Eric

Pick up reading where you left off When returning to the forum after being gone for a while, threads with new unread posts will have the following icon before the thread's title: Clicking that little image will take you to the first unread post, right where you left off reading. Alternatively, if you just want to get to the end of the thread in a hurry, clicking the member's name under "Last Post Info" will take you to the last post in the thread.

With all of the changes to the forum since the upgrade, I thought it would be a good idea to edit some of these tips to reflect those changes. Thanks to everyone who submitted tips in the previous thread: If you have any questions about the forum, or problems with your account, please start a thread in the Website Discussions forum: http://www.atxcommunity.com/forum/4-website-discussion/

Oh no! Well, it seems that your function keys are not working as they should. Sometimes keyboard function keys have secondary functions associated with them, but they're all different. These secondary functions are sometimes printed above, below, or on the front side of the function key. There should be a way to toggle between primary and secondary functions--it's usually some button on the keyboard that does it, but it's hard to say without actually seeing your particular keyboard. Figuring out that issue would make switching between Normal and Full Screen mode very convenient. You can usually exit Full Screen mode without using F11 by moving your mouse to the top of the screen to expose the browser controls and right-clicking to find the appropriate menu item. It may take some searching to find the correct spot to right-click.

Hmm, that's very strange about your F11 thing. It should make the browser do something no matter which monitor it's on. What Browser and version are you using? I checked IE 8 and Firefox 3.5 and it did work for me. Some fancy/new keyboards mess with the operation of the function keys, so maybe try finding the option using your browser's menu? In Firefox, it's under the View menu. Not sure about where it is in different versions of IE (Tools menu, maybe). I just realized that CleanCut wasn't available for anyone else but me. That's fixed now.

The drop-down menu at the very bottom left-hand corner of the website. Breadcrumbs are the path to your current page, for example: ATX Community > ATX Community Forum > General Chat > Forum Upgrade Full screen mode makes the entire website go full screen, removing any hint of the browser interface, so your whole screen space can be used to browse the website. The Address bar, Back/Forward buttons, tabs, all of that is hidden until you bring your mouse to the top of the screen.

Yes, the icons to the left show if there are unread posts in each forum, and inside a specific forum, the icons on the left show if there unread posts in each thread. As a test, you can scroll to the bottom and click the link that says "Mark Board As Read" From then on, any time a post is made in any thread or any forum, the icon will change to show you. In the CleanCut theme, threads with unread posts are also in bold. Examples ATX Community theme Unread posts/topics: No Unread posts/topics: CleanCut theme Unread posts/topics: No Unread posts/topics:

I understand about the dual monitors. In fact, one of mine died over the weekend, and I felt claustrophobic using only one until I could get a replacement. I will look into the possibility of creating a smaller template. I might have to remove a few features, such as the breadcrumb, or things of that nature which take up vertical space in the header. I do have two other suggestions for you though. Try Google Chrome, its interface is very minimal, and leaves more room for actual web browsing. Or, try the full screen feature of your current browser. In Firefox and Internet Explorer, I think the shortcut key to toggle full screen mode is F11.

Unfortunately, the old theme is incompatible with the new version of the forum software. There is now a choice between three themes. The default theme is called "ATX Community (large text)". There is another version of the same theme available, called simply "ATX Community" which has smaller text. I have also added a theme called "CleanCut" which is totally different. I don't think any of these will be much of an improvement at 800x600 resolution, but you can look through them and pick whichever works best. Themes are changed with a drop-down box at the very bottom left-hand corner of the site. Margaret, what size is your monitor? 800x600 seems to be less and less supported for software and websites as larger LCD monitors become more common. Maybe a larger monitor at a higher resolution (20" at 1024x768, maybe) would give you the best of both worlds? (big picture plus more screen real estate) EDIT: OldJack, tried to send you a PM, but couldn't. Must have disabled your private messages?

I will be adding one more theme to the mix, maybe you'll like that one better. I'll send you a private message when it's available to view (maybe today)

Of course! And thanks for the suggestion. I much prefer having the single link to My ATX over having the three specific links to the KB, Efile Doodad, and Downloads. Also, I've scrapped the subscription idea, as it just got needlessly complicated. I'll have a new Donate button up, but not before I finish the Google Search option.

A link on your desktop that opens this website? There are a number of ways to do that. The easiest is go to the ATX Community home page, and click/drag the icon next to the website address to your desktop. Another option is to right click your desktop, click New, then choose Shortcut. When asked for the location, type www.atxcommunity.com When asked for a name, type ATX Community

I've got a list I'm working through, and the Donate button is somewhere near the end. I may end up introducing a voluntary subscription feature for something like $5/yr. Bigger text everywhere (almost finished) and a new search option come first.

