loading.1357
Junior Member
To be honest, this is my first time using a forum, can anyone help me figure out how to use it?
Animal Crossing New leaf Forum
- Thread starter loading.1357
- Start date
December_W_Wolf
Ah yes, Animal Crossing Let's Go to the City
I have no idea if you're still on this forum, but I'm happy to at least try?
This particular forum seems like it's built on the phpBB framework (or something similar, I've not seen many other kinds of forum software myself so I don't know much about the differences), which is something of a staple (yet dated) open-source software package to basically help people make a forum, so despite missing some features present on here, a lot of other forums will behave similarly to this one.
If you've got to this point, you should have already seen the homepage with all its different categories and sub-categories. You've also managed to start your own forum thread within the New Leaf sub-category, which is good.
It's already been explained in the Bell system thread, but each time you post (with the exception of some threads/categories, such as The Basement), you earn a certain amount of Bells, with longer posts earning more. These can be spent either in the various trading/buying threads found across the forum or in the Shop (next to the notifications button), where you can purchase various things from silly collectibles to username changes to name colours (bear in mind some items only last for a certain amount of time and will specifically mention how long they last or when they will be going away either in the title or description). I cannot really help you much with the trading/buying threads though, as I would rather not get involved in those kinds of transactions, nor do I have any interest in them.
As a part of the (presumably) phpBB software used to make up this forum, you will most likely end up stumbling into code specifically for this kind of website - BBCode. This is basic markdown to help you embed links into text, change text colour and size, and add the lines above, for example. Since text boxes on this forum use a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface by default, you can get away with not learning any BBCode by just using the icons at the top of the text box you're typing into; if, however, you're ever interested in learning, the BBCode website has a whole page dedicated to the BBCode syntax. Do note, though, that not all BBCode markdown may work on all phpBB forums (perhaps the owner disabled some of them, perhaps they require extra plugin installation... I don't know, I haven't made a forum before). You can also view the markdown editor by clicking on the [ ] button (right next to Preview, Undo/Redo and Drafts) if you ever want to tinker with it yourself. If you do have BBCode in a comment or post, I'd suggest clicking Preview just in case (although in this particular case the WYSIWYG editor you use to type anything on this forum should do the trick - not all forums have this, so I'd recommend familiarising yourself with that function), and click it again to go back to the text editor. And hey, if you do send something and later think "oof I don't like XYZ thing about this", you can always go back to it and click Edit.
Another note on phpBB, no matter what forum I've visited based on this infrastructure, threads (with the exception of pinned ones) are always sorted in order of the most recent activity by default.
If you want to get notifications for a thread, you can always "watch" it - just click "Watch" on the right just above the first post. Likewise, if you've decided you don't want notifications from a particular thread, click the same button to unwatch it. Note that any thread you post in will be watched by default.
Signatures! I quite like signatures, even if I haven't got round to making one on here yet. These are like little custom-made messages that are automatically appended to the end of anything you post on the forum (some forums allow you to decide whether or not to add a signature on a post-by-post basis). Just click on your username up the top of the page, look for Signature, and have fun! Some people like to put funny memes, some people like to link to their pages, some people like to leave it empty, you can put basically whatever you want there just so long as it abides by the forum's signature rules. Just note that these are made with (surprise surprise) BBCode. Again, there are icons at the top of the text box, but not as many as a regular comment box, so if you want to achieve certain effects you may need to get used to manually typing in the BBCode yourself.
The news feed is a feature I haven't really used yet, but basically you can follow people on the forum, and things they post will appear there... I think. I also haven't used the DM feature besides sending myself a joke message about 10 minutes ago, nor is it on my mostly frequented phpBB forum Reject Convenience, so I'm afraid I can't tell you very much about that. All I know is you click on someone's username or profile picture, and there should be an option to DM them. That said, I'm quite sure the rules ask that users request consent from others before DM'ing them, so I'd imagine this feature is used somewhat sparingly among law-abiding Forum Villagers.
One feature I am a lot more familiar with, though, is "Your content", also found in the drop-down after clicking your username at the top of the page. All your comments and posts are listed there, so if you're looking for a specific thing you said or just want to laugh about how naïve you used to be 10 years prior, then that is the place to go.
I think that's pretty much it, if there's something else you'd like explained let me know and I'll do my best!
Edit: changed the "embed links into text" link to something with less flashing lights (it was originally Jellyfish Slam) and added the small half-sentence about clicking Preview again to edit text again.
