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This thread is a collection of posts that contain answers to some of the more common questions you may have while using the forum software.

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Help Topic: Your Account

How to Register
To be able to enjoy all of the features available to the community, you will need to have an EA Account. To sign up, click the "Create Account" link at the top of any page. This will take you to an EA website where you will complete the registration process.

Logging In
Once you have signed up for an account, you can log in by pressing the "Sign In" button at the top of any page.

From here, you should enter your email address, and the password you used when you registered. If you tick the "Remember Me" box you will not have to sign in when you visit the community in future. This ability can be very useful, but should not be used if other people have access to your computer or if you are using a public computer.

You may also be able to hide your username from the online list by checking the "Sign in anonymously" box. Administrators will still be able to see you online if you do so, however other members will not be able to.

When you are ready, click Sign In.
Once logged in, you should be taken back to whatever page you were previously viewing.

Forgotten your password
If you have forgotten your password, you can click the "I've forgotten my password" link on the sign in page below the password box. This will take you to an EA website where you can enter your email address, and they will provide you details on how to reset your password.

Note that if you locked your account by typing in the wrong password too many times, you will still need to unlock your account before you can use your new password.

Logging Out
To log out click the "Sign Out" link at the top of the screen from any page.

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Help Topic: Your Settings

You can access your settings from any page by selecting your name at the top of the screen and then selecting "My Settings".

There are several tabs on the side of the page, which allow you to configure and update different board settings:

Profile Settings
From the Profile Settings area of your UserCP, you can configure various aspects of your profile, including:

• Profile Picture: This is the photo used to identify you throughout the community.
• Timezome
• Allow Comments: If checked, other forum members can leave comments on your profile.
• Friends
• Edit your "About Me" information
• Change your Member Title

Display Name
The Display Name page allows you to change the name that is shown to members throughout the community. The board administrator limits the number of times you can change your display name, so make changes wisely.

Signature
The signature page allows you to modify the custom signature that is shown below all of your posts.

Ignore
The "ignore" tab allows you to configure your Ignore settings - you can choose to hide individual member's posts, signatures, chats, status updates, or other aspects of a member that you wish to hide.

Manage Attachments
This page will display all attachments that you have uploaded to the forum. If you are running close to your global attachment limit, you can delete attachments from this area.

Notification Options
The Notification Options page allows you to configure how you should be notified of certain events, such as a reply to a topic, a private message, or a new topic. You can configure how you would like to receive these notifications as well, such as via the mobile application, email, or inline notifications.

Your Notifications
This tab will display the most recent notifications that you have received.

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Help Topic: Topics and Forums
 
Viewing The Board Index
 
When visiting the board, you will be presented with a list of categories and forums in those categories. This page is called the Board Index, and it lists all of the forums.

Forums are split into categories. You can choose to hide any category by pressing the "-" button on the right-hand side above the list of forums, and the "+" button to make them visible again. If hidden, such categories, and the forums inside them, will be collapsed and no longer shown to you when visiting the board index.

When viewing the forums, there are icons shown next to them which indicate the status of a forum, and if it has unread posts or not.
This indicates that there are posts which you have not read contained inside this forum, or one of it's sub forums.
This indicates that all of the posts contained in this forum and it's sub forums have been read.
Redirect forum, when you enter this forum you will be redirected elsewhere.


The Topic List
Within each forum there are a list of topics. Just like forums, each topic has an marker to indicate the type of topic it is:
A regular topic with unread posts.
This is a topic which you have participated in, with no new replies since you last read it.
This indicates that you have previously replied in this topic, and there are new replies since you last read or replied to the topic.
 
Special Types of Topics
This icon indicates an "Announcement" - Announements are not regular topics, because members cannot reply to them. They are simply important news or information which should be read.
Topic that has been moved into another forum.
This indicates that a topic has been locked, and can no longer be replied to.

To add a new topic, press the "Start new Topic" button. This may not be available for all forums. In forums where you cannot create a topic you will see "You cannot start a new topic" in place of the button.

To enter a any topic, click on its name.

Sorting Options
To customize the way topics are displayed, you can use the sorting options found at the top of the forum.

• Show type - this allows you to only display certain types of topics such as polls or topics that you have posted in.
• Sort by - this allows you to change the way topics are ordered. By default topics are ordered with the topics that have most recently had replies first, but you can choose to sort by other factors such as the number of replies or alphabetically.
• Sort direction - this allows you to set which way you want to sort for the setting above. For example if you set "Sort by" to be "Replies", choosing "A-Z" for this setting will show the topics that have no replies first, whereas choosing "Z-A" will show the topics with the most replies first.
• Time frame - this allows you to limit the topics that are shown to only topics that have been made within a certain amount of time.

