Forum Tutorials
Forum Tutorials
Forum Tutorials
Get the most out of our forums, and community features by watching our instructional videos.
In the videos you will learn how to navigate the forums, subscribe for updates from the ones you want to hear the latest updates from, reply to topics of interest, create your own, add friends, create groups for more conversations with friends on a common thread and more.
Feel free to use the forums and additional community features without watching the videos, but there are so many options available, it will be worth your time to familiarize with everything we have in place for you to make the most out of your time here.
As you take the time to go through our videos, you will be able to follow along, pausing the video to take the same steps, and at the end you will be a registered member of our community.
The best way to learn from these videos is to open the site in another browser as well. Then alt-tab between the video in one browser and the site in the other as you follow along, pausing the video to take the steps that you just learned.
FORUM TUTORIALS – Introduction.
In these tutorials we will cover – Your Member account, Forums and topics, and Community features.
Also, feel free to watch the video tutorials if you prefer that method of instruction.
If you run into issues, you can email us at forumsupport@mentalhealthfoundation.org
FORUM TUTORIALS – Creating Your Account.
This tutorial will walk you through creating your forum member account.
Visitors are welcome to browse the different forums on our site and read the posts from our members, however any type of posting to the forum, including replying to a comment in a topic, or creating a topic is limited to our members only.
Since the forum is the only part of our site that requires a login, that is where you will find the login section. When you visit one of the topics in a forum, you will see the login area in the column on right hand side.
To follow along, click on forums in the top navigation, and go to a topic under one of the forums listed. For example “Acute Stress Disorder” is a topic in the ‘Anxiety Disorder Forum’.
Once on a Forum Topic Page in the right hand column area, you will see where you can enter your username and password to login, and below that you will also see links to
Register, Recover your password, Search the forum, and Links to all the current forums and the latest activity.
If you had already registered, and selected ‘Remember Me‘ your credentials would appear pre-populated, and you could just click ‘LOG IN‘.
To create an account:
- Click the ‘Register‘ link in the right hand column of the page.
In the next screen,
- Enter the USERNAME you would like to use, and your email address.
Because non-members are free to browse our forums and read without registering, and because of the nature of the information being talked about and shared on our forums, many members choose to use a username that will not be something that could identify them personally.
For example, instead of using the name John Wilson, you could use a sports team followed by a number. Alternatively, if you are a healthcare professional in this field, it might be good to use your actual name to give more weight to your comments in the forums.
Once you click register after entering the username and your email address, the system will alert you if there is already a user registered with that username. If that is the case, you will need to pick a different name. Adding a number on the end of your username, like your birth date year, might make your username unique enough to allow you to register.
Once your registration goes through, you will receive an email with a link to set your password. Once you have copied and saved the password (or entered your own) and clicked to set the password, you will be able to login with a link on the page.
Because this will be your first email from us, check your spam folder in case it gets sent there. If you do find it there, click NOT SPAM to ensure you will receive future emails from us.
FORUM TUTORIALS – Logging In.
This tutorial will walk you through logging in to the forum.
After you have registered your username, and clicked the link in the email to set your password, you can return to the forum by clicking the forum link in the navigation.
Here, you can click on any of the Forum Topics, and on the topic page you will see the login area in the right hand column.
If you have logged in before, and allowed your browser to remember your credentials then it will auto-populate with your credentials and you can login there.
If this is your first time logging in on this computer you will enter your credentials.
Once you are logged in you will see a black bar appear at the top of the browser. We will cover the details of your account which are available through this bar in a section called Community Features.
FORUM TUTORIALS – Resetting your password.
This tutorial will walk you through resetting a password for an existing account.
If you have forgotten your password, visit the forum, and select any of the topics in any of the forums.
On the topic page, click the LOST PASSWORD link in the column on the right hand side.
You will be presented with a field to enter your email address, and you will get an email to reset your password.
FORUM TUTORIALS – Forums and Topics.
This tutorial will walk you through navigating around our forums and their topics.
Once you are logged in, you can contribute to the conversation topics in our forums. In this tutorial lets go into the Acute stress disorder in the Anxiety Disorder forum.
In that forum there is a topic called “If you are new, say Hi”
- To comment on that topic, you will see two options in the blue bar above the post Reply and Report. Click Reply, and type in your comments, and click Submit. If you want to you can choose to get an email notification of a response if there are additional replies by clicking the Notify check box to the left of the submit button. This might be useful if you do not log in very often, but is not completely necessary because your member notification in the top black bar will also tell you when there are new reply notifications for you.
Alternatively, if you found this to be an inappropriate post that violates the forum use guidelines, you can click Report (the other option in the blue bar above the post), and now this is flagged for the moderators to look at, and take the appropriate action. That is all you need to do. The individual who you are reporting will never know who it is that reported them.
This feature is there to protect the members of the community. Again, if you observe behavior that is a violation of our usage guidelines, or someone is attacking you personally, please feel free to report the post.
- To create your own topic in a forum, select the topic from the forum homepage. To follow along lets select the Acute Distress Disorder topic. Scroll down to the Create New Topic section, enter a title for your topic, and enter the topic itself. Finally click SUBMIT. If you want to you can choose to get an email notification of a response if there are additional replies by clicking the Notify check box to the left of the submit button. This might be useful if you do not log in very often, but is not completely necessary because your member notification in the top black bar will also tell you when there are new reply notifications for you.
In addition to responding to topics and creating your own, you can set forums and topics as favorites and you can subscribe to them to get notifications when there are new posts. When it is a favorite, you will be able to navigate to it quickly, and when you subscribe you will get notified when there are new posts.
Details on how to get to your favorites and where you will see notifications will be in the video called community features.
Now you are equipped to reply to posts in topics in our forum and to create your own topics for people to add their voice to.
FORUM TUTORIALS – Community Features.
This tutorial will walk you through accessing all the community features that come with a member account.
Once you are logged in, you will see the black bar at the top of your browser. From here you can access the member features of your account.
The first feature we are going to cover is the notification counter – this is the circle with a number in it. Right now, as a new member of the community that will be a grey circle with the number 0 in it because you won’t have any notifications. When you mouse over it the message will popup saying “No New Notifications”.
To the right of that counter, you will see Welcome back followed by your username. After that is the search icon. This is just after the Welcome Back section. Once clicked, this will expand to show a box where you can enter something you want to search for.
When you mouse over the Welcome Back area a drop down menu will appear below your username you will see links edit to your profile, and to log out.
Below that, you will see the links to all community features through the drop down menu. Later on, whenever you go into your own profile, by clicking on your username or the thumbnail of your profile image, you will see links to all the same community features that we are about to cover through the account links in the black notification bar.
The additional options below your username and the Log Out link are
ACTIVITY – PROFILE – NOTIFICATIONS – MESSAGES – FRIENDS – GROUPS – FORUMS – and SETTINGS
The options under ACTIVITY are
- PERSONAL – This is where you can share a status like the Facebook “What’s on your mind” feature
- MENTIONS – Here you will see if people use the @USERNAME to mention you personally
- FAVORITES – Here you will see the list of topics or forums you have set as a favorite
- FRIENDS – Here you can see the activity of friends you have connected with through a friend request in our forum who have posted something recently
- GROUPS – Here you will see quick links to the list of groups you have become a member of
The options under PROFILE are
- VIEW – Here, you can take a look at your profile
- EDIT – Here you can make changes to your profile
- CHANGE PROFILE PICTURE – Here you can change the picture you have as your profile picture
- CHANGE COVER PICTURE – Here you can change the picture you have as your cover picture
The options under NOTIFICATIONS are
- UNREAD – Here is a list of links to all your unread notifications
- READ – Here is a list of links to all your notifications that you have read before
The options under MESSAGES are
- INBOX – Like an email inbox – this is where you will find your messages
- STARRED – Here you will see any messages you have rated as important with a star
- SENT – Like an email sent folder – this is where you will find your sent messages
- COMPOSE – This is where you create a new message to send to another user
The options under FRIENDS are
- FRIENDSHIPS – Here you will see a list of links to the friends you have connected with through a friend request
- PENDING REQUESTS – Since you have just joined, this will read NO PENDING REQUESTS, but as soon as someone sends you a friend request, this will change to read the number of friend requests that are waiting to be approved. These can be accessed by clicking here
The options under GROUPS are
- MEMBERSHIPS – This will contain a list of links to the groups you are a member of
- PENDING INVITES – Since you have just joined , this will read NO PENDING INVITES- that will change when someone invites you to a group. When you do get an invitation to join a group this will change to reflect the number of invitations. These invitations can be accessed by clicking here
- CREATE A GROUP – This link is to create your own group for a friends to join to chat off the public forum
In create a group, the options are
- DETAILS – Here you can set the name of and description for the group
- SETTINGS – Here you can set the group to public, private or hidden, and set who can invite other people
- FORUM – You have the option to create a hidden forum that only the members of the group can see
- PHOTO – Here you can change the profile image for the group
- COVER IMAGE – Here you can change the cover image for the group
- INVITES – Here you will see a list of your friends that you can invite to the group
The options under FORUMS are
- TOPICS STARTED – This is a list of links to the topics you created
- REPLIES CREATED – This is a list of links to topics where you replied to a post
- FAVORITE TOPICS – This is a list of links to topics that you clicked FAVORITE to be able to find them easily
- SUBSCRIBED TOPICS – This is a list of links to topics that you subscribed to in order to be notified if there was a post
The options under SETTINGS are
- GENERAL – Here, you can change your email associated with your member account
- EMAIL – Here you can determine what activities on the site will generate a notification email. For example, those options include, but are not limited to “Member mentions you in an update,” “Member sends you an email”, “Member sends you a friend request.
