The venerable WinBatch WebBoard runs on an ancient server that has soldiered on for more years that anyone ever expected. The WebBoard software running on it has been amazingly reliable but it is no longer supported and is not the best choice for new more secure operating systems and databases. In short, it is finally time for a change. Naturally , change can cause frustration so I thought I would pass alone a very short list of tips that reflect things I have discovered while adjusting to the new WinBatch Technical Support forum.
- The first modification I made to my user profile was to check the "Return to topics after posting by default." box under Profile->Modify Profile->Look and Layout menu. This keeps you in the board you just posted in rather than go all the way back to the top of the forum. It just seemed more nature to me as a long time WebBoard user.
- This forum software limits the use of html in forum posts. However, it does allow the use of something called bbCode. You can use the buttons above the posting editor's edit box to insert bbCode or you can type them in directly. Not all bbCodes have buttons and Simple Machines has added support for a super set of standard bbCodes. The official SMF list of supported bbCodes can be found here
http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Alphabetical_list_of_all_bulletin_board_codes- An easy way to post a code snippet to the forum is to use the bbCode [code][/code] pair to create a scrollable widget containing the raw, unreformatted source you paste between the bbCodes. You end up with something like this
Message("WinBatch Forum", "Hello forum.")
- If you miss syntax colorization, it can be done with bbCode or you can use the forum's built-in syntax colorizer. Just make a selection from the 'Code' drop-down on the right side of the top row of editing tool widgets
1 ; Make sure bbCodes are treated as literals when necessary.
2 Message("Display bbCode as Text","[color]=blue[/color]")
- Be careful using the WISIWIG button - the button with the bracketed arrow. It does not give you a good visual indication of which mode you are in and pasting bbCode formatted text when in WISIWIG mode can wipe out your formatting.
- Watch out for your browser's back button. I catch myself using the browser back button when viewing a post preview when all I need to do is scroll down.
- For anyone using a browser lacking built-in spell checking, the new forum software also lacks a spell checker because support for the spell checker extension has been dropped from the latest Windows version of PHP. We are working on a solution.
- If you are an RSS fan, this forum is an RSS feed. The RSS link is at the bottom of the page.
I hope the above helps a little. If you find any tips and tricks of your own, please feel free to share them in this topic.