There may be more than one page of topics, if this is the case, you will see an option to "Load More Topics" at the bottom of the list of topics. There will also be page numbers to the left of this button.


Viewing Posts
 
To the side of each post there will be information about the user. 

To view a user's profile information at a glance, simply hover your mouse over their username. Their profile card will display, showing you various profile information without having to leave the topic. From their profile card, you can send them a message quickly, without having to leave the topic. If you wish to view their full profile page, simply click on their user name.

On their member card, you can also click on several options to view that user's content. 

Below their username you will see their photo, member title and pips or group image.

Replying
To add a post to the topic, simply scroll to the bottom of the page, and start typing in the reply box. 

To quote another post in your reply, you can either click the Quote button beneath a post, or use the multiquote feature. Multiquote is used when you want to quote more than one post in your reply. Select the Multiquote button underneath the posts you want to quote, and you will notice that the button will change color. At the bottom of the page, you will notice an informational box appear with the total number of posts you have added to multiquote. You can multiquote from different pages in a topic, or even different topics in the forum. When you are ready to post a reply with the posts you have quoted, simply click the "Quote Posts Add Reply" button.

Post Options
Next to the reply and multiquote buttons you may also see "Edit" and "Delete" buttons for your own posts. If so, you can use these buttons to edit or delete your posts. Note that these options may not be available after a certain amount of time.

Sharing Topics
At the bottom of each topic you will see "Share this topic" followed by a number of links that allow you to email the topic to someone else, share a topic on Twitter, post it to Facebook, print the topic, or download and save the topic. Simply press the appropriate link and follow the on-screen instructions.

Polls
Some topic may have polls attached to them. If you can vote in the poll, you will see the questions and the options for voting. Once you have selected your options, press Vote! to add your vote. Once voted, you will see the results and a icon besides the options you voted for.

You may be able to change your vote. If so, you will see Delete My Vote. To change your vote, press this and then vote again.

To see the results of the poll without voting, press Show Results. If the poll is a public poll, you can see who voted for which option by pressing the "View" link next to any option.

Notifications
You may want to subscribe to your favorite forums or topics so that when a new topic or reply is added you will be notified.

To subscribe to a topic or forum, go to that area and click the "Follow this topic" button. You will them be prompted with how often you wish to be notified. To the right of this button, it shows how many other people are watching the topic.

There are several types of notification, and you will be asked to choose one of these options:

• Instantly: You will be notified instantly when a reply is made, via the method specified in your notification preferences.
• Only When Not Online: This option will send out a notification if a reply has been posted and you're not active on the board.
• Daily: This option will send out a daily digest of updates.
• Weekly: This option will send out a weekly digest of updates.

If you wish to automatically subscribe to every topic you reply to, you can configure this from your control panel. Simply select the "Auto follow topics I reply to" option.

You can remove a subscription from your settings, or by going back to the area you are subscribed to and pressing the "Stop Watching" button.

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Help Topic: Personal Messenger

The personal messenger can be used to have private conversations with other members. To access it, select your username while logged in from the top corner of any page, and then press "Messenger".

Managing conversations

Change which conversations you are viewing
By default, all conversations are shown, but you can change the view to only display conversations you started, or conversations that others have started. To change this, select the appropriate option from the dropdown underneath the conversation list and then press Update.

Deleting conversations
To delete a whole conversation, select the checkbox beside the conversation, then select "Delete" from the dropdown at the bottom and then press Go.

If you started the conversation, this will remove the conversation from your list, and lock it for everyone else - nobody else will be able to make replies to the conversation, but they will still be able to read it until they also delete it.

If you did not start the conversation, this will remove the conversation from your list and remove you from the conversation - you will not be able to make any more replies, but others will still be able to continue the conversation without you, and see your previous replies.

Managing notifications
You will see a icon for conversations that you will be notified of updates to, and for conversations that you will not receive notifications for.

To turn on or off notifications for any conversation, select the checkbox beside the conversation, then select the appropriate option from the dropdown at the bottom and then press Go.

Managing messages
To edit or delete one of your messages in a conversation, press the " Edit" or " Delete" button underneath the post. The changes will be reflected to all participants in the conversation.