Edit 2: fixed some of the absolutely atrocious grammar, reworked a sentence or two, and included the fact that phpBB is open-source.
This particular forum seems like it's built on the phpBB framework (or something similar, I've not seen many other kinds of forum software myself so I don't know much about the differences), which is something of a staple (yet dated) open-source software package to basically help people make a forum, so despite missing some features present on here, a lot of other forums will behave similarly to this one.
If you've got to this point, you should have already seen the homepage with all its different categories and sub-categories. You've also managed to start your own forum thread within the New Leaf sub-category, which is good.
It's already been explained in the Bell system thread, but each time you post (with the exception of some threads/categories, such as The Basement), you earn a certain amount of Bells, with longer posts earning more. These can be spent either in the various trading/buying threads found across the forum or in the Shop (next to the notifications button), where you can purchase various things from silly collectibles to username changes to name colours (bear in mind some items only last for a certain amount of time and will specifically mention how long they last or when they will be going away either in the title or description). I cannot really help you much with the trading/buying threads though, as I would rather not get involved in those kinds of transactions, nor do I have any interest in them.
As a part of the (presumably) phpBB software used to make up this forum, you will most likely end up stumbling into code specifically for this kind of website - BBCode. This is basic markdown to help you embed links into text, change text colour and size, and add the lines above, for example. Since text boxes on this forum use a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface by default, you can get away with not learning any BBCode by just using the icons at the top of the text box you're typing into; if, however, you're ever interested in learning, the BBCode website has a whole page dedicated to the BBCode syntax. Do note, though, that not all BBCode markdown may work on all phpBB forums (perhaps the owner disabled some of them, perhaps they require extra plugin installation... I don't know, I haven't made a forum before). You can also view the markdown editor by clicking on the [ ] button (right next to Preview, Undo/Redo and Drafts) if you ever want to tinker with it yourself. If you do have BBCode in a comment or post, I'd suggest clicking Preview just in case (although in this particular case the WYSIWYG editor you use to type anything on this forum should do the trick - not all forums have this, so I'd recommend familiarising yourself with that function), and click it again to go back to the text editor. And hey, if you do send something and later think "oof I don't like XYZ thing about this", you can always go back to it and click Edit.
Another note on phpBB, no matter what forum I've visited based on this infrastructure, threads (with the exception of pinned ones) are always sorted in order of the most recent activity by default.
If you want to get notifications for a thread, you can always "watch" it - just click "Watch" on the right just above the first post. Likewise, if you've decided you don't want notifications from a particular thread, click the same button to unwatch it. Note that any thread you post in will be watched by default.
Signatures! I quite like signatures, even if I haven't got round to making one on here yet. These are like little custom-made messages that are automatically appended to the end of anything you post on the forum (some forums allow you to decide whether or not to add a signature on a post-by-post basis). Just click on your username up the top of the page, look for Signature, and have fun! Some people like to put funny memes, some people like to link to their pages, some people like to leave it empty, you can put basically whatever you want there just so long as it abides by the forum's signature rules. Just note that these are made with (surprise surprise) BBCode. Again, there are icons at the top of the text box, but not as many as a regular comment box, so if you want to achieve certain effects you may need to get used to manually typing in the BBCode yourself.
The news feed is a feature I haven't really used yet, but basically you can follow people on the forum, and things they post will appear there... I think. I also haven't used the DM feature besides sending myself a joke message about 10 minutes ago, nor is it on my mostly frequented phpBB forum Reject Convenience, so I'm afraid I can't tell you very much about that. All I know is you click on someone's username or profile picture, and there should be an option to DM them. That said, I'm quite sure the rules ask that users request consent from others before DM'ing them, so I'd imagine this feature is used somewhat sparingly among law-abiding Forum Villagers.
One feature I am a lot more familiar with, though, is "Your content", also found in the drop-down after clicking your username at the top of the page. All your comments and posts are listed there, so if you're looking for a specific thing you said or just want to laugh about how naïve you used to be 10 years prior, then that is the place to go.
I think that's pretty much it, if there's something else you'd like explained let me know and I'll do my best!
Edit: changed the "embed links into text" link to something with less flashing lights (it was originally Jellyfish Slam) and added the small half-sentence about clicking Preview again to edit text again.
Edit 2: fixed some of the absolutely atrocious grammar, reworked a sentence or two, and included the fact that phpBB is open-source.
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