The major parts of the updates are complete now. I'll be working on tweaks here and there today, like making the font sizes larger. There were changes in the software that affect time zone calculation and DST settings, so you may have to go back and edit your settings relating to those things. To check if the forum time matches your time, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and look for the time in the right-hand corner. You can get to your settings by going to the top-right and clicking that drop-down box. Everything has been reorganized and is hopefully easier to find. There are lots of changes, so shout if you have any questions!

Ok, seriously folks. Almost done.

Still working on the updates. The downtime may not occur until tomorrow (Monday) evening.

Howdy folks, sorry about the short notice, but I'm going to be working on upgrading the forum today, so there will be a little bit of downtime. You're going to see some changes, some more noticeable than others. 1. New look and feel. Blue and green theme. Bigger text in all areas by default. Should be easier on the eyes. 2. Improved navigation for controls for your settings and profile info. Hopefully the new layout is more logical and doesn't take long for anyone to get used to. 3. Searching. While the default search will be the same as the old one, I'm going to add a new option that will use Google to search the forum. This option will allow you to use smaller search terms.. for example you'll be able to search commonly abbreviated tax terms that are not searchable with the built-in forum search. This will become available after the initial upgrade. 4. May remove the ATX links from the top of the forum if they're not being used. I'll start a poll to see how many people use them regularly. There are many more changes/new features than what's on this short list, but I think that covers the most common suggestions I have received so far. Again, I'm sorry for the short notice, but the site shouldn't be down for too long. I just wanted to get this done soon so that everyone has time to get comfortable before tax season hits.

If ATX runs in Vista, it should run in Windows 7. XP Mode in 7 sounds like an ugly solution for running old software that wont run any other way. If your computer wont run Windows 7's virtualization, you could try out VirtualBox, which is a free (and pretty high quality) VM solution. I've used it in Linux to run Windows, and I know their Windows version runs on Windows 7. http://www.virtualbox.org/

Hey Lion, I recently found out that Kyle no longer works for VMS, so I'm not sure how actively they're watching the forum.

That's a good question. I just checked the calendar, and it says they're 2009 years old. I can't explain it, and I've never seen that happen before. I'll add that to my list of things to look at when I'm doing the upgrades.

If I didn't depend so heavily on a few web development firefox extensions, I might use Chrome as my main browser. If you regularly use something besides IE and don't have problems, then you probably wont have any issues using Chrome. It's just those few websites that require Internet Explorer that'll still give you a headache. I like the minimal interface quite a bit. I suggest installing it to see how you like it, it's quite easy to install and uninstall. Randall is talking about the recent news that Google is working on a new operating system called Chrome OS. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/int...-chrome-os.html

The 4 character minimum on searches is a limitation of the mySQL database engine. It drives me crazy too on other forums. It is possible to lower the limit, but it's uncommon, and from what I understand can cause the search to tax the server. I will look into improving the search though, I know there are ways around this. (note to self, look into sphinx search integration) I'll do my best to make settings easier to find. Give me a shout after the upgrade if you're still having trouble, and maybe an explanation on my part will make things more clear. Spell check available now. Firefox has it's own spell check, and will automatically underline misspelled words in Red. Internet Explorer users will see a spell check button on the editor.

I'm sure it's cooler here, but boy it's muggy right now. It's been raining all week and the mosquitos at my house are almost as big as humming birds. Prepare to donate blood.

No need for funds, but thanks for asking Sometimes it's best not to shake a keyboard upside down. You may get more than you bargained for. I know that some people really don't like change, I just don't want to upset anyone. As for website tinkering, it's what I do 9-5 and then some. That depends, will you clean mine? I'm sure I'll get the better end of this deal.

I could create a new forum called "Article Archive" below E-File where links to articles can be posted. It'll have to be done manually.. so if someone sees an article they think should be saved in the archive, anyone could go post it there. I'll turn off the feature for that forum that hides inactive threads after 30 days so that people will be able to locate old articles in there without having to search. If that sounds like a reasonable solution, I'll implement it when I do the rest of the forum upgrades. If you have other ideas, I'm all ears.

I'm going to be performing some upgrades to the forum within the next week or so, and I'll update this thread before the site goes down temporarily (most likely for less than a couple hours) for maintenance. Would you mind seeing a new, more colorful design, Would you prefer to leave things the way they are? Indifferent? Once the upgrade is complete, I'll be working on adding adjustable font sizes, and some other features. If you have any suggestions, please post them here, or in the Website Discussion forum.