Starting a new conversation
To start a new conversation, start by pressing the "Compose New" button. Enter the user's name into the "Recipient's Name" field. As you type, suggestions will appear below the box. When you see the member you are looking for, click on their name.

You may also be able to add other recipients into the "Other Recipients" box. If so, the next option allows you to specify how the messages will be sent to alternate recipients: "Invitation" allows all invited members to participate in a single conversation, while "Copy" will send a separate conversation to each member.

You should then type a message subject and the message body, just like you would for a new topic in the forums.

When you are done, you can press Send Message or Save (Send Later) to save the message for later.

Replying to a conversation
To reply to any conversation, press the " Add Reply" button when viewing it or press the " Reply" button underneath any existing message to quote it. Then type your message just like you would a post and press Send Message. You can also use the Fast Reply box at the bottom of each conversation to quickly reply to the conversation.

Adding participants to a conversation
You may be able to add more participants to a conversation. If so, you will see an " Add" button on the left-side when viewing a conversation.
Click this button and a box will appear for you to enter member names into. To add more than one member, separate their names with commas. When you are done, press Add.

Reporting a message
If you wish to report to a moderator a message that someone has sent to you, you can press the " Report" button underneath the message.

Type in your report and then press Submit Report. This will send a copy of the message to the moderators - only the specific message you report will be displayed to the moderating team, however some moderators may be able to add themselves to the conversation you have reported.

Managing your messenger folders
By default there are three folders for messages:

• New, which stores all unread conversations.
• My Conversations, which contains all conversations you are participating in.
• Drafts, which stores unsent messages saved for later.

You can also add your own folders to make it easier to manage your messages.

Adding a new folder
To add a new folder, press the " Add" button beneath the list of folders.
Type the name of the folder you want to add, then press the "+" button.

Moving messages
To move a message from one folder to another, select the checkbox beside the conversation, then select the name of the folder you want to move the conversation to from the dropdown at the bottom and then press Go.

Renaming, Deleting or Emptying a folder
To rename, empty or delete a folder, press the " Edit" button beneath the list of folders.

To rename a folder, type the new name in the textbox currently containing the folder name, and then press the ">" button. You cannot rename default folders.

To empty a folder, press the icon beside the folder name.

To delete a folder, press the icon beside the folder name. Be careful as this will also empty the folder. You cannot delete default folders.

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Help Topic: Searching

The search feature can be used to search all areas of the community quickly based on keywords you enter.

Quick Search
You can start a quick search by typing your keywords into the quick-search bar at the top of any page and pressing the "Search" button.

Advanced Options
If instead of typing your keywords into the quick-search bar, you click the "Advanced" link next to it, you will see some advanced options for searching.

The first option, "Find words" is where you can enter the keywords to search for.

The next option, "Find author" can be used to only find content from a specific user. As you begin typing a username, you should see a dropdown with username suggestions that you can select from.

The next option, "Find by date" allows you to restrict the results to content added between particular dates. To select your date, click the button - this will bring up a calendar. From here you can select any date and your option will be filled into the search form.

The next option, "Find in forum allows you to restrict your results to content within particular forums. You can select multiple options by holding the Ctrl key on your keyboard (or the cmd key if you use a Mac) and clicking on your options.

You can leave any of these options blank, however you must supply at least one search criteria when submitting the form. Once you have filled in the options that you require, press the Do Search button.

Inline Search
When you are viewing a particular topic, or a particular forum, you will notice that the search bar changes from "Search Forum" to "Search This Topic" - this allows you to easily and quickly search through the current topic, forum, or application, without getting search results for other areas of the forum.

Results
Once you have submitted your search, a tabbed page of results will appear - you can change the selected tab to choose which area of the community you wish to search. For example, results under the "Forums" tab will bring up any topics and posts that contain your search keywords, while the "Members" tab will bring up any member accounts that match your search criteria.

You can change the order of the results to sort by relevance or to sort by date using the options at the top of the results page.

The keywords that you searched for will be highlighted.

Once you have found the result you are looking for, you can click on it to bring up the page, or, if you are searching through the forums, you can click on the preview icon to preview the search results without having to leave the search page.

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Help Topic: Contacting the staff

If you need to contact a moderator, or simply wish to view the complete administration team, you can click the link 'The moderating team' found at the bottom of the main board page. This list will show you administrators and moderators.

Note that you can report content to all staff by pressing the "Report" button when viewing the content.