Post a new topic or
message to the conference (a conference should be selected before doing this).
A topic form will appear for you to fill in. The message posted appears as the
first message in the new topic.Before you start using WebBoard, you need to become familiar with the navigational aids.
The Menubar:
The following section describes each of the functions you can perform with the eight menu buttons:
Post a new topic or
message to the conference (a conference should be selected before doing this).
A topic form will appear for you to fill in. The message posted appears as the
first message in the new topic.
Updates your conferences
list to indicate any new activity. A new message or reply posted will not show
up in the Conference Menu unless it is refreshed.
Displays the list of
available chat rooms and the number of active users. Clicking on the name of
a conference chat room opens it, allowing you to carry on real-time interactive
discussion with other conference users.
Opens the Message
Search form, which you can use to find specific content in one or more messages
and/or topics.
Opens up the Mark
Messages Read menu. Mark Messages Read allows you to mark
messages read in one or all conferences. To mark all messages read in a single
conference, click a conference. To mark all messages read in all conferences,
click "Mark All Conferences Read". Marking messages as read eliminates the 
-icon
and the italics from new messages. WebBoard does not automatically update a
message you have read; you must do it manually, using this button.
Opens the More
Options menu. The available options are:
Opens
the WebBoard Help Index. It provides user help on the commands and features
of WebBoard. To search in this long table of contents, use your browser’s Find
command (Control-F).
This button takes you
out of WebBoard, usually to your class homepage or to the UIC
homepage. Although it says LOGOFF, it does not log you off. You can
use the browser’s back button to continue working in WebBoard. To actually log
out, you have to quit your browser! Always do that when you are done in WebBoard,
or others could manipulate/destroy your data!
The Conferences menu displays the conferences, topics and messages of a particular board in a hierarchical list. In a frames-enabled browser, the list appears on the left side of the screen.
The Conferences Menu:
All the conferences in the board are displayed in the Conferences Menu. The information in WebBoard is set up like a book, in that the conferences correspond to book titles, topics to chapter titles, and messages to the content of each topic.
An expansion icon (+) to the left of a conference indicates that the conference
contains topics. The number in parentheses to the right of a conference name
tells how many messages are in it. A
icon displayed to the right of a conference name denotes a new/unread message
in a conference. To view the contents of a conference, click on its name. This
action changes the + sign to -, indicating that the conference
is open for viewing, and displays the list of topics.
The Message Window
If the frames option is turned on, the message window appears on the right side of the screen. The messages and the replies are displayed on this part of the screen. It has a white background (by default).
Topics and Messages
Topics and messages provide the information to the conferences. A topic is an original message. All the replies to a topic are considered to be messages. Also, a message can be an original statement posing a question or asking for some explanation. Conferences are made up of threaded messages.
Topics are indented 2 spaces under a conference heading. A conference may have many topics and messages under it. All messages in a topic may have the same name as the original topic or a different name; however, reply messages are indented under a topic message. The topics are displayed similar to conferences. A plus (+) sign to the left of a topic indicates there are replies. When the topic is viewed by clicking on the plus (+) sign, the sign changes to minus (-).
Clicking on the subject line (instead of the plus sign) will display all the messages in the message window.
Messages are arranged chronologically with the earliest (original) messages at the top of each topic list.
Follow these steps to read specific messages:
