Frequently Asked Questions

This website offers a clear, simple and concise usage concept, with the use of continued elements (buttons, menus and symbols) thus simplifiying the site usage and, simultaneously, provides a secure feeling whilst using this page. The usage elements are so designed that they will always be shown in their respective places at all times. The following sections describe some of the important elements that make up this site.

The Header area for every page of this site, where usually a logo and/or the title is displayed, is used as a clickable reference link to the start page. Further along the page header is the interactive search facility. By clicking inside the search field, an extra menu will appear for "Extended Search Options" to provide a more practical search function and thus providing users with a more adaptable search facilty.

In the header area of the page are two menu sections. The first menu section is located at the very top of the header called the "Slide Login" which refers to the "Personal Area". The second menu section is located directly under the header logo called the "Main Menu" which refers to the "General Area". Wherever the user may be within the page, both menus will always be shown in their respective places.

The User Menu: In the Personal Area, you will find the options to login and logout of the site, and links to several pages to configure your "Personal Profile". In this section, you have the possability to enter information about yourself and to customise the look of the page to your personal wishes. Additionally, when clicking on a user's name, a "Public Profile"will be displayed showing the relevant information of the selected user. Also included in the Personal Area is the option to send "Private Messages"to other members, or the option to choose a different style (If more styles are available). These are but a few of the possible options available.

The Main Menu: The buttons of the General Area can lead to the home page, to the members list and of course to this help area. Please remember that a variation of buttons could be shown which do not comply with this help section.

In many places of you can read information with the help of the text styles. For example, new threads and posts, or new private messages will be subsequently marked in bold to clearly indicate unread material. When you have read the new postings, the bold text will revert to its original style. In addition to this, some sections will display a quantity to indicate the number of elements that have not been viewed.

With tabular listings, for example, the thread lists or the members, you can comfortably sort the desired information you want to see via the adjacent column headers for each tab.

Many graphic symbols are employed to create a dynamic, intuitive GUI. Depending on the parameters set by the forum administrator, certain symbols are marked with a small black triangle pointing downwards. If you click on such a symbol, a context menu will appear showing further options that are available to you. If you do not see any of the mentioned symbols, then it may be the case that the option rights are not assigned to you.

To help guide you through the pages, what is known as "Breadcrumbs-Navigation" is employed. Situated just below the header area of each page, you are shown a type of path which begins at the main page and lists the categories and sub categories, and ends at the current page you are viewing. Each element that is shown within the navigation is separated by arrows and, with each element havings its appropriate link, you will always find you way home.

Does a section of your site spread over more than one page? - For instance the thread listings, or the members list? - With this in mind, a simple and convenient page navigation is available for multiple pages and will dynamically alter according to the amount of pages being displayed. This navigation will be shown on both the top and lower sections of the page to provide additional assistance with page navigation.

To use all features you need to register your own user account on this page.

Registration
If you want to create your own account on this page, follow the Register link in the menu. After accepting the terms and conditions, you will need to enter some personal information:

1. Username - This is the name you will use to login. Usernames are unique, if your username is already taken, you will have to choose a different one.
   
2. Password - Please select a secure password, and try to change it as often as possible.
   
3. E-mail address - Your e-mail address must be unique as well.
   

It is possible that other fields need to be filled out as well. The captcha image protects the page against spam robots. You have to write the letters you can see on the image into the related text field. You can recreate and enlarge the image if you have difficulties reading it. If you do not manage to complete that step you can contact an administrator.

Login
With an existing user account you can login to the page. Click on the menu item Login and enter your username and password. If you have forgotten your password you can use the Forgot password function. You will have to enter either your e-mail or your username. If your account has not been activated yet you will have to go to the login page.

You can enter personal information, that can be seen by other members, under Edit profile. This information is usually optional e.g. contact data.
Under Edit account you can change the access data for this user account:

1. The username you need to login to this page.
   
2. The password you also need to login.
   
3. The e-mail address thats connected to this user account.
   

Furthermore you can not delete the user account.

Under Settings you can choose from several options to make the use of this page comfortable for you.
Next to general settings - e.g. your timezone - you will find options for privacy, communication and display. Please note that these settings just apply to your account.

The avatar is the image of a user. It can be a photo as well as an abstract icon. Other users will recognize you fast if you have an own avatar. Under control center » user account » Avatar you can choose your own personal image.

Here you can select an avatar from the list, if it was set by the administrator. The other possibility is that you upload your own avatar. Please note to check the size and file size of the avatar. There are normally limits set. Your avatar will be displayed in your profile, next to messages and other places on that page.

The signature is always a response to a topic and is the personal "business card" of a user. It can be a picture, but also a short text. Under control center » user account » Signature you can set your personal signature in the editor.

Your signature will be displayed in your public profile, your posts, and in some other places.

Users are labeled by so called "user ranks". Apart from a rank name, users are marked with a rank image. There are fixed defined ranks, they will be assigned optionally for a certain performance (e.g. after 900 points), for certain groups (e.g. member of the team), of for the gender.

Under control center » edit profile you can select your user rank. Additionally, users may have an individual title, when it is activated.

Points
Users get points for their activity. You get points if you create content that is visible for other users. You will get 12 points for a new thread and 8 points for a new post for example.

Examples for user ranks
By default the following ranks exist:

Friends
You can add other users of this page as friends to keep the contact to them for example. You can do it in this way:

• When you visit another user's public profile then click the + -Icon for Follow and then the user is on youre friendslist. Under control center » Community » Users , Which you follow you can cancel existing friendships.
  

In any case the friendship request must be accepted by the other user. If you open another user profile you can see your connection to that user. In your settings you will also find options to show specific information only your friends.

Ignored users
If you want to ignore other users of this page, you can do by visiting the public profile of another user and click on the -Icon. Now those members cannot send you messages and view your public profile. You cannot see content created by these users and their posts are displayed minimised.

If you have registered on this page you are one of many members. Under Members you can find other registered members of this page and can view their profiles.

The memberslist displays all members sorted by different criteria. You can change the sorting through the options in the sidebar. You can filter the list by the initial letter. Below the list you can browse to the next page

The members search provides a search facilty to find members with a particular data. If you just know a part of the username, just enter this part and you will find all members with a username containing that part. The search for members can be also started in the user profiles. If, for example, someone has entered "sports" as his interest you just need to click on this word to find other users with the same hobby.

The »Who is online?«-Liste list shows all users currently browsing the page and where they are active. On a public profile page of a user you can also see where that member is currently browsing in case he is currently active on this site. The list shows the following information:

• User name:
  The name of the user.
  
• IP-address:
  Being an administrator allows you to view the members IP address.
  
• User agent (browser):
  If you have the privileges for that you can see which kind of browser a user is brwosing with. The user agent string may sometimes contain information about the browser version and the operating system. Serach spiders will usually show their name as user agent.
  
• Last action:
  Shows when the user was last active.
  
• Location:
  Shows the current location of a user.
  

The "Who is online?"-list is normally separated in members, guests and bots. Only members that want to be shown online are listed there. Administrators and usually also moderators can see all users including those who do not wish to be seen (ghosts).

While writing text on this page you can use some tools to improve the look of the text. Text can be called post or message within this help. The possible tools will be introduced in this chapter.

• Editor
  
• Smileys
  
• BBCodes
  
• Polls
  
• Quotes
  

Use bbcodes to format your text. You can find here all commands you can use.

• Edit font
  
  • Font family
    
  • Font colour
    
  • Font size
    
  • Bold
    
  • Italic
    
  • Underline
    
  • Strike through
    
  • Alignment
    
  • Subscript
    
  • Superscript
    
• Lists
  
  • Liste
    
  • Numbered list
    
• Link
  
• Quote
  
• Image
  
• Video
  
• Tab menu
  

Lists are available in two ways: a normal list and a numbered list.

