The board you are viewing consists of several forums. Each forum can have several topics which in turn can have several posts.

• To see the topics in a forum, click that forum's name.
• To see the posts in a topic, click that topic's title.

You can return to the homepage of this board at any time by:

• clicking the board logo located at the top of the screen, or
• clicking the first link (name of the board) in the location line displayed right below the logo.

You can sort topics by clicking the column names.

Topic (click for alphabetical order)	Replies	Views	Started by	Last Item

In some places, an additional column named Section may also appear. By default, topics are sorted by last post date in descending order, that is topics with new posts appear first. To sort by, for example, replies, simply click Replies. An arrow shows the currently sorted column and the sort direction. Clicking on Replies again will change the sort direction.

Here is a selection of the most common topic icons. These icons may appear in different colors if a topic is popular or contains new posts since your last visit.

	Announcement
	Important
	Closed
	Moved
	Poll

Occasionally, you will see small arrows () next to topic titles. If you click one of those arrows, you will be automatically taken to the first new post since your last visit to that topic.

These tabs allow easy access to selected, popular and recent topics.

• Selected topics are the topics that the moderator(s) or administrator(s) of this board find important.
• Popular topics are the topics that have at least 15 replies or are viewed at least 300 times.
• Recent topics are the topics posted recently, typically in the last 7 days.

Clicking these tabs may return different results in different places. For example, clicking the popular tab from the board's home page will return all the popular topics in all forums. However, if you want to see the popular topics in a particular forum only, simply go to that forum, and click its popular topics tab.

It is necessary that you both register and subscribe to make full use of the Plant Lives database. Registration is Free. Subscription costs £15 per annum for an individual and £50 per annum for an organisation. See the list below for the different facilities available for Unregistered, Registered, Individual Subscription and Organisational Subscription members.

The process is very simple. Firstly you need to Register by clicking on the Register link, just below the Help Button. We ask you to supply a 'nickname' by which you are known, a password, known only to you, and an email address. After completing this process we will send you an automatic email to complete the registration process.
This is an essential step to prevent false email addresses being used.

After you have registered and logged-in more sections of the database will be available for you to view. To make full use of the database you must subscribe.

Unregistered Users:

• may open the section What is Plant Biographies and read the Introduction
• browse the Calendar of events posted by our Organisational Members
• all other sections are unavailable.

Registered Users:
In addition to the above

• in the section What is Plant Biographies, may open the section Content of a Plant Biography
• in the section What is Plant Biographies, may also open the section Sample Biographies and read any of them. These samples are real items selected from the vast Plant Biographies database and give the reader a good appreciation of the content.
• can open the My Account facility, using the button at the top of the page, and set individual preferences. This is also where you may order a Subscription.

Individual Subscribers:
In addition to the above

• can, in the section What is Plant Biographies, open and read both Subjects Covered that gives an indication of the encyclopedic scope of Plant Biographies and the kind of searches that can be made AND the Bibliography
• can open the entire Plant Biographies database and either browse the content or make use of our search facility, or make a copy of an individual Biography for private use
• have access to the User Community section of the site, and,
• may contribute to the Plant Lives Discussion and through the web site communicate their thoughts to all our members
• can send messages to Plant Lives in the Errata section if it is believed that an entry in our database contains an error
• can edit their own messages previously posted to the Plant Lives Discussion or Errata sections
• can send Private Messages to other members through Plant Lives (see the section below on Private Messages)
• can browse Products and Services that are placed on the site by our Organisational Members
• can add their own private events to the Calendar but NOT Public Events

Organisational Subscribers:
In addition to the above

• may advertise details of plant-related Products and Services that may be of interest to our members in the Products section
• can post details of Public Events in our calendar that are visible to all our members.

• You can create a new topic in a forum by clicking the new topic button.
• You can reply to a topic by clicking either the reply or quote buttons. The difference between these buttons is that when you click the quote button, the entire post will appear quoted in the text editor whereas clicking the reply button will bring up an empty text editor.

If you are using Internet Explorer 5.5 or later versions, you will be able to use a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor for typing your posts. You can change the formatting of the text by simply selecting part or all of it, and clicking the appropriate buttons such as Bold and Italic. Size, color, and font changes work similarly; just choose a size, color, or font from the appropriate drop-down menu after you make your selection. You can also change formatting without selecting any text. For example, to start typing in bold, click the Bold button, and to stop typing in bold, click the Bold button again. Many toolbar buttons can be accessed by keyboard shortcuts as well. Here is a quick list of the shortcuts you can use:

• Copy: Ctrl+C
• Paste: Ctrl+V
• Bold: Ctrl+B
• Italic: Ctrl+I
• Underline: Ctrl+U

How to insert links:

There are two ways of inserting links:

1. Link only: Click the Insert Link button: , and enter a web page address.
2. Link with label: Make a selection, click the Insert Link button, and enter a web page address. The selected text will be the label of the link.

If your browser does not support the WYSIWYG editor, you can use special codes to change the formatting of your text:

[b]Bold[/b]	Bold
[i]Italic[/i]	Italic
[u]Underline[/u]	Underline
[size=3]Size 3 Text[/size]	Size 3 Text
[color=red]Red Text[/color]	Red Text
[align=left]Align Left[/align]	Align Left
[align=center]Center[/align]	Center
[align=right]Align Right[/align]	Align Right
[list=1] [*]Sample Item [*]Sample Item [/list]	S ample Item S ample Item
[list] [*]Sample Item [*]Sample Item [/list]	S ample Item S ample Item
[img]images/icons/forum.gif[/img]
[quote]Quote[/quote]	Quote
[url=http://www.plantlives.com]Sample Link[/url]	Sample Link
[code]Sample Code[/code]	Sample Code

Find the post you want to edit, and click the Edit button. Unless you are a moderator or administrator, you can only edit your own posts. Please note that the administrator of this board may not allow the editing of posts after a certain number of hours (or days) has passed from the time of the original post.

Start a new topic, and click the Add Poll link.

If you cannot see an Add poll link, make sure that

• you are starting a new topic, not replying to an existing topic, and
• the administrator of the board allows you to start polls.

A poll consists of a question, at least two options, and an optional length (the number of days the poll will run, leave 0 or blank for no limits). You can also specify whether you want your poll to be multiple choice or not. Multiple choice polls allow users to select more than one option.

Private messages are like e-mail. Only the recipients can see them. You can send a private message to someone in several ways. You can click the link next to the Logged in As ... line, click the Write New button, and type the username of the recipient in the To: field. Alternatively, you can click the username of a person, and select the Send a Private Message option from a pop-up menu (note: not all browsers support this). You can send private messages to multiple recipients by separating their usernames with a comma.