Welcome everyone to the CB500 Club forum.

This forum is designed for everyone to get settled in and customise everything as you need it. There are some nifty features posted about. This site is split into four main sections, Home, Forum, Gallery and Profile.

The Home is this page, which contains all the latest news and information, as well as a live chat feature. Forum is where you'll find the new Forum. Gallery is pretty obvious, but you can create your own folders and upload pictures of your pride and joy. And your Profile is where you can tell us a bit about yourself, and upload an avatar!

I hope to see everyone join this new site, and we'll pick up where we left off.

Please notice the 'Contribution' button at the bottom of the page. Any contribution will help keep the site running as you want it.

Thanks

I decided to create this thread to give people the information they keep requesting in one place everyone can look at.

Gallery
Register, Facebook, Profiles, Avatars and Email Security
Ranking, Reputation and Awards
Donating
Thread Hosting- Posting Images and Video to Messages
Twitter Shout Box
Forum Terminology Basics

There have been a few small teething problems with gallery, which turned out to be problems with permissions. You should all find you can access the gallery now. You can create an album, and post images. You can also delete and organise uploaded photos.

Create an Album
First, create an album. Click Gallery on the menu bar if you haven't already. This will show you some options. Click 'Your Personal Album'. It will tell you that you have no albums. Click the link again to create an album.

Upload Images
First, access your album. From there click 'Upload' in the top right. The upload box will appear. If you need to upload more then one image, then click 'Add' next to the input field.

Manage Images
You need to be viewing your personal album if you wish to edit. The 'Moderate' button will appear in the bottom. From here you can organise and delete your images.

You may need to re-size your images to upload them
Pic Resizer is an extremely easy and free re-sizer that will upload your images and then save them back to your computer.

Register
To use this site, you will have to sign up. You can use your details from the old forum, but you still have to register before you can use this site.

Facebook
You can link your CB500 Club account to Facebook if you wish. CB500 Club will never post to your wall, or look at any personal information.
To link your account, you still have to sign up with a CB500 Club account, then click the 'Profile' button in the nav bar. Click on the 'Facebook' section, and follow the instructions.
Once you have connected, you'll be able to log into the site with just your Facebook account.

Profile
Your profile is a section which contains all the information about yourself. Click the profile button in the nav bar to be taken to edit your profile. You can view what your profile looks like to others by clicking 'See My Profile'. From here you can upload a photo to be displayed on your profile. This is NOT your avatar. See below for that. We request that you add a picture no more than 200px wide.
It is worth going through the preferences tab to ensure your browsing experience is what you want.
We don't allow signatures on this site. This is because some people are on older systems, and get slowed down by people abusing HTML code


Avatars
You can edit your profile from the Profile button on the Menu Bar. From here, you can upload an avatar. This is the icon that sits next to your name in posts. Avatars cannot exceed 100 pixels wide, 150 pixels high, The file size cannot be higher than 64 KB.. Thats 0.05Mb.

Email Security
The information you give away on the site will all be publicly displayed. Your email address will never be directly displayed, but accessed via a button, for security purposes.

Ranking
These are all new features to this site. Your rank is directly linked to the number of posts you submit, and your reputation. The more you use the site, and the more reputation points you have, the higher up the ranks you will go. Everyone starts out on one star, as a 'Newbie'.

Reputation
Next to every post on any thread is a small + and - button. These are how reputation is given. If you read something you like, or you think is true, then give it a +. If the information is misguided or bad, give it a - . The user gains and loses points respectively. Reputation can only be governed by other users, that is to say you can't give yourself a load of points.

Awards
Awards are badges that appear on your profile. They represent requirements and achievements.

Rank and Reputation appear next to your Avatar when you post.

Info
This site runs on donations. At it's current state, the forum is allocated a tiny amount of space for the hosting of images. To upgrade, users need to donate a small amount of money. Obviously, you don't have to if you don't want too, and the forum will still be free to use. No money is sent to me directly. It is sent to the forum company, who then convert it into credits which in turn can be spent on the forum. No money goes into my bank account. Payment is via a Text Service or PayPal.

Money donated is spent on the following,

1. More hosting space. Which means more space for personal galleries.
2. Removing ads.
3. A custom Domain name. Like the one used at cb500club.co.uk

Make a Donation
Click the 'Contribution' button on the top of every page. Follow the instructions. You can make a request on what the money is spent on by sending me a PM.

Image Hosting
An Image Host is basically a storage space for images, which are put on the site when required via links.

You can post images in this forum in the threads. Click this image to host an image to this site. We don't have much hosting space unless people donate, so this is not recommended. You can host your image on an external hosting service and link to it by using this button . You need the URL your host will provide, then paste it into . it will turn the URL into a clickable link.

Linking
To make your link a clickable link, simply paste your link into this space. There are two boxes, one for the link, and one for the label. Providing only a link will result in a link like this http://cb500club.co.uk/forum.htm

Add a label, and you can neaten up your links like this

YouTube
You can also embed videos directly into a thread by pasting your link into this box

The Twitter Shout Box on the homepage is free for everyone to use.

It is very easy if you already have a Twitter account. If you don't you will need one to use it.

Simply go to your homepage on Twitter and type in @cb500club followed by your message into the 'What's Happening?'. That's it!

