Options Manager -- Profile Defaults and Preferences

These options are set from the Profiles tab of the Options Manager interface. These profile defaults and preferences have the potential to affect both newly created accounts as well as existing accounts, as noted below.

E-mail Notification Defaults

It is possible to select default e-mail notification settings for newly created accounts. This is a handy way to ensure that users are subscribed for e-mail notification in those topics that you will use for board announcements, or in the case of conferences where e-mail participation is particularly important, to ensure that your members will receive e-mail notification of all new posts.

To access the e-mail configuration dialog, click the "E-mail Notification" button. The configuration screen will pop up in a new browser window.

Check any of the following boxes to select defaults for e-mail notification: This section of the e-mail notification pop-up box looks just like the e-mail notification section of a user's profile. It works exactly the same as well. Check any boxes for topics for which a newly created user account will be subscribed for e-mail notification. Note that your setting will apply to all newly created accounts without regard for the access settings on your topics; if not every user account will have access to every topic, then you should not subscribe all newly created accounts to your restricted topics.

Additional E-mail Notification Settings: There are always three settings here (one in freeware Discus):

• My own posts: Sends a copy of one's own posts to the e-mail address listed within one's profile. Many users appreciate this feature.

• Replies to my posts: A "reply" for the purposes of e-mail notification is a message posted within a thread where that same member has previously posted. Receiving notification of replies overrides any topic preferences and is often elected by users.

• Send e-mail notification as HTML text rather than plain text: E-mail notification messages will be sent as HTML format if this box is checked in a user's profile. DiscusWare recommends that you do not check this box unless you know that all of your users have HTML-capable e-mail readers. Rather, you should leave this box unchecked and let your users decide for themselves if they wish to receive formatted messages.

To transfer your e-mail notification defaults, click the "Save Defaults" button. Note that your changes are made permanent only when you have saved your options within the Options Manager.

Profile Preference Defaults

In the preference section, you have the ability to check preferences by default in newly created profiles. You can also make a preference setting "permanent" effectively applying it to all existing user profiles and taking away the choice of using that preference from the user. There are four possible combinations of checking that you can use:

• Checked unselected & Perm unselected: The preference is not checked by default, but the user has the option of going to their profile to check the preference if desired. This is the most common setting. Note that it affects only newly created user accounts, but it does nothing to existing accounts.

• Checked selected & Perm unselected: The preference is checked by default for newly created accounts, but the user has the option of going to their profile to uncheck the preference if desired. This is also a common setting. Note that it affects only newly created user accounts, but it does nothing to existing accounts.

• Checked unselected & Perm selected: The preference is made permanently unchecked, which means that all user accounts will behave as if this preference was not checked, and the option to check the preference will not be given to the user. Use this setting only if you want to completely disable a preference. Since the preference is made permanent, it affects all accounts, past, present and future.

• Checked selected & Perm selected: The preference is made permanently checked, which means that all user accounts will behave as if this preference was checked. The user will not have a choice of whether to uncheck the preference. Use this setting with caution if you like a preference so much that you want to force everyone to use it. Since the preference is made permanent, it affects all accounts, past, present and future.

The following is a list of the available preferences and a brief description of their operation. The descriptions indicate the behavior if the preference is checked within a user's profile, or if it is permanently checked using the method described in the last list item above.

• Remember my username and password in a cookie: When the user logs on to the discussion board in any way (providing username/password when posting, using log in screen, logging in to edit profile), the server sets cookies on that browser with the username and password of the member. This allows subsequent automatic logins for as long as that cookie is present on the browser. This is a common setting.

• Clear the cookie when I exit my browser: The cookie expires when the browser is closed, which is an appropriate setting for users that browse from public computers. If this preference is not selected, the cookie remains on the browser indefinitely, meaning login information is preserved between browser sessions.

• Do not display my real e-mail address with my profile: A user's e-mail address will not be displayed anywhere on the discussion board (except to moderators). This is a common option to assure privacy and reduce spamming concerns.

• Skip the preview screen when posting: No preview screen will be shown when posting, unless there is an error of some kind. Because the preview screen is effective in helping users catch mistakes in their posts, DiscusWare does not recommend checking this preference by default.

• When searching, open resulting pages in a new window: Links within search results will be configured to open in a new window automatically. This is handy to avoid repeating searches and having to use the "Back" button repeatedly. DiscusWare generally recommends setting this preference.

• When using Last Day or Last Week, display only results from my "Favorite" topics: Users can define their "favorite" topics. Selecting this preference restricts the results of searches to those selected favorite topics. While this is very useful, less experienced users may believe their is a problem when all new posts do not show up, so setting this by default should be done only with extreme caution, if at all.

• Spell check my posts: When the spell checker has been properly configured, a spell check will be performed on user posts and the results will be displayed on the preview screen.

• Do not display my profile in the user list: This hides a user's profile from display on the member list. DiscusWare recommends that you do not check this preference by default, as few of you members are likely to go in and uncheck the preference, which will result in an artificially small member list.

• Do not send me "Private Message" e-mails from other board users: This prevents an account from receiving a "Private Message" e-mail (when private messaging is allowed).

• Suppress detailed instructions when private messages are received: "Private Message" e-mails contain, by default, a detailed set of instructions explaining what the message is and how to reply to it. If private messaging is used frequently on your board, your users may get sick of the instructions and want to see "just the facts." When they reach this level of technical sophistocation, they can check this preference for themselves. DiscusWare recommends that you do not check it by default.

• Show list of my most recent posts when editing my profile: Showing a list of recent posts on the profile edit screen is useful to allow members to find, edit, and delete their previous posts (as permissions allow). However, this also creates extra load on the server (looking for those posts and creating a display).

Note that checking or unchecking a profile default will affect only newly created accounts. However, if the "Perm" box is checked, your setting will be permanent, meaning that it will affect all user accounts, past, present and future.