[url=URL]Name of URL[/url]

If you want to link to other pages you use this bbcode. You will notice that included URLs in your text will be automatically converted into links (if you used the related option).

Example:
A text with an [url=index.php]internal link[/url] and an [url=http://www.woltlab.com]external link[/url].
A text with an internal link and an external link.

[quote='Name of author',URL of original source]Text[/quote]

Use the quote bbcode to display text as a quote. You have the choice to insert the name and address of source as a parameter.

Example:
[quote='Aristotle']Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.[/quote]

Aristotle wrote:

Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.

[img]URL of image[/img] or [img=URL of image,left|right][/img]

This bbcode can be used to include an image in your text. If you want to float the text around the image you take the address of the image as a parameter and write a comma and the keyword left or right.

Example:
[img]http://www.leech-or-die-v2.de/forum/wcf/images/FAQ/EN/LoD-Logo_Small.png[/img]

[media]complete video URL[/media]

You can use this BBCode if you want to insert a video from one of the supported video portals into your message. You can also post the link to the video without BBCode, the board converts the video link immediately.

If your browser allows the use of javascript, you can increase the size of embedded videos by clicking the video-icon in the top left corner of each video. If this function is available, the video-icon will be completed by a small magnifier, as soon as you move the cursor over it – but please note, that this function will only become available after the page has finished loading. The Internet Explorer does not support increasing the size of embedded videos.

The following video-sharing websites are supported:

• autsch.de/
  
• clipfish.de/
  
• collegehumor.com/
  
• dailymotion.com/
  
• g4tv.com/
  
• gametrailers.com/
  
• video.google.com/
  
• movies.ign.com/
  
• megavideo.com/
  
• metacafe.com/
  
• mycarmovie.com/
  
• vids.myspace.com/
  
• myvideo.de/
  
• paintballtube.de/
  
• photobucket.com/
  
• rutube.ru/
  
• screentoaster.com/
  
• sevenload.com/
  
• spike.com/
  
• veoh.com/
  
• vimeo.com/
  
• wegame.com/
  
• youku.com/
  
• youtube.com/
  

Example:
[align=center][media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJQ4OhcoIPI[/media][/align]

This bbcode can be used to integrate dynamic tab menus into your text. You can create any number of parent menu items (“tabs”) and each parent item can contain any number of child elements (“sub-tabs”). You can specify a title and an icon for each tab and sub-tab; please not that the size of the icons should not exceed 24 × 24 pixels (for tabs) and 16 × 16 pixels (for sub-tabs) respectively. You can assign a formatted text for each menu item which will be displayed when the user selects the correspondent tab or sub-tab. As usual, you can use any bbcodes to create the content of each menu item, the only exception being the tab-menu-bbcode itself; a single tab or sub-tab can never contain another complete tab menu.

Displaying the tab menus as actual menus requires a browser that allows the use of JavaScript. If the use of JavaScript is disabled, the content of the tab menu will be displayed as blocks of text while the original structure remains intact by using hierarchic lists and headlines.

Syntax
The syntax of the tab-menu-bbcode is similar to the one of the list-bbcode and the functions of the bbcode-system as a whole.

The tab-menu-bbcode itself does not come with any additional parameters, instead of that, every new menu item is introduced by [tab]. Like with the list-bbcode, no closing tag ([/tab]) is used. Using the first parameter of this pseudo-tab-bbcode you can set the title of the menu item and using the second (and optional) parameter you can assign an icon that is to be displayed in front of the new menu item. The size of the linked icon should not exceed 24 × 24 pixels. The [tab]-tag is followed by the content of the menu item, until the next use of the [tab]-tag creates a new menu item or the tab menu is completed by using ['/tabmenu']:


Specifying an icon is always optional, but if you decide to use icons, you should make sure to add icons to every single menu item, not just to specific ones.

