Fed-X
08-09-2002, 01:17 PM
PTO Members Memo
RE: New U.S. Regional Discussion Forums
PTO New Site Features Coming!
PTO Live Chat ¡V New Options & Ideas
**New Forums**
Most of you that have been on PTO within the last 24 hours have probably noticed the increase in size, to include all 50 states, in our U.S. Regional Discussion Forum section.
I¡¦ve decided to go ahead and include all 50 states so that members may have a place to effectively communicate at a regional level without having to go through the process of requesting that state¡¦s forum be created. This will probably leave a number of states unaccounted for until our membership rises in that region, but I think we can live with empty forums in a few areas for the time being.
For some of you, this large increase in new forums (approximately 50) will undoubtedly make browsing the parent forums a little more difficult. To try and alleviate the distraction of having close to 100 forums, I have placed the Regional forum categories close to the very bottom of the list. The only category that is below the regional ones is the Live Chat Q&A and Live Chat. If you don¡¦t use the Regional Forums, the only time you will need to scroll all the way to the bottom of the list is when you want to access the Live Chat Feature on PTO.
**New Features**
Very soon we will be re-vamping the features of PTO to include quite a few new additions to our community¡¦s functionality. At this time I will discuss one of them that directly effects browsing and will give you the power to control which forums are visible to you. I mention this one because it will allow you to ¡§shrink¡¨ the forum categories that you chose, thus making them invisible if you don¡¦t use them regularly. Each category¡¦s title bar (ex. U.S. Regional Forums) will have a ¡§+¡¨, or a ¡§-¡§ in the center of it in which you can click to either expand or contract all the forums listed under that category. If you don¡¦t want to see all 50 States listed in the U.S. Regional Forums, you would click on the +/- icon in the center and they will close, only leaving the Category Title bar visible.
To see an example of how this new modification works, you can go to: www.addforums.com/forums and look at the Category Title bars. The Titles are centered and to the left of each title is a little red box with a ¡§-¡§ in it. When you click on it, you will see the forums in that category contract, and vice-versa. When we have these added to PTO, the system will remember your preferences so that you set them and forget them.. PTO will remember where you last placed them. ;)
In addition to this little add-on, installing a full-featured database Resource section is at the top of our list of Too-Doo¡¦s.
I will provide a punch-list of site mods that will be scheduled in the near future in the PTO News, Information & Events forum soon.
**Live PTO Chat**
Our live chats here at PTO are becoming more and more popular all the time. Regrettably, there are a large number of you that are unable to gain access for one reason or another. I am working on giving you more than one access option so that we can hopefully eliminate most, if not all of the denials of entry. (If you are at work and they have a firewall, you still may not be able to access chat due to company policies that prevent such things)
I will be writing a short & basic instructional guide on how to install free IRC (Internet Relay Chat) clients on your computer that can access the PTO chat without going through the Java window we use on the website. Many people have Java scripts blocked, thus disallowing your access to chat. Hopefully, with programs/clients such as mIRC & WorldIRC, you won¡¦t have this problem any longer.
Please go to the Live Chat Q&A Forum and read this post when you have a chance. (It will be available Friday Aug. 9, 2002, in the evening) Post title will be ¡§Other Options to Live Chat @ PTO ¡V IRC Clients¡¨ and will be sticky at the top of the forum. It¡¦ll be worth reading whether you need to use one or not. (These programs will let you log the chat conversations and give you many other features not offered in chat via the web site)
One other thing I want to mention in regards to Live PTO chat ¡V you can stay in the chat room 24 hours a day, 7 days a week¡K Just because we have an official meeting time DOES NOT mean you can¡¦t use the chat room whenever you and others like. Further, you can have one window opened to Live Chat while having another window opened to PTO, browsing the forums. Simply open another Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator (or whatever browser you use) window and go to the area you want. When chatting on PTO, I usually have 5 other windows open. I jump back and forth between them depending on what¡¦s going on.. Just food for thought!
I want to thank all of you that have expressed your gratitude to me for starting this site, and your willingness to help me manage it as we grow! It's great knowing I have all of you behind me and in the near future I will rely on you more heavily to assist me in managing OUR community. It wouldn¡¦t be anything without all of you!
For the moment, the best way you can help is to spread the word to everyone you know about PTO.. I am thrilled we have over 650 members here (with over 54% of you actively posting) but there are 100's of thousands more out there that don't know about this wonderful place.. We need to reach out to all of them and let them know they are NOT ALONE, that there are others out here that care and will do what we can to help them. We each have a great deal of reach.. In visitation.. On-line.. Through our family and friends on the inside.. Let¡¦s flex it and spread the word to as many as possible..
