Welcome the the Z Club of New Zealand website and forums, this page is intended as a quick start guide for those who are unfamiliar with web forums. Its purpose is to help you get familiar with, and involved in the site as quickly as possible as well as teach you some of the "tips and tricks" that make the site more useable.
Registration
This sites content is open to anyone to view, but in order to post information yourself, you will need to register as a user. This is a simple process, just click on the 'Forum Registration' link at the top of the page below the club logo and follow the prompts. You'll need to pick a login name and fill out some details, the login name is what will identify you to other site users, and will appear next to any posts you make.
Registering is not the same as joining the club, it's merely a mechanism for us to regulate who can post on the site.
Registration on the site is not restricted to club members. The web site is available to anyone who is interested in participating in the online presence of the Z Club. The more the merrier
Logging in
Once you've registered you'll need to log in with your new login name and password before you can post. Click the 'Log in' link at the top of the page, below the club logo.
How can I tell if I'm logged in or not? When you visit the 'Home' page of the site (the first page you see when you visit) the top left box will display your login status. If you're not logged in the box will be headed 'Guest', if you are logged in, it will display your login name and your Avatar (we'll discuss these later)
Replying to a post
If you want to reply to a 'thread' (all the posts on a given topic are called a thread) look for the
button at the top or bottom of the page.Click it, fill in the form with your reply and click 'Submit'. You can alter the font style, color, or size if you want, as well as add links to pictures or other websites by using the control panel above the edit box. Don't be afraid to experiment, you can always edit your posts once you've made them.
If you want to check out your post before you submit it (to make sure it looks OK), use the 'Preview' button instead. This will show you what your post will look like once you submit it, and allow you to edit it further if you want to.
Starting a new topic
If you want to begin a new discussion on a different topic, click the
button . This will take you to an edit page just like the one for a reply, but your post will be the first in a new thread.Be sure to fill out the 'Subject' field (not required for reply posts) and make it relevant, as this will show up in the forum index as the name of your thread.
Avatars
So, you want one of those cool pictures next to your login name when you post?
Easy. First you'll need a small image to use, a GIF or JPG file that's at most 80x80 pixels (that's the current site restriction. This may be relaxed later)
If you have a picture you want to use but can't make it the right size, contact Pest, he'll help you out.
Once you've got your pic ready, click on the 'Profile' link at the top of the page and scroll to the bottom section, 'Avatar control panel'. Click the 'Browse' button and select your pic. Then click submit. Done.
Emoticons
Emoticons are those cute little smilies people use to better represent an emotion in their post. they look like this
or this 
or even this 
When you're editing a post, the emoticons appear to the left of the edit box. Simpy click one to have its text-code inserted into the edit box.
For example, if you click on
this will appear: :DKeeping up to date
How do you keep up with new posts?
The easiest way is to use the 'View posts since last visit' link. First you'll need to log on, then you'll see the link on the homepage at the top, left below your avatar. This page lists the topics that are new or have new replies since the last time you logged on. Clicking on the topic titles will take you to the topic content, you may need to scroll down to get to the latest posts.
Alternatively, when you go to the Forum Index, you'll see 2 kinds of icons. White ones:
and Yellow ones: 
The yellow ones indicate that there have been new posts in that forum since your last visit. Likewise, inside a forum topics have white and yellow icons to indicate which topics have new content.Private messaging
This forum has it's own messaging system that is much like email but allows registered users to send messages to one another without requiring an email address.
Below each and every post in the forum you will see several buttons like these:
and sometimes more (depending on how much detail the user has allowed the site to publish)
If you click on the
button in a post, you can write a message to the author of that post that they can read next time they're on the site.If you have a private message waiting for you, you will see 'You have X new messages' in the links at the top of the page when you log in. You may even have a window pop up to let you know that new messages are waiting.
Replying is the same as replying to a forum post.
You're on your way!
Well that's the basics of how to use this forum, there's much more to discover though so feel free to click around and explore.
I hope you enjoy participating in our online community.