A lot of people don't seem to know what the PM (Private Messages) function in the forums is so thought I'd post this.


The PM function allows members to send private messages to each other in the forums. You will notice one of the buttons at the top of the main page says Private Messages. When you click on that if you have any private messages then it will show them to you as well as any PMs that you may have already read and not deleted. Its a good idea to keep your PMs pruned though because there is a limit on the number you have in your Inbox at a given time.

There are several other options in there and one is Outbox where messages you have sent to other members are stored (until they read them). If they never read them because they don't know they have them then they stay there until you delete them. Once a person reads their PMs then they disappear from your Outbox.
Note the picture below.


You can set your Preference in your Profile which can also be gotten to through one of the buttons at the top of the forums. In your profile you can check for the software to send you an email and let you know you have a PM waiting. You can also check the option for it to do a popup when you log on and have a private message.
See below.


There are problems with both options though IF you have a popup blocker on your computer or in some cases spam blockers if it thinks the notification message you received was spam. (Not good at all on that one!)

If you have a popup blocker then it will likely block the popup trying to tell you you have a PM. If the spam blocker puts the notification email you would have received in a spam folder then unless you check that folder you would never know you had one.

There is a third failsafe, but a lot of people overlook that to. It is that at the top right when you go to the forums you will see several lines of text saying:

You have no new messages
View posts since last visit
View unanswered posts
Mark all forums read

Of course if you have one or more PMs that you haven't read then the top line would say You have 1 new private message

Of course if you had more than 1 then the 1 would be replaced with that number.

Hopefully this will help those who have never used the PMs.

_________________
Some people question my sanity because of the way I run my site. I question my sanity because I do run it.
-David T. Smith-
Terlingua, Texas

David,

One thing I learned early on with the web based TFFN, was to book mark the 'new posts since last visit' once you go to that link. That way everytime I go to my bookmark, whether I am at work or home, I get all of the recents posts without having to go through each forum looking for updates.

I am sure most know this, but there may be some that don't. Hopefully it helps someone else.

_________________
63 Sprint Convert; Mustang II, EFI, 4 speed
64 Cyclone, Mustang II, EFI, 5 speed
32 Ford 5 Window Coupe Hot Rod
32 Ford Roadster Hot Rod, Flathead V8
36 Ford 3 Window Coupe Street Rod
36 Ford Roadster Hot Rod, Flat Head V8
37 Ford Truck, Flathead V8

Good point Doug,

I never thought of that, but for those wanting to save time It would sure help. While we're at it I guess we can turn this in to a forum "How to"

I know a lot of people have trouble when they use forums the first few times. Most figure out that you can click on the colored icons at the left to get to the last posted message in a forum, but don't know that you click in the forum link to get in side and see which messages have been posted to since they last read. Some people also don't know that you can click on the paper icon to the far right to go directly to the last few messages posted rather than going through the pages to get to the last posts. For those that don't know that you can see the red arrow in the below screen shot and where to click to get to the last posted messages.

_________________
Some people question my sanity because of the way I run my site. I question my sanity because I do run it.
-David T. Smith-
Terlingua, Texas

Also if you click on the little blue arrow pointing to the yellow notepad that is just to the left of the topic (in this case "REPLACEMENT PANELS") then it will take you to the first unread post in that topic.
So say there were thirty posts on this subject and you have only read the first ten then it will take you to the eleventh post!
At least that is how it is working for me

_________________
Later Rick
65 Ranchero Restomod
R.I.P.
http://www.tffn.net/gallery/SabreguysRide