Adding sub-tabs to existing tabs works in the same way, the corresponding tag is [subtab]. The parameters are identical to those of the [tab]-tag, but icons should not exceed the size 16 × 16 pixels. The [subtab]-tag is followed by the content of the sub-tab, until [subtab] or [tab] introduce another sub-tab or tab or ['/tabmenu'] completes the tab menu:


Each tab menu can contain any number of tabs and each menu item can contain any number of sub-tabs, but please not that a single menu can not contain more than one tab with identical titles and a single tab can not contain more than one sub-tab with identical titles.

Example:

There is a handy search field on the top of each page, which adapts its functions dynamically to the page you're currently browsing. The search function only searches the area where you currently are, so if you are reading a thread using the search will search this very thread only. If you want to search the whole forum you will have to search from the start page. The search field also holds a dropdown menu with some frequently used search options, as well as a link to the Extended Search interface, which offers many advanced search options.

In the following part you will get a short introduction into the most important features of the board, including the threads and posts, favorites as well as boards and categories

The board index shows all viewable boards and categories. Above the board list there is the option to mark all boards as read with a single click.

Board
A board is a place where different topics (called threads) can be discussed. In front of the boardname you will find an icon that displays the status of a board. Behind the boardname the number in brackets shows how many threads are unread. A doubleclick on the icon marks all threads as read within this board. Additional information can be displayed - such as a description of the board, subboards, moderators or the users that are currently browsing this board.

• Regular board
  This symbolises a regular board with no new posts.
  
• Board with new posts
  The board contains new, unread posts. A doubleclick on that icon marks all threads as read within this board.
  
• Closed board (Archive)
  This board is readonly.
  

Categories
Categories can contain different boards to group them by topic. They are highlighted with an own background color and can be opened or closed. Closed categories may also have a number in brackets that tells if there are unread posts within the whole category. No threads can be opened directly in a category.

External link
Within the board index there may be some links to external pages.

Within a forum you will find a tabular listing of the topics of this forum. There may be two groups: announcements and important topics, as well as normal topics. Use the tabhead to sort all topics.

On the right side in the sidebar you will find numerous filter and sorting functions. For example, it may be that there are no topics to be found because it is set to display only topics from the last 30 days.

If you click on one of the topics, you will be taken to the posts of this topic. These are displayed together with short information on the respective author.

The "Latest Posts and Topics" collection, which may be found in the dashboard, under the shoutbox, or in the sidebar, and within a forum, are the third grouping of the topic list, in addition to the important and normal topics.

A special feature of this listing is that the topics contained are always sorted according to the time of the last post in the respective topic, regardless of the filter and sort settings for the rest of the topic list. The second peculiarity is that this listing can contain topics from as many different forums, which are then grouped into a single list. Thus, the "Latest Posts and Topics" lists always provide a good overview of the current topics.

List
The “latest posts and threads”-lists can be displayed in two ways:

• The “detailed” design resembles the usual thread list, but it will display the parent forum of a thread as well as the name of the author and the date of the first post below the topic of each thread. The display of the columns that contain the number of replies and views of a thread and the thread rating can be toggled on or off by the administrator.
  
• The “narrow” design has no table head and generally trys to save as much room as possible. Using this layout, the parent forum of the threads will be displayed at the very right end of the list. This design contains no information about the number of replies and views of a thread, but the display of the thread rating can be toggled on or off by the administrator.
  

You can add boards and threads to your favorites. On the bottom of a board or thread there is the link to add or remove your favorite. You will then receive a notification e-mail in case of new posts or threads. Only one e-mail will be send each favorite. So you need to visit the board or thread in order to get new notification e-mails.

In the forum overview you can see under the main menu a link to the subscribed topics, where you can view your subscribed topics and forums and, if necessary, quit subscriptions.