Thanks and have a wonderful day,
Fed-X
AKA. The Janitor.. ļ
RE: New U.S. Regional Discussion Forums
PTO New Site Features Coming!
PTO Live Chat ¡V New Options & Ideas
**New Forums**
Most of you that have been on PTO within the last 24 hours have probably noticed the increase in size, to include all 50 states, in our U.S. Regional Discussion Forum section.
I¡¦ve decided to go ahead and include all 50 states so that members may have a place to effectively communicate at a regional level without having to go through the process of requesting that state¡¦s forum be created. This will probably leave a number of states unaccounted for until our membership rises in that region, but I think we can live with empty forums in a few areas for the time being.
For some of you, this large increase in new forums (approximately 50) will undoubtedly make browsing the parent forums a little more difficult. To try and alleviate the distraction of having close to 100 forums, I have placed the Regional forum categories close to the very bottom of the list. The only category that is below the regional ones is the Live Chat Q&A and Live Chat. If you don¡¦t use the Regional Forums, the only time you will need to scroll all the way to the bottom of the list is when you want to access the Live Chat Feature on PTO.
**New Features**
Very soon we will be re-vamping the features of PTO to include quite a few new additions to our community¡¦s functionality. At this time I will discuss one of them that directly effects browsing and will give you the power to control which forums are visible to you. I mention this one because it will allow you to ¡§shrink¡¨ the forum categories that you chose, thus making them invisible if you don¡¦t use them regularly. Each category¡¦s title bar (ex. U.S. Regional Forums) will have a ¡§+¡¨, or a ¡§-¡§ in the center of it in which you can click to either expand or contract all the forums listed under that category. If you don¡¦t want to see all 50 States listed in the U.S. Regional Forums, you would click on the +/- icon in the center and they will close, only leaving the Category Title bar visible.
To see an example of how this new modification works, you can go to: www.addforums.com/forums and look at the Category Title bars. The Titles are centered and to the left of each title is a little red box with a ¡§-¡§ in it. When you click on it, you will see the forums in that category contract, and vice-versa. When we have these added to PTO, the system will remember your preferences so that you set them and forget them.. PTO will remember where you last placed them. ;)
In addition to this little add-on, installing a full-featured database Resource section is at the top of our list of Too-Doo¡¦s.
I will provide a punch-list of site mods that will be scheduled in the near future in the PTO News, Information & Events forum soon.
**Live PTO Chat**
Our live chats here at PTO are becoming more and more popular all the time. Regrettably, there are a large number of you that are unable to gain access for one reason or another. I am working on giving you more than one access option so that we can hopefully eliminate most, if not all of the denials of entry. (If you are at work and they have a firewall, you still may not be able to access chat due to company policies that prevent such things)
I will be writing a short & basic instructional guide on how to install free IRC (Internet Relay Chat) clients on your computer that can access the PTO chat without going through the Java window we use on the website. Many people have Java scripts blocked, thus disallowing your access to chat. Hopefully, with programs/clients such as mIRC & WorldIRC, you won¡¦t have this problem any longer.
Please go to the Live Chat Q&A Forum and read this post when you have a chance. (It will be available Friday Aug. 9, 2002, in the evening) Post title will be ¡§Other Options to Live Chat @ PTO ¡V IRC Clients¡¨ and will be sticky at the top of the forum. It¡¦ll be worth reading whether you need to use one or not. (These programs will let you log the chat conversations and give you many other features not offered in chat via the web site)
One other thing I want to mention in regards to Live PTO chat ¡V you can stay in the chat room 24 hours a day, 7 days a week¡K Just because we have an official meeting time DOES NOT mean you can¡¦t use the chat room whenever you and others like. Further, you can have one window opened to Live Chat while having another window opened to PTO, browsing the forums. Simply open another Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator (or whatever browser you use) window and go to the area you want. When chatting on PTO, I usually have 5 other windows open. I jump back and forth between them depending on what¡¦s going on.. Just food for thought!
I want to thank all of you that have expressed your gratitude to me for starting this site, and your willingness to help me manage it as we grow! It's great knowing I have all of you behind me and in the near future I will rely on you more heavily to assist me in managing OUR community. It wouldn¡¦t be anything without all of you!
For the moment, the best way you can help is to spread the word to everyone you know about PTO.. I am thrilled we have over 650 members here (with over 54% of you actively posting) but there are 100's of thousands more out there that don't know about this wonderful place.. We need to reach out to all of them and let them know they are NOT ALONE, that there are others out here that care and will do what we can to help them. We each have a great deal of reach.. In visitation.. On-line.. Through our family and friends on the inside.. Let¡¦s flex it and spread the word to as many as possible..
Thanks and have a wonderful day,
Fed-X
AKA. The Janitor.. ļ