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Webboard Tutorial

V. Your WebBoard Profile

If you have a personal homepage, say on a CCSO system like students.cso.uiuc.edu, you can create a link to it from your profile. You can augment the default profiles with a text description of your interests and background, or using HTML, you can include a picture of yourself or stylized text. Here's what a plain profile looks like (without adding pictures or other text). Note the "hobbies" information listed below Alma's name.

Whenever you see a person's name next to a WebBoard message, whether in a list of messages or in the message header, you can click on it to see that user's profile in the Message window. The Email Address and Home Page fields are hyperlinked, that is, you can click on the email address or the URL and your browser will automatically open a mail message addressed to that user, or display the Web page, respectively.

Editing your Profile

Your personal User Profile can be edited. This is where you edit your WebBoard password (see the section "Changing your WebBoard Password," below). Also, you can fill in the Home page, Hobbies, and Signature fields to personalize your profile and your messages.

To edit your profile:

1. Click on the More... button at the top of the WebBoard window.

Note: you cannot edit your login name. 3. Fill in the fields that are empty, such as Home page.
4. Fill in the Hobbies field with information about your course of study and interests. Text typed into the Hobbies will be displayed under your name in your profile. HTML entered into this field will be displayed correctly, so you can create a WebBoard "resume" about yourself that includes stylized text and graphics.
5. Fill in the Signature field-it will be appended to the bottom of each of your posts. Like the Hobbies field, the signature can be plain text or HTML.
6. Click on the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

Use Frames: Changing How WebBoard is Displayed

With frames turned off (click the No radio button), the Conferences menu appears separately from the messages window.When you click on the link for a particular message, the browser displays that message or message thread. To go back to the list of messages, click on the Conferences menu link at the top of the messages page.

To turn frames on or off at any time, choose Yes or No for Use Frames in the Profile window.

Full Topic View: Viewing Threads

Turned off (click the No radio button), you will see only one message at time, and will have to click on the subject line of each message to view it.

Mailing List Format: Mail vs. Web

In most instances, however, this type of participation is not recommended. The participation experience is much different via email than through the Web-based interface. Moreover, most features available through the Web are not supported by email, including:

editing messages
deleting messages
sending or receiving file attachments
searching user databases
searching message databases
create a new user account
editing your user profile
marking messages read

However, if you wish to participate in this way, digest format is the recommended option.

To turn on this support, follow these steps:

The following options are available:

Non-digest emails you a copy of each new message as it is posted in the conference.

Digest emails you once per day all the messages from the previous 24-hour period.

Digest/ZIPped creates a digest of all the messages from the previous 24-hour period and compresses it into a standard zip file, which is email to you once per day.

With digest turned on, all the messages posted in a 24-hour period will be mailed to you once a day. This makes fewer demands of the server and produces format that is easier for you to browse.

Note: if your instructor has not made this option available for a conference, you will not be able turn on this option.

When you've finished editing your profile, click on the Save button at the bottom of the page. WebBoard will inform you that the changes have been saved. If not using frames, a link will appear at the top of the Profile page that will take you back to the Conferences menu. Otherwise, just click the back button to return to the conferences.