The Forum

The Simple Wires forum is where you ask questions, share tips and follow announcements. Open it from Forum in the top bar of the Projects Dashboard, or from Help > Forum in the drawing editor, which opens it in a new tab.

The forum has the same top bar and avatar menu as the rest of Simple Wires, and follows your chosen theme. Help in the top bar, or F1, opens this page in the Help panel at the section for the forum page you’re on.

You use the forum with your Simple Wires sign-in: there is no separate forum account or password, and your forum name is the email you sign in with. Logout in the avatar menu signs you out of both. See Your Account.

Browsing the forum

The forum home page lists the forums in groups, with the number of threads and the latest post in each. The What’s going on box shows who is online and how many threads and posts there are.

Click a forum to see its topics. For each topic you can see who started it, the latest post, and how many views and posts it has. Large forums are split into pages; use the page links at the bottom. Home at the top takes you back to the list of forums.

The strip under the top bar has links to recent topics, recent posts and Search. When you are signed in, its right-hand side also shows how many unread topics and private messages you have.

Reading and replying

Click a topic’s title to read it. Each post shows the author, when it was posted, any attachments, and the author’s signature.

Under each post:

• The thumbs up and thumbs down icons rate the post. show rated messages only at the top of the topic hides the rest.
• mark as “accepted answer”: only shown to the person who started the topic.
• link: gives you a link straight to that post.
• reply with quote: starts a reply with the post quoted.
• report to moderator: flags the post for a moderator to look at.
• edit and delete: shown on your own posts. Deleting the only post in a topic deletes the topic.

To reply, type in the quick reply box at the bottom of the topic and click quick reply, or press Ctrl+Enter. For attachments or a preview, click add reply at the top instead, which opens the full editor described in Starting a topic.

A topic marked the topic is closed can’t take new replies.

Starting a topic

1. Open the forum the topic belongs in and click new topic.
2. Type a Subject (up to 50 characters) and your message.
3. Click preview to check it, then add message, or press Ctrl+Enter.

The toolbar formats your message: bold, italic, underline, links, lists, images, colours, quotes and YouTube videos. A YouTube link pasted on its own line is shown as a video.

• attach files adds files to the post, such as a screenshot or an exported drawing. To show an attached image inside the message rather than under it, type [img]att1[/img] for the first attachment, [img]att2[/img] for the second, and so on.
• create a poll adds a question with options for readers to vote on.
• Tick Notify me when a reply is posted to get an email when someone replies.

On a phone the toolbar, preview, attachments and polls are hidden.

Some forums are moderated: your post appears once a moderator approves it. A forum where you can’t start topics shows Posting to this forum is restricted.

Finding posts

• recent topics lists the newest topics across the forum, and recent posts the newest posts.
• unread topics lists the topics with posts you haven’t read yet.
• Search finds topics by words in their titles, or, if you clear Search titles only, in the posts too. Type at least three characters. You can limit the search to one forum or to a range of post dates, and match all the words, any of them, or the exact phrase.

Recent topics, recent posts, each forum and each topic have an RSS feed (the orange icon) if you prefer to follow them in a feed reader.

Email notifications

You can watch a topic or a whole forum and get an email when something new is posted:

• In a topic, click watch this topic for replies.
• In a forum, click watch this forum for new topics, or watch this forum for new posts to hear about every reply as well.
• When you post, tick Notify me when a reply is posted.

To see and cancel what you’re watching, open the avatar menu, choose Edit forum profile, then My subscriptions. Click unsubscribe next to anything you no longer want. In a topic or forum you can also click stop watching.

Private messages

Private messages are conversations between you and one other forum member.

• To start one, click the member’s name to open their profile, then click Send a private message. Write your message and click send message.
• To read yours, open the avatar menu and choose Private messages, or click messages in the strip under the top bar. Your inbox lists one conversation per person; unread ones are marked.
• In a conversation, reply with quote answers a message and delete removes it.

Your forum profile

Your forum profile is separate from your Simple Wires account profile. Other members see it when they click your name: your avatar, number of posts, reputation from rated posts, when you joined, and your homepage and interests.

• My forum profile in the avatar menu shows your profile as others see it.
• Edit forum profile lets you change your name, homepage, interests and signature, choose an Avatar picture (an image address, an uploaded file, a Gravatar or one of the predefined avatars), and hide yourself from the member lists.

The email on your forum profile is never shown to other members. To change the email or password you sign in to Simple Wires with, use Edit Profile and Manage Password in the avatar menu instead. See Your Account.