- DELETE ACCOUNT – Here you can delete your account
- PROFILE – This is another path to get to the Profile settings of GENERAL, EMAIL, PROFILE VISIBILITY
Once a member is logged in, when you are on a topic page, a new link section with four links will appear in the navigation on the right side of the forum, followed by two additional information sections:
The links are:
WHO IS ONLINE – MEMBERS – GROUPS and FORUMS
- Who is online – selecting this will take you to a page that displays a list of your friends who are currently logged in and active. From here you can click on the thumbnail of their profile picture if you want to go to their profile to send them a direct message.
- Members – links to a page displaying a list of all members on the forum
- Groups – links to a page displaying all the groups that you are a member of
- FORUMS – links back to the forum homepage
This section is followed by a link to our forum tutorials.
Information sections are:
RECENT REPLIES and RECENT TOPICS
- RECENT REPLIES – This is a list of the 3 most recent replies
- RECENT TOPICS – This shows a list of the 3 most recent topics
If you have completed all our tutorial videos, you should be well equipped to create an account, personalize it, navigate around our forums, post topics and replies, make friends and use all the community features.
As you take the time to go through our videos, you will be able to follow along, pausing the video to take the same steps, and at the end you will be a registered member of our community.
The best way to learn from these videos is to open the site in another browser as well. Then alt-tab between the video in one browser and the site in the other as you follow along, pausing the video to take the steps that you just learned.
FORUM TUTORIALS – Introduction.
In these tutorials we will cover – Your Member account, Forums and topics, and Community features.
Also, feel free to watch the video tutorials if you prefer that method of instruction.
If you run into issues, you can email us at forumsupport@mentalhealthfoundation.org
FORUM TUTORIALS – Creating Your Account.
This tutorial will walk you through creating your forum member account.
Visitors are welcome to browse the different forums on our site and read the posts from our members, however any type of posting to the forum, including replying to a comment in a topic, or creating a topic is limited to our members only.
Since the forum is the only part of our site that requires a login, that is where you will find the login section. When you visit one of the topics in a forum, you will see the login area in the column on right hand side.
To follow along, click on forums in the top navigation, and go to a topic under one of the forums listed. For example “Acute Stress Disorder” is a topic in the ‘Anxiety Disorder Forum’.
Once on a Forum Topic Page in the right hand column area, you will see where you can enter your username and password to login, and below that you will also see links to
Register, Recover your password, Search the forum, and Links to all the current forums and the latest activity.
If you had already registered, and selected ‘Remember Me‘ your credentials would appear pre-populated, and you could just click ‘LOG IN‘.
To create an account:
- Click the ‘Register‘ link in the right hand column of the page.
In the next screen,
- Enter the USERNAME you would like to use, and your email address.
Because non-members are free to browse our forums and read without registering, and because of the nature of the information being talked about and shared on our forums, many members choose to use a username that will not be something that could identify them personally.
For example, instead of using the name John Wilson, you could use a sports team followed by a number. Alternatively, if you are a healthcare professional in this field, it might be good to use your actual name to give more weight to your comments in the forums.
