Questions: (Click on the question for the answer.)
- How do I enter a message?
- Can I put links in my message that people can click on?
- Can I use HTML tags in my message to do things that
HTML can do, like make text bold or put things in bulleted lists?
- Can I put a photo in my message?
- How do I put a portrait in my message?
- I made a mistake. How do I delete my message?
- Will my message stay there forever?
- There seems to be a tree structure to how the messages
are positioned. How do I put mine in the place I want?
- How do I post a 'follow-up' message?
- Why are there colons in the message when I try to
post a followup?
- Why didn't my post show up?
- How can I get a copy of this bulletin board
software for my web site?
Answers:
1. How do I enter a message?
Here's the procedure:
- At the top of the main page click 'Post Message'.
- Enter your name in the appropriate box. (This is required, but
aliases are okay.)
- Enter your e-mail address (The software considers this optional.)
If you want to receive replies by e-mail, you will, of course, have to
enter your address here. You also have to put it in if you have a
"portrait" photo and you want it to show. Your e-mail address will
be obscured (info).
- Enter the 'Subject' of your message. This should be brief line that
describes the contents of your message.
- Enter your message in the box provided. Let the program add your line
returns as you type, unless you're starting a new paragraph. You
can make the message as long as you want by using the slide bar on the
right side of the box.
- After you have your message entered, you can check it for errors and
make any changes you desire.
- Refer to questions below if you wish to add links, HTML tags or photos.
- When you are ready to 'post' or save the message, click on the gray bar
at the bottom that says "Post Your Message". (Whatever is in the
message box when you click the gray bar is what's printed for the
text of the message.) After you click the gray bar, wait for a
response from the server. Do not click the bar again or you'll
post your message a second time. The response will show you what you
typed.
- Now, if you hit the "Back" button a couple of times it will take you
back to to the original message board. Hit 'reload' or 'refresh', and
your message will appear at the top of the list.
2. Can I put links in my message
that people can click on?
Yes. There are two ways to do that. The easy way is to fill
out the box right below where you type in your message. Doing that will
put the link right at at the bottom of your message.
You can also put links anywhere else in your message, but you have to
type them in, using HTML code. If you don't know HTML code, this may be a
bit tedious for you, but here is a quick tutorial in case you want to learn:
Suppose you want to say this sentence:
I saw some great boots on
Bob's web site in Phoenix!
You want people to be able to click on the words
Bob's web site and go there. Say the URL of
Bob's site is http://www.isp.com/~bob/. What
you want to type in is this:
I saw some great boots
on
<A HREF="http://www.isp.com/~bob/">Bob's web site</A> in Phoenix!
Note that we've shown the information you already had in blue, and the
HTML code you must add in red. Note also that you have to put the space
that goes after the word "on" and the space that goes before the
word "in" both in the message, or those spaces will not show up
in your document and two words will be run together.
HTML must be entered exactly right, or it won't work and it will make
your message look strange. But if you do it right, it's a really nice
effect!
3. Can I use HTML tags in my
message to do things that HTML can do, like make text bold or put
things in bulleted lists?
Yes. If you are comfortable with HTML coding, you may at times wish to
use a number of HTML features in your posts. You can make text bold,
italicized, or underlined, by using the usual HTML coding
methods: <B>bold</B>, <I>
italics</I>, and <U>underlined
</U>. The system also accepts bulleted and numbered lists,
(<UL> and <OL> tags), but we will not get
into how to make them here. If you wish to use those features or others,
we recommend you consult an HTML manual. As we have mentioned, HTML can
make your message look great if done right, but it can really make it look
awful if not entered correctly.
By the way, the only place you can use HTML is in the body of your
message. It won't work in the subject or other fields.
Because the brackets like these < > are used to
enclose HTML data, if you put anything else between such marks in your
message, it will disappear. If you are accustomed to using things like
"<grin>" and do so here, your emotions will vanish! We
suggest using "[grin]" instead.
4. Can I put a photo in my
message?
