Hi everyone,
With the new platform coming up, we want to make sure everyone feels very confident that they know the basics. We hope this will help you to get your bearings & make the transition go a little smoother for you.
So, here is our first version of the How to Guide on the New Platform (for desktop). For the moment, we have kept this thread as short as possible to help members get their training wheels on but, we will expand on it based on your thoughts and feedback .
Let's get started:
Basic feature walkthough:
The first page you will see when you enter the community is our home page showing all the recently active threads or an overall boards(tags) view. You can switch between the two at any point by clicking “All discussions or ‘Tags’
If you are starting with the All discussions view, you can either jump straight into a conversation or go to a specific board(tag) if you want to only see threads from one board (tag).
Replying to a post:
Once you have found a thread that takes your interest and you want to join the conversation you can either click on the Reply that exists at the bottom of every post or the general reply box on the right hand side.
*Here's a nice little perk if you choose the reply attached to a post, it will automatically @ mention the post you are referring to just like in the picture below.
Once you have clicked on reply, a box will pop up containing your usual post creating/editing tools like adding images and emojis, as well as your usual text formatting tools. As soon as you are ready just hit 'Post reply' and you are all set, your reply is posted - woohoo!
Creating a new thread:
Since we are here, let’s quickly cover creating a new thread. You will find the “start a discussion button on the top left side of either the All discussions view or on each of the boards(tags).
Clicking on either will open up the familiar compose box but depending on where you were when you clicked it, you will either have to select the board you want to post your thread in (if you were on the All discussions view ) or you will have it preselected for you (if you were already on a board(tag).
*Just a quick note for you all when creating a thread- leaving the recipients line empty will make this a public post but adding recipients will make this a group conversation where only the members added in the recipients field can view this private message.
Kudos/Reactions:
Moving on to giving kudos (or more than kudos on the new platform) is super simple. Just tap the little icon next to Reply and you will see a list of different reactions, all you need to do is make your choice.
Quoting and @ mentioning:
One of our favourite things about Flarum is the ability to quote in various ways. Like mentioned above, simply clicking on ‘Reply’ attached to a specific post will automatically @ mention and quote that post. However, if you want to do things a little differently, you can always use the @ symbol when replying and then select the post you are referring to.
Here is a lovely little example:
Then again, if you decide to partially quote a post, just highlight the relevant parts of the post and you will see a 'Quote' button appear. Click that and the section you have highlighted will be quoted in your post:
Reporting /flagging up a post to an Educator:
There may be occasions where there is a post on the community that doesn't seem right and you may want to report this to the community team. You can do this by clicking on the three dots at the bottom right of every post and then click on the flag icon. This will then present you with a few choices - choose the one that best fits the reason of why you want to flag the post to an educator for.
If neither option fits, select “other “ and a secondary box will appear for you to to add further details, after which just hit “Flag Post” to send the community team your report.
Soft delete
Whilst we’re here, we have a great new function that we’re trialling called ‘soft delete’. This means, if it happens that you make a mistake and didn't want to post something, you can use the soft delete function to hide your post from being seen on the community. The community team will still be able to view it.
Private messages
Moving on to private discussion/messages, you can find them in your profile alongside lists of your recent posts, created threads, mentions, ignored users and settings.
Hurrah! You will now be able to view a summary of your private discussion/messages.
To open the message and respond, press on the PM title. You will now see the full contents of the message and have the ability to reply (if you wish).You'll be pleasantly surprised to see that replying to a private message is very similar to making a post on the community.
Hope this was helpful and enough to get you started. If you want to give it a go head over to https://community.giffgaff.com/ and give it a go.
Update -
Evening all - rather than adding a guide to Private Discussions (PD) to the existing guides, we have created a new one here
Starting a Private Discussion on the new community platform - Mobile and Desktop.
As there are a few different ways - it made more sense to give it a guide all of it's own, and then link to it from here.
Cheers
Guy