Once you click register after entering the username and your email address, the system will alert you if there is already a user registered with that username. If that is the case, you will need to pick a different name. Adding a number on the end of your username, like your birth date year, might make your username unique enough to allow you to register.
Once your registration goes through, you will receive an email with a link to set your password. Once you have copied and saved the password (or entered your own) and clicked to set the password, you will be able to login with a link on the page.
Because this will be your first email from us, check your spam folder in case it gets sent there. If you do find it there, click NOT SPAM to ensure you will receive future emails from us.
FORUM TUTORIALS – Logging In.
This tutorial will walk you through logging in to the forum.
After you have registered your username, and clicked the link in the email to set your password, you can return to the forum by clicking the forum link in the navigation.
Here, you can click on any of the Forum Topics, and on the topic page you will see the login area in the right hand column.
If you have logged in before, and allowed your browser to remember your credentials then it will auto-populate with your credentials and you can login there.
If this is your first time logging in on this computer you will enter your credentials.
Once you are logged in you will see a black bar appear at the top of the browser. We will cover the details of your account which are available through this bar in a section called Community Features.
FORUM TUTORIALS – Resetting your password.
This tutorial will walk you through resetting a password for an existing account.
If you have forgotten your password, visit the forum, and select any of the topics in any of the forums.
On the topic page, click the LOST PASSWORD link in the column on the right hand side.
You will be presented with a field to enter your email address, and you will get an email to reset your password.
FORUM TUTORIALS – Forums and Topics.
This tutorial will walk you through navigating around our forums and their topics.
Once you are logged in, you can contribute to the conversation topics in our forums. In this tutorial lets go into the Acute stress disorder in the Anxiety Disorder forum.
In that forum there is a topic called “If you are new, say Hi”
- To comment on that topic, you will see two options in the blue bar above the post Reply and Report. Click Reply, and type in your comments, and click Submit. If you want to you can choose to get an email notification of a response if there are additional replies by clicking the Notify check box to the left of the submit button. This might be useful if you do not log in very often, but is not completely necessary because your member notification in the top black bar will also tell you when there are new reply notifications for you.
Alternatively, if you found this to be an inappropriate post that violates the forum use guidelines, you can click Report (the other option in the blue bar above the post), and now this is flagged for the moderators to look at, and take the appropriate action. That is all you need to do. The individual who you are reporting will never know who it is that reported them.
This feature is there to protect the members of the community. Again, if you observe behavior that is a violation of our usage guidelines, or someone is attacking you personally, please feel free to report the post.
- To create your own topic in a forum, select the topic from the forum homepage. To follow along lets select the Acute Distress Disorder topic. Scroll down to the Create New Topic section, enter a title for your topic, and enter the topic itself. Finally click SUBMIT. If you want to you can choose to get an email notification of a response if there are additional replies by clicking the Notify check box to the left of the submit button. This might be useful if you do not log in very often, but is not completely necessary because your member notification in the top black bar will also tell you when there are new reply notifications for you.
In addition to responding to topics and creating your own, you can set forums and topics as favorites and you can subscribe to them to get notifications when there are new posts. When it is a favorite, you will be able to navigate to it quickly, and when you subscribe you will get notified when there are new posts.
Details on how to get to your favorites and where you will see notifications will be in the video called community features.
Now you are equipped to reply to posts in topics in our forum and to create your own topics for people to add their voice to.
FORUM TUTORIALS – Community Features.
This tutorial will walk you through accessing all the community features that come with a member account.
Once you are logged in, you will see the black bar at the top of your browser. From here you can access the member features of your account.
The first feature we are going to cover is the notification counter – this is the circle with a number in it. Right now, as a new member of the community that will be a grey circle with the number 0 in it because you won’t have any notifications. When you mouse over it the message will popup saying “No New Notifications”.
To the right of that counter, you will see Welcome back followed by your username. After that is the search icon. This is just after the Welcome Back section. Once clicked, this will expand to show a box where you can enter something you want to search for.
When you mouse over the Welcome Back area a drop down menu will appear below your username you will see links edit to your profile, and to log out.
Below that, you will see the links to all community features through the drop down menu. Later on, whenever you go into your own profile, by clicking on your username or the thumbnail of your profile image, you will see links to all the same community features that we are about to cover through the account links in the black notification bar.