Yes. There are two ways to do it. The means to do it are at the bottom
of where you enter a new message. Which you choose will depend upon where
your photo is. If it is on the Internet somewhere, you can LINK it. If
it is on your home computer, you can UPLOAD it to the Hot Boots site.
The latter is the easier method of the two.
To LINK your photo, it has to be on the Internet somewhere. If you
don't have a web site, you could ask a friend to put your photo on his.
Another option would be for you to start your own web site. Most
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) give you free web space with your account
and if you go to their home page they usually tell you how to get started.
It's really not that difficult. A quick phone call is needed with some ISPs to
switch your web site on.
NOTE: Some sites, such as AOL, Geocities, Yahoo, Tripod, Xoom, etc. do
not allow photos that are posted on their servers to be used elsewhere.
You may think that linking from them worked if you had just looked at the
photo, because it was just put into your computer's cache area; however
those who come to see your message will not have recently visited that
site and they will not have the photo in their computer. The site won't
give it to them and they'll not see it.
Once your photo is on the Internet, and you're writing a message you want
to use it in, do this:
- Open a second copy of your web browser by typing CTRL-N (hold down
the CTRL key while hitting the N key).
- Use that second copy of your web browser to find the web page that
has your photo, or the photo itself, on the Internet.
- If you are using Netscape, right-click the photo (PC) or prolong-click
it (Mac), and select View Image. Then shade the "Location" box contents above
the picture and type CTRL-C. The shaded character string should start with
"http://" and end with either "jpg" or "gif".
- If you are using Microsoft IE, right-click the photo (PC) or prolong-click
it (Mac), and select Properties. Then shade the "Address" in the properties
box and type CTRL-C. The shaded character string should start with
"http://" and end with either "jpg" or "gif".
- Go back to the first browser copy, the one that has the message you are
writing in it, and find the appropriate box at the bottom of the page. It
will say "The URL of your photo:" Click to put your cursor in it, and then
type CTRL-V.
Each time someone looks at your message, the Internet will supply a
copy to him from the site where your photo is posted. This means that you
should leave the photo there as long as the message is on the "Boots
On Line" system. Otherwise, when people read your message, they will
not see your photo. You need not leave the photo there forever; in a month
or so your message will probably be so old that it will have been cleared
from the system.
Of course, you can also include linked photos anywhere in your message,
and in any quantity, by using an HTML "img" tag for each
photo, like this:
<img src="http://www.myisp.com/mywebsite/myphoto.jpg">
To UPLOAD your photo, click the "Browse" button and find it
on your hard disk. If using Windows, make sure the "Files of type" selection says
"All files" so you'll see the file for the photo you want. After
you select the photo, click the "Open" button and the file name
will appear in the box next to the "Browse" button and the dialog
box will go away. If using a Mac, click on "Choose File". When
you click on the "Post your message" button,
your photo will be uploaded to the system with it. Your upload will
take longer than a pure-text upload, so be patient for the system to
acknowledge receipt of your post. Note: Uploaded photos are limited
to 2 megabytes in size; if your photo is larger you will have to use the
"Link it" method, above. Also note that uploaded photos will be
removed when the message they go with is deleted, so they should
not be linked in other messages.
If you have a slow web connection such as dialup, you may find that
the system times out before you can upload larger photos, so you may
have to upload smaller ones. A photo manipulation program or
Bill's Photo Resize Utility
can be used to pre-shrink any large photos you have before you post.
His web page will immediately e-mail the photo to you in a size
small enough that it can be posted.
If uploaded photos are wider or taller than 600 pixels,
they will be proportionately shrunk to fit within an imaginary box of
600 pixels square as they are taken in by the system.
If you UPLOAD photos, you may select to have them rotated. This will
correct photos that were taken while you held your camera sideways.
The Hot Boots site cannot alter photos that are linked, of course,
since they reside on a different site.
Placement of photos, LINKED or UPLOADED:
Though you put the picture in at the bottom, it will show up in
your message centered and at the top. Keep that in mind when you
write, since you don't want to refer to a picture that is really
"above" as being "below". If you use both
methods in the same message, the linked photo will appear first
and the uploaded photo just below it.
