SMF User Help: Personal Message

Introduction • Registering • Logging In • Profile • Posting • Personal Message • Searching

SMF is about community and communication. And there are many ways to communicate, such as posting to the boards, personal messaging, email, ICQ, AIM and YIM. But SMF's own personal message system, as available to registered members in most forums, is sometimes a more suitable option than any of these.

Personal Messaging

Description

While email is a good way to correspond directly with members, it also has several drawbacks for forum purposes: you must open your email application to write and send the message, the recipient must open his/her email application and check his/her mail, your message will be mixed in with all the other mail and it can sometimes take several minutes to an hour for mail to reach the recipient.

As an alternative to email, SMF offers a faster, more private method. Personal messaging on the boards provides instantaneous delivery to the recipient's private mailbox. The mail is sent and received entirely through SMF, so neither you nor the recipient have to open another program or leave SMF. Personal messaging also offers both the sender and the recipient greater privacy because no-one's real email address is revealed. Personal messages show only the handle and name of both parties.

If a recipient isn't online, personal messages wait in the member's PM box until the next time he/she logs in and reads and/or deletes them. SMF Personal Messages is a self-contained, highly private email system.

Reading Your Messages

To read your personal messages, you need to be logged in, then follow the link that says something like 'Hey, [username], you have x messages, x are new'.

The PM Interface

The PM interface is similar in operation to that of the message index. While we are showing the inbox interface here, the outbox works in much the same way:

Some forums show the navigation tree at the top in a space-saving horizontal mode.
The main Delete button deletes all messages in your inbox (or outbox if open). Note that the checkbox and lower Delete button also allow you to delete selected messages, with the top checkbox selecting all.
The Outbox button toggles to your outbox, where it obviously becomes an Inbox button.
The New Message button enables you to start a new message, which is similar to starting a new topic but adds 'To:' and 'Bcc:' (blind carbon copy) fields and the option to save to your outbox.
The Reload button checks for new messages by refreshing the page.
The Date, Subject, and From links enable you to sort the columns by these parameters (with Date also toggling between descending and ascending order as indicated by the little arrow).
The main subject title links to the start of the message, which will be further down the same page.
The page numbers link to further pages of messages as applicable.

Starting or Replying to a Message

There are actually several different ways to start a new personal message, but all require you to be logged in:

You can follow the link that says something like 'Hey, [username], you have x messages, x are new', then click the New Message button in your inbox.
You can click another member's name, followed by Send this member a personal message from his/her profile summary screen.
You can start a new message direct by clicking the IM on/offline icon from the user info accompanying all of his/her posts.
You can start a new message direct by clicking the PM on/offline icon from the Current Status in his/her profile summary screen. (This icon/link is often duplicated in the user info described above.)
Replying to a message is very similar to replying to a topic.

Introduction • Registering • Logging In • Profile • Posting • Personal Message • Searching

Today at 12:08:05 AM

Atrius: Thanks for letting me know, it should be fixed now.

Yesterday at 11:47:02 PM

Fox: Okay cool. Speaking about broken things = There was some error I've known about for awhile now: When you try to upload something to the Downloads section. The user may think the upload failed, but it actually succeeds. - I wonder if that was one of the few things? And whether that could be fixed if it hasn't yet.

Yesterday at 11:42:01 PM

Atrius: Oops, that wasn't even supposed to go up. So, our hosting company moved the site over to a different server, and I was just updating some settings to fix things that broke in the move.

Yesterday at 11:39:18 PM

Fox: @Atrius: Probably going to need to update the Maintenance Description... I was confused at first, but it says 20 Mar 2017.

Yesterday at 07:29:35 AM

dawnbomb: can someone link me the discord

Yesterday at 04:52:32 AM

Majora: That's hilarious, lmao. I thought it read like something you might have written, Fox, was almost unsure if it was a bot at first

September 18, 2017, 03:01:57 PM

Fox: Yeah, he copied this post: http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=1425.0

September 18, 2017, 02:57:48 PM

Fox: (Although, not sure about the last part, it just feels strangely familiar for some reason.)

September 18, 2017, 02:56:43 PM

Fox: BOT ALERT! Kill it, kill it! I think it copied one of my posts? :P

September 17, 2017, 12:58:02 AM

Fox: Not saing we actually need those ofcourse (we don't?), but more saying that minorities could get too attached to them.

September 17, 2017, 12:54:47 AM

Fox: I think it's interesting how Facebook likes to start things, and then retire them. For example, Advanced Search, and E-mail. - They seemed like pretty fine features in my opinion, but retiring them because most people aren't using them at that time? I'm not sure if they know what they're doing, but it sound like they don't. :P

September 14, 2017, 12:59:16 PM

Fox: (At leat when I think about establishments...) ; Oops, pardon my rudeness... .I forgot to welcome you back.... Well... WElcome back! We are glad you've returned.

September 14, 2017, 12:52:57 PM

Fox: (Just want to clarify that "founded" may be an actual word, but sounds weird the way it was used.)

September 14, 2017, 12:47:42 PM

Fox: Cringy? Let me check... Hm... Low number of posts [check] (5 posts) ; misspellings/grammar [check] ("Toturial" (Torture-ial?) , ; founded, ehh.... double past-tense?) ; The best part is at least the posts have a positive attitude! (That may be the most important part?) :)

September 14, 2017, 05:59:01 AM

KeinoGSTLA: back then my posts were so cringy lmao

September 14, 2017, 05:58:39 AM

KeinoGSTLA: damn feels good to find this place again

September 10, 2017, 04:27:04 PM

Fox: I don't suppose there is anything else? ;; Hmmm... What if a Big Brother game was similar to ... er.... Exit/Corners .... which seems to have a Trust system.

September 06, 2017, 11:02:17 AM

Plexa: Honestly we haven't looked into that ... I completely forgot about it until now!

September 06, 2017, 05:44:33 AM

Fox: (Referring to the box/crate that would allow you to get stuck.)

September 06, 2017, 05:43:42 AM

Fox: Is SW Atteka Islet the only one that forgets to update the heightmap when save/resetting? ... The Move pillar seems to update it fine... Hm.

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