The additional options below your username and the Log Out link are
ACTIVITY – PROFILE – NOTIFICATIONS – MESSAGES – FRIENDS – GROUPS – FORUMS – and SETTINGS
The options under ACTIVITY are
- PERSONAL – This is where you can share a status like the Facebook “What’s on your mind” feature
- MENTIONS – Here you will see if people use the @USERNAME to mention you personally
- FAVORITES – Here you will see the list of topics or forums you have set as a favorite
- FRIENDS – Here you can see the activity of friends you have connected with through a friend request in our forum who have posted something recently
- GROUPS – Here you will see quick links to the list of groups you have become a member of
The options under PROFILE are
- VIEW – Here, you can take a look at your profile
- EDIT – Here you can make changes to your profile
- CHANGE PROFILE PICTURE – Here you can change the picture you have as your profile picture
- CHANGE COVER PICTURE – Here you can change the picture you have as your cover picture
The options under NOTIFICATIONS are
- UNREAD – Here is a list of links to all your unread notifications
- READ – Here is a list of links to all your notifications that you have read before
The options under MESSAGES are
- INBOX – Like an email inbox – this is where you will find your messages
- STARRED – Here you will see any messages you have rated as important with a star
- SENT – Like an email sent folder – this is where you will find your sent messages
- COMPOSE – This is where you create a new message to send to another user
The options under FRIENDS are
- FRIENDSHIPS – Here you will see a list of links to the friends you have connected with through a friend request
- PENDING REQUESTS – Since you have just joined, this will read NO PENDING REQUESTS, but as soon as someone sends you a friend request, this will change to read the number of friend requests that are waiting to be approved. These can be accessed by clicking here
The options under GROUPS are
- MEMBERSHIPS – This will contain a list of links to the groups you are a member of
- PENDING INVITES – Since you have just joined , this will read NO PENDING INVITES- that will change when someone invites you to a group. When you do get an invitation to join a group this will change to reflect the number of invitations. These invitations can be accessed by clicking here
- CREATE A GROUP – This link is to create your own group for a friends to join to chat off the public forum
In create a group, the options are
- DETAILS – Here you can set the name of and description for the group
- SETTINGS – Here you can set the group to public, private or hidden, and set who can invite other people
- FORUM – You have the option to create a hidden forum that only the members of the group can see
- PHOTO – Here you can change the profile image for the group
- COVER IMAGE – Here you can change the cover image for the group
- INVITES – Here you will see a list of your friends that you can invite to the group
The options under FORUMS are
- TOPICS STARTED – This is a list of links to the topics you created
- REPLIES CREATED – This is a list of links to topics where you replied to a post
- FAVORITE TOPICS – This is a list of links to topics that you clicked FAVORITE to be able to find them easily
- SUBSCRIBED TOPICS – This is a list of links to topics that you subscribed to in order to be notified if there was a post
The options under SETTINGS are
- GENERAL – Here, you can change your email associated with your member account
- EMAIL – Here you can determine what activities on the site will generate a notification email. For example, those options include, but are not limited to “Member mentions you in an update,” “Member sends you an email”, “Member sends you a friend request.
- DELETE ACCOUNT – Here you can delete your account
- PROFILE – This is another path to get to the Profile settings of GENERAL, EMAIL, PROFILE VISIBILITY
Once a member is logged in, when you are on a topic page, a new link section with four links will appear in the navigation on the right side of the forum, followed by two additional information sections:
The links are:
WHO IS ONLINE – MEMBERS – GROUPS and FORUMS
- Who is online – selecting this will take you to a page that displays a list of your friends who are currently logged in and active. From here you can click on the thumbnail of their profile picture if you want to go to their profile to send them a direct message.
- Members – links to a page displaying a list of all members on the forum
- Groups – links to a page displaying all the groups that you are a member of
- FORUMS – links back to the forum homepage
This section is followed by a link to our forum tutorials.
Information sections are:
RECENT REPLIES and RECENT TOPICS
- RECENT REPLIES – This is a list of the 3 most recent replies
- RECENT TOPICS – This shows a list of the 3 most recent topics
If you have completed all our tutorial videos, you should be well equipped to create an account, personalize it, navigate around our forums, post topics and replies, make friends and use all the community features.