myCampus

How do I Create a Message Board?

To place a message board on your page, follow the instructions found at {How Do I Set Up an Application?}

Like any other app, you can set up the look and feel of this application (see {Look and Feel}) and to edit the permissions for this app (see {How Do I Set up Permission?}).

Creating a Category

Note: The following tutorial assumes that you are the owner or the creator of the message board, so if you are interacting with someone else’s message board, some of these options may not show up.

Click on Add Category and type in a name and a description of the category. When you are finished, click Save. You will now be taken back to the message board screen.

Editing a Category

You can edit the name and description of your category by clicking the Actions button on the right of that category and selecting Edit

You can set up permissions for every category individually. To do this click on Actions and then Permissions (see image below). For more instructions see the tutorial {How Do I Set Up Permissions?}

You can also subscribe to a category by clicking Actions and then Subscribe.

Deleting a Category

To delete a category entirely, click Actions and then Delete.

Creating a Thread

To create a new thread, I will click on a category and click Post New Thread (see image below).

This will bring up the add message screen. From here you can write your post, format it and add smileys (see image below)

You can set the priority of your thread by clicking the drop-down next to priority toward the bottom of the screen. There are three types of priorities (see image below to see how the different priorities look on the message board).

• Urgent
  • Urgent Threads are marked with a lightening bolt symbol to draw attention to them
• Sticky
  • Sticky Threads are marked with a exclamation point in a triangle and are pinned in place. Thus, they do not move downwards when new threads are posted.
• Announcements
  • Announcement Threads are marked with two text-bubbles

At the bottom of the add message screen, you can click Save to save your new thread, click Preview to see how your thread will appear, to delete this in-progress thread click Cancel. Your post will appear something like the below image.

Admins or owners can also edit permissions, split a thread into two separate threads, and move threads.

Viewing a Thread

You can view the posts in a thread in three different ways. First, go inside a category. To the far right is three small boxes with blue border. The image below has been photoshopped with a red circle to help you find them.

Clicking on one of these three options will determine how you view the message board's thread. Below is an image showing the different views and beneath that, a list detailing what the differences between the view are.

• Combination
  • This view shows the reply tree (which reply was to the original post, which was a reply to a reply and which was a reply to a reply to a reply, etc) above the thread.
  • Combination View keeps all the posts aligned evenly.
• Flat
  • Flat view shows all the posts aligned evenly
  • Flat view does not show anything in regards to what exact post an individual was replying to.
• Tree
  • Tree view indents each post (the degree depends on what the reply was connected to). Thus:
    • A reply to the original post will be only indented slightly
    • A reply to the reply of the original post will be indented further
    • A reply to the reply to the reply of the original post will be indented further still
  • This view does not have a diagram of the posts and replies like in combination view

Replying to a Thread

You can also reply to a post by clicking either Reply or Reply with a Quote (which copies their post into yours) (see image below.). The reply screen will look very similar to the Writing Post screen (see image far above), except the post that you are replying to will be below.

Interacting with a Thread

You can return to the top of the thread by clicking Top. If the post is your own and you would like to make some changes, you can click Edit. If you are the owner or an Admin, you can click Permissions to set permission for that post and you can use Split the Thread at that particular post (this will take that post and spin it into a new thread). And, obviously, clicking Delete will delete the post.

To the left side of a post, you can also like or dislike the post by thumbs up or thumbs down icons. You can also flag a post for inappropriate content by clicking Flag.

To the far left of the post is a miniature profile of the individual who created the post (see image below). You can view their name and how many post they have made on the message board and when they joined. Clicking on Recent Posts will show you all of the threads and posts created by this individual. Clicking on their profile image will take you to that individual's profile page.