Welcome to the new look OCA Forum (formerly the OCA Guest Book). This brief guide should help you in navigating this new feature.

When you first open the forum page you will see this new layout:

Non-registered members and members of the public are free to read the FAQ’s and the section called Public Area.
The other area OCA Members is password protected and cannot be accessed without a login.

By clicking on the link for Public Area we can see that there are currently 2 topics available.
To read a topic, just click on the title.

Here we have the details for the ‘Busy Week’ Topic.

From here we can either return to the Public Area or to the main OCA1947 Forum homepage. We do this by clicking on these links:

These links are called Breadcrumbs and can be used to track your way backward when using the forum.
So clicking on the OCA1947 Forum link takes you straight back to the main forum page.

From here, I’d like to post a new topic in the Public Area, so first I click on the Public Area link.

Next, I click on the New Topic button. Which takes me to this page:

I can enter a name and subject header, next I click into the main area.

I can type directly into this area. It’s a bit like Word / Wordpad. I can change the font and colours as I see fit to match my message / mood.
Once I am happy with the message, I click on the Submit button.

I am then shown a preview of how my topic will look. If I am not happy, I can click the Modify button to return to the editor page.

If all is OK, I confirm this by clicking on the submit button. My topic will then be saved and displayed on the forum.

In the Public Area, my new topic is now shown along with another message that someone else has left:

Other guests to the forum can now view these new topics – you will notice that there is now a reply button on the message. Which I can click.

Following the same procedure as before the editor page becomes available so that the new guest to the forum can leave a reply to my topic.

This is then submitted and appears as below:

Further replies can be left as shown below:

For access to the OCA Member pages a valid username and password will be required:

Members should request a username and password from the OCA Secretary (secretary@oca1947.co.uk).

Once logged in, the above procedures are exactly the same to post and read topics within the Members Area.
You will also have the added bonus of being able to access your own profile page where you can set an automatic signature for your posts, and also to receive an email whenever somebody responds to your posts (see below).

I hope that this short guide has been useful to help you along your way in navigating this new feature, please feel free to explore the forum further to discover other new features

If you have further questions regarding the forum, please contact me at
administrator@oca1947.co.uk

Regards,
Mark Caldicott