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Admin
| | Posted on Saturday, August 07, 2004 - 02:35 pm: |   
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If you are a registered member of Gardenbuddies (i.e., you have a valid username and password), you can configure your account such that the system sends new posts to your e-mail address, thereby keeping you informed of new board activity and allowing you to read through new messages in that manner. If you choose to enable this feature for your account, the system is also able to receive your responses/reply postings as e-mails, which it then posts to the forum.
A. Receiving posts as e-mail messages.
You may configure your account to send out new messages in the forums as e-mail messages to your address. This is the best way to stay up to date on new messages and conversations taking place online, without having to visit the message boards on the website each time. If your e-mail client allows you to read messages off line, receiving posts in e-mail means you can also browse through new posts off line; and you are additionally able to reply to posts via e-mail, if desired. The function of the messaging system which powers e-mail activities for Gardenbuddies is called 'Automatic E-Mail Notification' (as a clarification, the e-mail messages do contain the full text of the posts; they do not simply notify you that a post has been made).
To configure E-Mail Notification:
1. Go to the Profile Editor to edit your profile. Enter your username and password when prompted, to enter your profile editor page.
2. Scroll down to the section entitled 'E-Mail Notification'. Here you will find two tables: the first containing a list of topics (major sections of the message boards) in the Monachos.net Discussion Community to which you have access. The second table contains additional options.
3. In the first table, place a tick in the boxes of all those topics for which you wish to receive new posts as e-mail messages.
Screen shot of the topic selection table
New messages posted in all of the threads under a given topic will be sent to your e-mail address if you select that topic for e-mail notification. It is best, in terms of keeping up with new conversations, to select all of the boards topics, as often messages of interest may appear in areas that you would not expect. You may always return to the Profile Editor and change these settings at any time if you wish to disable e-mail notification for certain topics or altogether.
4. In the second table, three options are available that apply to the E-Mail Notification settings for your account:
Screen shot of the options selection table.
Check My own posts if you wish to receive e-mail messages containing posts that you make to the board. This is a helpful feature if you wish to keep a record of your own contributions.
Check Replies to my posts if you wish to receive e-mail versions of posts made in direct response to a message you posted to the board. This feature overrides the topic selection setting from the first table (i.e., if you have chosen not to receive e-mail notification for a certain topic, but you have selected the 'Replies to my posts' option and posted a message to that topic, you will receive e-mail notification of replies to your message). Note: If you have this option selected, you will receive only the first response to messages you posted in topics for which you do not have general e-mail notification enabled: you will not continue to receive ongoing discussion via e-mail.
Check Send e-mail notification as HTML text rather than plain text if you wish e-mail versions of message board posts to be formatted as HTML e-mails, rather than plain-text. It is strongly recommended that you select this option. You should only de-select it (i.e., opt for plain-text messages) if you find that your e-mail client does not support HTML messages: several features of the e-mail messages are lost in plain-text format.
5. Click the Save Profile Changes button to save your changes. Your new email notification settings will take effect immediately for all future posts.
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B. Responding to posts through e-mail.
To reply-by-email to a post that you have received via e-mail notification:
1.Using your e-mail client, open the message containing the post to which you wish to reply.
2. Using your e-mail client's 'Reply' feature, initiate a response to the message. Make sure that you 'quote' the entire message in your response (most e-mail clients do this automatically).
Note to plain-text users: If you are replying to a post received as a plain-text e-mail, your e-mail client will likely insert a 'quoting character' (e.g. '>') before each line of the reply. Do not worry about removing these, as they will not prevent the reply-by-post message from being processed. The only quoting character '>' you will want to remove is that in front of the line where you will type your text (see step 4, below).
Note to HTML format users: If you are replying to a post received as an HTML formatted e-mail, your e-mail client may well format your response message with the quoted text (i.e. the original message) indented into the body of your message. When sent from some e-mail clients, replies with this indentation will cause the text of your reply-by-email post to be corrupted when it is processed by the system. It is recommended that you remove all indentation from your response e-mail before sending.
3. Scroll down towards the bottom of the quoted text, until you find three lines that look like the following:
--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--
[Delete this line and type your message here]
--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--
4. Delete the middle of these three lines, and compose your reply between the two placeholder lines (if the middle line is preceded by a quoting character, e.g. '>', delete it when you delete the text of the line). You may use the standard board formatting tags in the response, if you desire formatted text.
5. When your response is complete, use your e-mail client's 'Send' command to send the message to Gardenbudies.com. The messaging system will process the message automatically, posting it to the board in the appropriate thread and distributing it to members who have e-mail notification turned on.
The Most Common Problem Encountered... and Solution:
Make sure to quote the entire message in your reply! There are commands in the original message which the system will use in processing your response. In particular, there will be a series of lines toward the bottom of the message (below the placeholder described above), that contain information on where to place the post and on your own account as the poster. These lines will look something akin to the following:
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Please do not change or remove the following line:
/4454/1103467/10287343/ej/co5thitrqgy.Y
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If these lines are not present in your response, or if they are altered in any way, the system will not be able to process your reply and your post will not make it to the board.
Admin
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