Basics: 2) How to understand and navigate the forums

[Bentinho Massaro]

Why do some forums and topics appear with a red logo instead of the regular blue?

If you are a registered user, you will notice that often when you log in to the forum, a couple of forums will have a red logo instead of a blue logo. The red logo implies that that forum contains one or multiple new message that have been placed there after your last view of that particular forum. If you enter such a forum, the sub-forum and topic which the new message has been made in, will also appear with a red logo. This way you can see exactly what message is new to you. In case you wish to mark all forums as read, so they turn blue again, simply go to the Board Index and you'll see a button called "Mark forums read" in the top right corner of the page, just above the top-forum.

Additionally you can see what the last posts that have been made are by clicking the button "View new posts" & "View active topics" just above the top forum, to the left.

How is this forum structured?

This forum could be seen as a branching system. This forum's Home-page so to say, is called the "Board Index". From there you will see multiple sections that contain multiple forums. Within these forums there are often sub-forums. Within these sub-forums you will find the topics. Topics are the threads in which a discussion is going on. A topic usually consists of multiple Posts.

We could say that the highest or largest unit of this forum is the Board index and the lowest, or smallest unit is a post within a topic. In between are the different forum sections, forums and sub-forums.

So from the main page (board index) you have access to the following structure:

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[Sections and Main Forums] (Always directly visible from Board Index position)*

Enter a Main Forum (by clicking on one of the main forums)

[Sub-forums]

Enter a Sub-forum

[List of Topics]

Enter a Topic

[Read Posts] (and reply if you wish)

*Note: Many sub-forums are already viewable and directly accessible from the Board Index. They are displayed in smaller letters right below the text that explains their main forum:

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Teachings & Gatherings (<< A Main Forum)
In this forum you will find information about upcoming teachings and Gatherings that will be held in this forum, in a chat-room, a conference room or face to face on some location. If possible, whatever has been said and asked in such a teaching or gathering will be posted here for you to read.
Sub-forums: Teachings & Dialogues, Teachings Schedule (<< Both direct links to sub-forums, separated by a comma)
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How do I navigate through these forums easily?

On the top of this forum, just below the header/logo box, you will see a sentence that indicates where exactly within this structure you are at the moment. It looks something like this:

Board index ‹ About Free-Awareness.com & The Community ‹ How to use this forum?

So this tells you where you are at the moment. Currently you are reading a topic in the forum titled: "How to use this forum?" > which is a forum within the Section "About Free-Awareness.com & The Community" > which is a section within the "Board Index".

This navigational line/bar, or we could call it 'Navbar', is always at your disposal and it is your best friend to go one or two forums back for example. You can click any of the different sections within that Navbar to go to that specific section/forum. So you can always go one or two 'branches' higher or just go back to the board index directly from wherever you are reading.

Additionally you can:
1) Search the Forums (search bar is found in the top right corner of the page)
2) Jump to another forum or sub-forum (This box is found on the bottom right side of almost every page and you need to select a specific forum or sub-forum from the list of existing forums)

Goodluck!

[jaayceee]

Namaste Ben,

Your the best! Thanks very much.

Will go through it and hopefully you will see more of me on the forum.

My best as always,

Jay.