TZR Forum Tutorial

What is a forum?
A forum is, quite simply, the part of the website that gives you the ability to contribute and get involved outside of training and TZR social events. It's simple, easy to use and allows you to join in and reply to other people's messages as well as start your own discussions. It's just another way to really get involved with the club!

So how do I use it?
Using a forum might look complicated to those who have never visited one before, but with this brief tutorial you'll see just how easy it can be.


This is a view of the forum home page or "index". The red numbers refer to parts of the forum that will be explained below.


Registering
To begin with you need to register an account. When you sign up you will have to wait for an administrator to verify that you are a member of the club before you can start posting, but you will be able to post as a guest in the forum. To speed up activation make sure you use a username that makes you easily identifiable. Alternatively, you may send an email to the administrator giving your full name as well as the username you chose.
Registering an account is quick and easy. You can do so by clicking the "Register" button at the top of the page (located at #1). You will have to choose a username and a password, as well as enter a valid email address. Once this is done and you've been approved by an administrator, you can log into the site by clicking the "Login" button to the right of "Register". You can also use the quick login boxes near the foot of the page (#4).

Navigating the forum and posting messages
To view posts you first need to pick the forum you wish to view. On the front page we have 5 different forums, each with a different topic, and split into two categories (#2) (this is excluding the category for and link to this tutorial). When there is a new post in a forum that you have not read yet the square to the immediate right of #2 will change colour. The key is located at the foot of the page (#5). Clicking on the title of the forum you wish to check will take you directly there.



Here we can see there is one "topic" or "thread" (#2). New topics can be started by clicking the "New Topic" button (#1). Were we to post a new topic it would be listed just below the existing one. The square to the left of the topic title tells us whether or not there are unread posts in that topic, using the same key as the index page.

If we click on the topic we can see a list of the posts:



There is only one post in the topic. As with creating a new topic you may reply using the "Post Reply" button. Any subsequent replies will appear below.



And that's all you really need to know! I haven't covered everything because, once you know the basics, you'll quickly pick up all the little extra bits that would take far too long to explain.