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Grace Notes (Forums)
The Forums (aka Grace Notes) are the principal "meeting place" on the website for Chorale members, associates, and even the general public. Forum users can engage in written conversations by exchanging public messages. The Forums combine many of the conversational services found in wildly popular "instant messaging" software with the easy pace and conversational longevity of computer bulletin boards and Internet news groups.
Features
  • Anyone can join Grace Notes simply by "registering".
  • People can participate in multiple multi-person discussions simultaneously.
  • The Forums automatically keep track of messages a person has already read.
  • People can send private as well as public messages.
  • Text can be formatted in interesting ways.
  • Users can set up "polls".
  • You can be notified by e-mail if someone responds to your message.
  • You can display links to your personal website, instant messaging addresses, and more.
Grace Notes

When you first enter Grace Notes, you're given a list of all of the active Forums. The Forums are currently in two categories, "Chorale", and "Website". Most of the activity will take place in the Chorale category. Use the Website category to report problems or make suggestions.

Each forum is shown with a brief description, the number of topics and messages currently active in that forum, plus information on the last message that was posted to it. Click on a forum's name to read message in that forum.

Note that one of the forums is the Test Forum. You can use this forum to experiment.

Some forums require that you "register" with Grace Notes to participate. This is primarily so that the author of a message can be displayed, but also so the system can allow you to edit or delete your own messages. Use this area to enter your Grace Notes login and password. (See item #3.)

Click the "Register" menu item here if you need to register in Grace Notes. You will be asked to supply your name and as much other information about yourself as you care to volunteer. Be sure to leave a good e-mail address. Note that you choose your own login ID in Grace Notes, and this is the name you will be known by in the Forums. It's perfectly legitimate if you want to be known as "Scuddlewinks". The password you choose can also be different from the one you use in the Member's Hall website.

The registration process will ask you several questions, many of which concern how you want Grace Notes to behave when you are logged in. You can change these settings later by clicking the "Profile" link located at the top of all pages.


Most of Grace Notes should be self-explanatory. Feel free to experiment -- you can edit or even delete any of your own messages if you make a mistake. If you still have questions, browse the FAQ (frequently asked questions) by clicking here. If you still need help, send e-mail to the webmaster, or post your question in one of the forums, so others can see it, and possibly respond.

You'll do most of your "navigation" in the Forums by clicking on the names of messages and forums, and the occasional button. However, if you ever want to return to this Forums List screen, click on the Rainier Chorale logo.

The Forum
The forum is an area where you can read and leave messages in a general topical area, such as "Activities", but the messages you leave and the topics you choose are entirely up to you. When you select a forum from the main screen, you will see a screen similar to this one. Here are some of the features:

In the middle section, you can see the topics that are currently being discussed, the number of messages that have been posted in each topic, and the last activity in the forum. Click on a topic to read its messages.

To the left of each topic is a small icon that represents the activity or the kind of messages in that topic. The key to those icons is here.

If there are a lot of messages in a forum, you can restrict the display to a recent time period of your choosing here.


There are several possible activites in each forum, some of which may be unavailable to you. The most common restriction is that an activity requires that you be logged in. Your "privileges" in the current forum are listed here.

If you are permitted to create a new topic (see #4 above), you can click this button to start the New Topic dialog. You will be asked to type a short description of your topic plus your message. Note that topics that receive no "traffic" (replies) become "stale" after a few weeks and are deleted by the system.

Messages
After clicking on a topic, you will see all of the messages for that topic.

The first message is the one that started the current topic. It's displayed here along with the ID of the person who posted it, and other information.

If there are any replies, they are listed underneath.


Within each message, the system displays the various ways you can contact the author of the message. Each person sets these up in their "profile". To modify your profile, click the Profile link at the top of any page.

From here, you can create a new topic or add a reply to the current one. You will also find your "bread crumb trail" here that shows links to various places you've been to. Click any of these links to go back to that place.

The Message Editor
The message editor appears whenever you choose to add or edit a message.

The "title" or "topic" of your message is entered here.


Put your message in the large text box. Messages can be as long as you like (and that someone is willing to read).


There are several text formatting options, such as bold, italic and underlining. You can even specify font size and color. Advanced features include making dotted lists, including images, and adding links to other websites.

Grace notes has an impressive suite of "emoticons" that you can include in your message. Just click the emoticon you want, and its coding will be inserted in your message.

If your text doesn't seem to come out the way you want it, it may be being interpreted by the system as formatting commands. You can turn off various automatic formatting here. Note that you can also request that the system send you e-mail if someone publicly replies to your message.

At any time, you can click "Preview" to see what your message will look like when it's been posted to Grace Notes. When you're through editing, click the Submit button to send your message. If you decide to cancel, just hit the Back button on your browser. Later on, you can still edit or even delete your message.

Have fun!

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