on Submit. You'll see a screen assuring you that your post posted, and then you'll be taken back to your post. Ah...sweet satisfaction.

Oh, all this is assuming you are a registered member. Guests can't post.

[Susan]

So I broke my own rule. I decided that my post above looked better with a bulleted list. So, I had to go back in and edit it (convenient, eh?) There's currently no time limit set on editing your posts, so if you go back 2 days later and figure out that you made a misstatement, or left out a word or two you can go back in and fix it -- afterall, everyone makes mistakes, right? There will be an "edited by..." note left at the bottom of your post. You can add a reason that you edited too -- it will make other people feel more comfortable knowing what you added or deleted from a post.

Simple Editing - Ok, so click on Edit in the bottom right of your screen, and you'll get what looks like the first thumbnail below - a simple editor. This can be used for most text edits, and to fix a few formatting issues. Make your changes, then click save and you're done.

Advanced Editing - If your troubles run deeper than that, you'll need Advanced Edit. Click on Go Advanced, or Cancel if you decide to leave it as is. You'll need to go advanced if you forgot to upload a file. This is nothing more really than your standard Text Editor. Again, make your changes and you're done.