It can be challenging for the newer user to discover user capabilities in the absence of an ‘in our face’ place to learn. New members do not always know how forum software works so it would be helpful to add something. If I missed it, it was not obvious and my bad.
There is a link on the hamburger menu for keyboard shortcuts, but I was unable to find a similarly linked tutorial for the standard menu driven features, eg those opened from the ‘…’ (delete, edit, flag, bookmark, etc). Since there are features not available to everyone either the features should be qualified to the user’s trust level, or better only displayed based on the particular logged-in user’s trust level.
Also in the badges section there are two badges mentioned that refer to tutorials one is “Certified” and the other is “Licensed”. And in the topic referred to above one of the users specifically refers to the “Markdown Tutorial”. I am guessing these are redacted sections of the forum perhaps because of user issues but perhaps they may be re-introduced if enough interest is seen?
I have in the past written to a couple of users to help them use some of the forum tools better but perhaps we can just create a topic that we add the information to and just refer new users to it when we notice they may benefit from the information.
Ah yes @grahroll and thanks for the reminder, but the information is not easily discoverable after the Welcome. The solution seems to be some quick html to take the contents of the Welcome and put it on its own page linked to the hamburger menu.
Me too, and that is what caused me to make the suggestion that they are not visible enough.
Sure that helps but I think perhaps it should be a habit we impress on ourselves and others to bookmark the more important topics we encounter…perhaps even have some pre-bookmarked on sign-up.
I would also like to be able to categorise the bookmarks. To make it possible in some way to label them eg Useful Tools, Referred to Often or similar headings that are not too large yet are indicative of the areas of interest.
I know, I know, the problems are always circular But as I noted in my first post there may have been tutorials (the inference is strong like the “Force” in Luke TM Disney) and perhaps their re-introduction could pay some dividends in forum usage.
Thanks for raising the issue @PhilT. I think adding a link to the menu is a sound idea, I’ll be sure to raise it with the New Things team for adding to our development list.
@BrendanMays, I just noticed there appears to be nothing named ‘Help’ across any of the menus. Help would be an appropriate link for a how to, the keyboard shortcuts, and maybe FAQs.
Oh I understand that you have more options due to your trust level. I wasn’t per se commenting on that particular dilemma but rather that there was a basic function write up. I also understand from the badges section that an advanced tutorial must have been available or envisaged, and perhaps if they are available be brought back to enable some training of participants in this forum.
The funny thing is, that I didn’t even realize I had these functions until I was looking back through my bits and stumbled onto my badges.
One badge said I now had all these new magical poo bah powers… This was a surprise, because only some of these functions appear on my magical spanner icon list.
But as I noted in my first post there may have been tutorials (the inference is strong like the “Force” in Luke TM Disney) and perhaps their re-introduction could pay some dividends in forum usage.
