Registration & Login
You are required to create an account before tracking your activity and weight or posting replies to Forums and Health Blogs. To take advantage of all the features offered by Princeton Living Well (PLW), you will need to have an account. It only takes a few seconds to register, and it is recommended you do so.
To create an account, click the Join link (in the top menu bar) to go to the Registration page and complete the form for creating a new account. Here you will specify details such as your User Name, Password, and email address.
After successfully registering you should have a User Name and Password. You can then visit the Sign in page and enter your User Name and Password to sign in.
When signing in, if you do not check the Next time automatically sign me in option, you will be automatically signed off after an administrator-defined length of inactivity, usually 20 minutes. If you would like the site to always sign you in automatically, please check the Next time automatically sign me in checkbox.
If you forgot your User Name and/or Password, click the I forgot my Password link to go to the Recover Password page and have a user password link emailed to you by entering the email account you're registered with. Once you receive the user password link, you can go to the Change Password page to change your Password.
If you’ve registered and can’t sign in, check to ensure you have a valid User Name and Password. If you are sure the User Name and Password are valid, but still can’t sign in, make sure that the Caps Lock key is not turned on. Passwords are case sensitive and require at least one number, so they must be entered exactly as you created them. If you're not sure you remember your Password, click the I forgot my password link. If you still have difficulty, click Contact Us (in the top menu bar) and complete the form to request help.
First check to ensure your User Name and Password are correct. If you still can’t sign in, make sure that the Caps Lock key is not turned on. Passwords are case sensitive and require at least one number, so they must be entered exactly as you created them. If you're not sure you remember your Password, click the I forgot my password link. If you still have difficulty, click Contact Us (in the top menu bar) and complete the form to request help.
User Profile & Settings
A profile is information about your account that is needed by PLW such as your name, address, and Health Profile. It also controls how you view information within PLW. This includes details about posts you’ve contributed to, personal information you wish to share such as your web address or weblog address, as well as settings that control how you interact with the PLW site such as themes, time zone, and many other settings. To view your profile, click
My Account (in the top menu bar) and click the various profile tabs.
Setting your time zone will enable PLW to display all dates and time relative to your time zone. To set this option, click
My Account (in the top menu bar) and click the
Site Options tab.
A signature is a message that is appended to the end of any posts you make in the Forums. You can edit your signature from the profile page. This signature will then appear at the bottom of any messages posted by you. To set this option, click
My Account (in the top menu bar) and click the
Signature and Bio tab.
An avatar is a feature of the Forums which allows for an image to be displayed along with your posts. Avatars may be enabled or disabled by the administrator. To set this option, click
My Account (in the top menu bar) and click the
Avatar tab.
If avatars are enabled by the administrator you will see an
Avatar tab when you click
My Account to view your profile. From here you can complete the Forum to name the avatar you wish to use, either uploading an avatar or specifying a URL to your avatar. You will also need to enable your avatar for it to be displayed with your posts.
PLW is designed to be multi-language friendly. Currently the only available language is English. Within your profile you will see a listing of the available languages. To see this list, click
My Account (in the top menu bar) and click the
Site Options tab.
The date format used to display any date information can be configured from your profile. To set this option, click
My Account (in the top menu bar) and click the
Site Options tab.
Email tracking is a feature which will send emails to you when messages that you are subscribed to change. You can turn off all email tracking globally from your profile. To set this option, click
My Account (in the top menu bar) and click the
Email tab.
There are many different icons that can show up next to User Names in the Forums. Common examples are administrators, moderators, or top posters. Other images may be displayed based on groups the user belongs to.
You may view Forums and Health Blogs, but you are required to be signed in before posting in these areas. This is primarily to protect the privacy of users who have shared their information or to prevent unwanted/unsolicited emails.
Privacy & Security
Once signed in you can change your Password from your profile. Just click
My Account (in the top menu bar) and click
Change Password in the left menu.
You cannot change your User Name.
Once signed in, you can change your private email address from your profile. Just click
My Account (in the top menu bar) and click the
Email tab.
The only profile setting that is required is your private email address. This is the email address that is used when you subscribe to the Forums and when a forgotten User Name/Password is emailed. The private email address is never shared or displayed publicly. If you wish to share an email address publicly, use the public email address field. The remaining the profile settings are optional.
You can set the option in your profile and your name will not appear in any member listings, including the listing of who is online. To set this option, click
My Account (in the top menu bar) and click the
Site Options tab.
Forums
A Forum Group is a top level grouping of related Forums. A Forum group contains 1 or more Forums.
A Forum is a grouping of related threads of discussion. A Forum contains 0 or more threads and 0 or more sub-forums.
A thread is a grouping of related posts. A thread contains 1 or more posts. The first post becomes the thread and replies to the original post increment details on the thread, such as the reply count or last post.
| Thread Icon Legend |
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Topic with posts you have not read. |
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Topic with posts you have read. |
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Popular topic with posts you have not read. A topic becomes popular after a certain number of views and posts (administrator defined). |
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Popular topic with posts you have read. A topic becomes popular after a certain number of views and posts (administrator defined). |
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Announcement you have not read |
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Announcement you have read |
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A pinned topic with posts you have not read. Pinned topics are displayed before other topics until they become unpinned. |
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A pinned topic with posts you have read. Pinned topics are displayed before other topics until they become unpinned. |
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A pinned popular topic with posts you have not read. A pinned topic with enough views or replies to become popular. |
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A pinned popular topic with posts you have read. A pinned topic with enough views or replies to become popular. |
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A locked topic with posts you have not read. Locked topics do not allow replies. |
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A locked topic with posts you have read. Locked topics do not allow replies. |
A Forum may not display any threads if there are no threads in the Forum or if filters on the forms have been applied and no threads match the filter. An example of a filter is filtering to display threads newer than a certain date, such as threads new in the past 2 weeks.