5. How do I put a portrait in
my message?
The small photos you see in the upper left corner of some posts are inserted
by the software. Separate from all of the above, we have a system that automatically
puts users' photos with each of their posts. These photos are called Hot Boots
"portraits" and you can read about how to submit one
here. If a man has a profile in our Men In
Boots gallery, users who click on his portrait will be taken to his profile.
6. I made a mistake. How do I
delete my message?
You can't once it's posted. We can do it, but that is obviously a
hassle. If you've just really got to have a message deleted,
contact Larry.
7. Will my message stay there
forever?
No. People mostly look at the newest messages, and when your message
gets far down the list, almost no one will be looking at it anyway. So at
some point it might as well go away. Meanwhile, everyone must wait for the
ever-lengthening list to load. We really don't want to be taking up
people's time loading a long list of messages that hardly anyone will be
viewing. So we decide how long the list should be, and delete the oldest
messages from time to time when it gets too long.
At the moment we leave threads on the board for about nine days after they
have been posted to on Boots On Line. We leave them for about two weeks
on Boots For Sale.
When messages are removed from Boots On Line, they are put in our archive,
where users can view them but not reply to them anymore. We do not archive
Boots For Sale messages. When those are deleted, they are gone from the
hotboots.com server.
8. There seems to be a tree
structure to how the messages are positioned. How do I put mine in the
place I want?
If your message is a new topic, the place it belongs is right at the
top of the list. The program puts newest messages on top, so that is
where yours will be placed if you do this: Go to the main page where
you see all of the messages listed. At the top of this page
click 'Post Message'.
If you are replying to a message, you will want your message underneath
it in the tree structure. The way to put your message there is to read the
message you want to reply to so that you have that message on your screen,
then click 'Post Followup' at the top of that message. Or you can scroll
down to the bottom of the message where you'll find a place to click to
reply to the message.
9. How do I post a
'follow-up' message?
Here's the procedure:
- Read the message you want to reply to so that you have that message
on your screen.
- At the top of his message click 'Post Followup'. Or you can scroll
down to the bottom of the message where you'll find a place to click to
reply to the message.
- Follow the procedure outlined in question #1 at the top of this FAQ page.
- Read the next item below about distinguishing your added text from the
text of the guy you are replying to.
10. Why are there colons in the
message when I try to post a followup?
When you reply to a message, you may want people to see parts of the
original message so your answer makes more sense. To make it easy for you,
so you don't ever have to retype any of the original message, the program
puts all of it in your new reply message to start out with. This is for
your convenience because erasing is much easier than typing. Any of it
that doesn't apply to your response, you should simply erase.
To help others understand what you said and what the
other guy said, the system starts each paragraph of the other guy's
with a colon. Leave them there! They will help your readers follow the
"conversation" that you are having with the guy whose message
you are replying to.
Multiple colons, of course, indicate text that has survived more than
one reposting.
Your comments should NOT have a colon in front of them.
We recommend you put all your comments in paragraphs that do not
have the words of others in them. This will make it easier for readers
to separate what you said from what the other guy said.
11. Why didn't my post show
up?
Your browser is probably showing you an old copy of the page that it
got before you posted your message. Selecting "reload" or
"refresh" on your browser should cause it to fetch an updated
copy. If you still don't see your post, try selecting "reload"
or "refresh" one more time with the "shift" key held
down while you do it. That tells your browser you really mean it,
you really do want a new copy.
Sometimes we are routing messages for human screening before they are
posted. If this is occurring, you will see a message reading
"Screening Notice", and your message, if in accord with
this FAQ, will appear on the board within a few hours.
12. How can I get a copy
of this bulletin board system software for my web site?
The software we run has been extensively modified; however Matt Wright
wrote the original software scripts for this system in Perl and
distributes them free. Visit his web site at:
www.scriptarchive.com
for further information on this program and many of the other scripts he
has written!