What will you use it for? You can use it to advertise items for sale, for news items, or things you think will be of interest to the Club. Get inventive!

Don't forget, you can shorten links by using Tiny URL to combat the character limit.

This is a brief terminology for people who are less technically inclined

Homepage
A home page is the fist page you land on when you go into a website. They are normally designed to be central to the whole website, with lots of information readily accessible.

Forum
You're on one!
A forum is a website designed specifically for people to come together and chat about stuff. You normally have a username, which is your alias to post from.

Sub-Forums
Forums are divided into sub-forums. For example, this website contains a sub-forum called General' and one named 'Workshop'. It's simply a way of keeping things organised.

Threads
A thread is a line of conversation someone sets up. Say you have a question you want to ask, you would find the answer by starting a thread.

Posts
As people reply to the threads, they are called posts.

Upload
Uploading files means copying them from your computer, and putting them on the internet, in a way which makes them available.

Profile
A profile is a space dedicated to you. It is information about you, and an area you can somewhat customise. They are normally the hubs of how you interact on a site.

Avatar
An avatar is a digital personification of you! They appear next to your posts when you reply to a thread. They represent your personality...so go mental as you choose one!
When you sign up, you will automatically be given a default avatar. You can change your avatar by pressing the profile button on the nav bar.

Nav Bar
The nav bar is also known as a menu. It is the line of buttons which runs underneath the website logo.

PM, Private Messaging
As you may have gathered, a PM is a message which you send to just one person. It is private, and no other members can see them. It is web etiquette that the contents of PMs should always stay private.

Chatbox
The chatbox can be found at the bottom of the home page. It is an area in which you can entire and chat live to other members of the site who are logged in. If you know what MSN is...it's basically that

Ok, so the massive site overall is pretty much complete.

Here is a list of new features, it's pretty exhaustive, so skip the boring ones if you want

Twitter Shouts
Here is a link which explains this in more detail. But basically, you can use your Twitter account to send shouts to this site. So you can send everyone ink, pictures and news! Very easy and very cool. didn't I promise you nice things?

Graphics
In case you didn't notice, there has been a graphic overhal on the site. I was originally just going to optimise them, but decided that a new theme would be much cooler. If you are a mod, I haven't fixed all the graphics yet, but I'll get round to it eventually

Profile PIcture
Now you can add a picture to your profile. This is unrelated to your avatar. You have to paste an URL in the box provided when you edit your profile settings. Images no bigger then 200px please.

Post Profile Tabs
You may have noticed that the thread seem to be less cluttered now. I've moved a lot of the buttons and images out of the way to make the site load quicker, and make it less confusing. So if you are looking for profile information, simply click a member's name in a thread to see their info.

Control Panel
This is a work in progress, but basically you now have a little box on the top right which gives you quick access to areas you will use a lot, plus some statistics.

Re-Organised Forums
Again, you may have noticed that the forums have been re-organised slightly, and some new topics have arisen, such as the much requested Workshop Tutorials.

Site Statistics
At the bottom of the forum you'll find a new statistics panel. This is just a little area of info about the site, plus the names of anyone who's birthday is coming up soon.
When you post into the Calendar now, it will also go into the 'Rideouts and Meets' section as a new thread. As a date arrives, it will appear in this area.
You'll find a chatbox here too. Just click it to log in on a new screen. It works exactly like MSN. Just quit the window to sign out.

Gallery
The gallery has been re-organised to make it easier to browse. At the moment, we are still accepting picture uploads. You'll find your pictures after you press the 'public albums' button.

CoolIris Gallery
This new gallery type will be replacing uploads soon. You can play around with a demo with a link from the homepage. To upload picture to this gallery, you must make friends with CB500 Club on FaceBook, and then tat CB500 Club in you photos. It will appear automatically. More on this nearer the date.

Share Buttons
For those social types there is a new share button selection at the top of each thread. The site now supports all popular social networks and RSS feeds.

Disappearing Column!
The column on the right can now disappear if you want! If you have a small screen, just click the tiny arrow at the top of the column to make it shrink away. And again to reveal it. It's still a little...buggy. Trust me, I'm working on it

Mechanics Badges
Are you a mechanic in business? Send a message to one of the admins to get a special badge on your profile. Make sure you include your website link, and you are now promoting your incredible business.

Map Relocation
The map is a great feature, but was slowing down some people with a slower internet connection. It has been relocated to a whole page now, which makes it better because you have more room to browse. Find it under the welcome come text as a link.

Member List
Clicking the member list button on the Nav Bar gives a much better designed member list. It makes it a lot easier to recognise friends and profiles you are looking for, and it's easily sortable.

Google Translator
We get a lot of people from all over the world here now. But not America strangely...
Because of this, I decided it would be good to add a translator on the homepage. If anyone can speak another language i'd like you to try it out and let me know if it's any good.

Quick Reply
As already stated, you may have already seen this at the bottom of a thread. It simply means you don't have to reload a new page just to write a reply.

Registration
When you register, you don't need to write out CAPTCHAS or verify your email address anymore. Which was hugely annoying. I know certain other sites which make using the forum like breaking into Fort Knox. Not naming any...*cough* *MCN* *cough*

Mobile Version
Some people requested this a while ago. You'll be pleased to know there is a very light version of this site available for mobile networks now!

That's everything I can think of for now!

ciao