A Forum may or may not be moderated depending upon how the Forum has been configured. After posting a message in a moderated Forum you may receive a message stating that the post is awaiting moderation. Once the moderator(s) approve your post you post will become visible. The moderators may choose to move, edit, or delete your post to ensure that the post is topical to the current Forum.
The icons next to threads when viewing a Forum indicate different status. You can move your mouse cursor over these icons to see what the different status / types of threads are.
An announcement is a special post type that is always displayed at the top of a Forum for a configured amount of time. The purpose of an announcement is to increase the visibility of certain topics.
A sticky topic is a special post that causes a post to sort to the top of a Forum for a specified amount of time. A sticky topic is similar to an announcement, whereas an announcement is displayed separate from other threads and usually does not allow replies.
A locked thread is a special post that does not allow replies. Once a user locks a post or an administrator/moderator locks a thread no more posts are allowed.
Yes, you can sort threads when viewing a Forum by Author, Replies, Views, and Last Post. The default sort for a Forum is to display the newest threads first (Last Post descending). To sort simply click on the options button at the bottom of the screen and select your desired sort order and click 'Apply'.
The XML icon is linked to the RSS feed for the Forum. RSS is used to allow other applications to subscribe to a Forum's posts.
This icon indicates the user’s online status. A green icon means the user has been active recently (usually within the last 15 minutes). A red icon means the user has not recently been active. You can hover your mouse over this icon to see details about the user’s past activity.
If you are attempting to access a Forum that you have visited before, but now receive an ‘unknown forum’ error there are two likely causes. The first cause is that the Forum you are attempting to access is private and you are not signed in. The second cause is that the Forum has been removed.
Posting
Yes and no. You cannot type HTML directly into the editor. If you are using Internet Explorer the default editor for creating new posts will be a Rich Text Editor that will automatically format posts using HTML. If you post with a browser other than Internet Explorer a standard HTML textbox is used and BBCode can be used to mark-up posts.
BBCode is a special syntax for formatting plaintext posts.
Yes, however, this requires the moderator(s) or administrator(s) to enable this permission for user’s on a forum-by-forum basis.
Emoticons are graphical elements that can be added within the body of a post to add emotions to the post. Common examples are the use of smilies within the contents of a post. PLW comes with a pre-defined set of emoticons; however the administrator can add additional ones.
Only members you are signed in can post a new message to a Forum. When viewing a Forum, to post a new message, click the
Write a New Post button. Clicking on this button will take you to a form for posting a message. If you do not see the
Write a New Post button, you may either need to sign in or you may not have enough permissions – even after signing in – to post a message to the Forum even though you are allowed to view the Forum.
You can reply to an existing post using either the
Reply or
Quote buttons displayed with the post. If you do not see the
Reply or
Quote buttons when viewing a post you may need to sign in first, you may not have permissions to reply, or the post may not allow replies.
If the administrator or moderator has configured the Forum or your role to allow editing of posts, you will see an
Edit button next to posts you have made. Clicking on this button will allow you to edit your post.
If the administrator or moderator has configured the Forum or your role to allow deleting posts, you will see a
Delete button next to new posts you have made. If a post you have made has one or more replies, you will no longer be able to delete the post.
The administrator may have specified a word filter for posts. When word filters are enabled, certain words that are deemed to be offensive are filtered and replaced with the ‘*’ character.
See
How do I add a signature to my post? in the
User Profile and Settings section.
See
What is an avatar? and
How do I set my avatar? in the
User Profile and Settings section.
User Groups & Permissions
Permissions control what you are or are not allowed to do while browsing the site. The permissions you are granted control all aspects of your view within PLW.
An administrator is the highest permission level within PLW. By default, an administrator has full permissions to perform any action, e.g., moderating posts, approving users, and so on.
A moderator is the second highest permission level within PLW. By default a moderator can perform any number of tasks within a particular Forum or set of Forums. This includes approving posts, moving posts, deleting posts, editing posts, or banning users. If you have a problem with a particular Forum the best place to start is with a moderator. Moderators belong to varying groups configured by the Administrator.
A user group, also known as a role, is grouping of common users for the purpose of assigning permissions. In addition to common permission assignment a role can also be used to display an image for a user in that role. Roles make the job of administering and moderating the site easier since users can be assigned to roles and then permission applied based on those roles.
Users are assigned to user groups by the administrator. If there is a particular group you wish to join, please send a private message or email to one of its members for more information.
Private Messages
A private message is like email within PLW. You can send a private message to other users within this PLW site that is visible only to them. No private information, such as the user's email address, is ever disclosed.
About Community Server
PLW is built using a tool called Community Server. Community Server is a rich knowledge management and collaboration platform designed to meet the demands of the most rigorous collaborative needs. It is used by fortune 100 companies, small start-up businesses, schools, and individuals to better connect, share, and collaborate. Community Server is perfect for setting up a support system for products, reporting, and general information management by organizations or individuals.
Visit
http://www.communityserver.org to download the latest commercial or non-commercial version.
Visit
http://www.communityserver.org for more information on the types of licenses available. Community Server is available in both commercial and non-commercial versions.
Please visit
http://www.communityserver.org to learn how to contribute fixes or report bugs.