Website Help

Website Help is organized into three main sections.  Additional detail is available through links at the bottom of the page. 

Getting Started

The website supports:

  • anonymous visitors who have not registered on the site or are not logged into their account
  • registered users who have registered on the site and logged into their account

Although considerable information is available to website visitors, users who register and login can access addition information and can create content. The first step is to create a user name using the Create new account in the left sidebar.

Groups of registered users can be defined that further controls access to content.  Paid-up members have access to current newsletters and associated discussion forums.

Website support is available through the Contact Us link in the footer as well as various Website Support Desk forums.

You can contact other registered users by clicking on their username to access their profile and then the Contact tab.

Accessing Information

Most pages in the website share a common structure:

  • a header with a primary menu and just below it a secondary menu
  • a left sidebar
  • a right sidebar
  • a central content area
  • a footer with copyright information and links to a website Contact form, Privacy Policy and Terms

Content is organized by content type, allowing content-specific ways of structuring, accessing and displaying information.  Most content can be tagged by the author as well as community members. Tags allow access to similar content, are displayed in tag clouds and are searchable. Most content can also be rated.

The search box in the left sidebar provides a basic keyword search of text on the website.  The results page supports the ability to search attachments and user profiles as well as advanced search capabilities.

It can be difficult to keep track of changes on a website.  Logged in users can request that the website update them on activity via an e-mail 'digest' through the Subscribe widget at the bottom of documents.   The easiest method is to subscribe by content type to get new or updated content as well as comments.  It is also possible to subscribe to forum 'containers' (at a minimum, all users should subscribe to the Announcements forum), specific content and authors.  Users can control the frequency of the e-mail digests (by default, once a day).  Subscriptions can be managed centrally through the My account link in the left sidebar - click on the Notifications tab.  For more information, see the Accessing Information link at the bottom of this page.

Creating Content

Authorized users can post comments to almost all website content using the Add a comment link at the bottom of the document.

Authorized users can start new forum topics within an existing forum 'container' using the Post new Forum topic in the upper left of the content area.

The website includes the rich-text FCKeditor that allows a limited degree of formatting without requiring that the users learn HTML or a markup language.

Content authors can add tags to their content while editing.  Authorized users can tag content without having to edit the content using the My tags: box below the content.  The website will display hints as keywords are typed.

Authorized users can rate content using the Fivestar widget below the content, view their own rating and also the average rating from all users.