Anyone want to help an Old geezer?

[Hound of Heaven]

My daughter got me a tablet with a very large screen in December because my eyes are deteriorating and I am having difficulty viewing my phone. Facebook has become more fun, and communicating with my grandchildren online has brought joy back into my life. First and foremost, I apologize for not responding to the many folks here who have been so kind to answer my questions in the terrestrial. As an older guy with poor computer abilities, I struggle to browse and respond sensibly to responses to my post. Would someone be willing to walk me through how to add pictures and extract text from a post so I can respond?

I hope this is the correct forum to post such a question.

[Xenophon]

Greetings, Hound of Heaven. I don't think we've spoken yet so I'll just sneak my "welcome to the board" post here. Welcome to the board!

As to your request, I'll have some time later this week to put a few things together that might help you but first I'll want to make sure it is relevant to you. If you wouldn't mind sharing what kind of tablet (iPad, Samsung, Fire, etc.) and the browser you are using on said tablet that would be most helpful. If you aren't comfortable sharing that publicly you can also send me a private message (the easiest way to do that is clicking on the speech bubble that appears on the bottom-right side of the post in wider viewing modes or clicking my name and messaging me from my profile). Otherwise I can just share some of the ways I use the board features.

[Hound of Heaven]

It's a Galaxy Tab S9. Thank you for taking the time. I sincerely appreciate it. I'm primarily interested in being able to extract one or two sentences from a post and answer. The second step would be to post images. Google primarily. Also Microsoft Edge.

[IWMP]

Sounds like some help is on the way. But just wanted to send love. <3

[Xenophon]

It's a Galaxy Tab S9. Thank you for taking the time. I sincerely appreciate it. I'm primarily interested in being able to extract one or two sentences from a post and answer. The second step would be to post images. Google primarily. Also Microsoft Edge.

HoH, a few caveats before we get into this. I'm attempting to give you screenshots to follow along but I'm doing so by emulating your device screen, there may be some visual differences because of that but generically the icons should all function the same. Also note that as a mod I'm going to have a few extra buttons than you, I'll mostly try to ignore those but let me know if you don't see anything of the things I'm calling out. I also may over-explain things here, this isn't because I'm trying to be condescending but rather I'd just like to be as informative as possible for you and anyone else that may find the information valuable. Here is also a link to the phpBB features page that may also provide some valuable insight. Just keep in mind that this is generic information to the board's platform and may cover features not enabled here.

The simplest way to quote another poster is by clicking on the " that appears on the top right of the post you want to quote.


Which will lead you to this: Where you can edit the quoted portion to focus on the parts you wish to respond to. As a friendly reminder we don't allow you to make up what is in this box (e.g. don't quote me then have me saying "Xen is a fart sniffer" when I didn't in fact say that) and we typically prefer if you follow standard quoting practices like mentioning if you added emphasis to a portion or using ellipses to indicate a large portion was cut.

You can also use ["quote"] ["/quote"] (without the "s I just needed it to display) to break apart a block of text that you want to respond to in chunks. Like this:
In this example I typed out the quote brackets around the block of text I wanted to split out but you can also use the " icon at the top of your post to create the brackets for you. This works by either pressing the button and moving the brackets where you want or first highlighting the text to be broken out and then clicking the button. I always make sure to press the "Preview" button at the bottom of the post before submitting in order to visually verify that I've set my brackets up properly.

[Marcus]

It's a Galaxy Tab S9. Thank you for taking the time. I sincerely appreciate it. I'm primarily interested in being able to extract one or two sentences from a post and answer. The second step would be to post images. Google primarily. Also Microsoft Edge.

HoH, a few caveats before we get into this. I'm attempting to give you screenshots to follow along but I'm doing so by emulating your device screen, there may be some visual differences because of that but generically the icons should all function the same. Also note that as a mod I'm going to have a few extra buttons than you, I'll mostly try to ignore those but let me know if you don't see anything of the things I'm calling out. I also may over-explain things here, this isn't because I'm trying to be condescending but rather I'd just like to be as informative as possible for you and anyone else that may find the information valuable. Here is also a link to the phpBB features page that may also provide some valuable insight. Just keep in mind that this is generic information to the board's platform and may cover features not enabled here...

Thank you, Xenophon! That was very helpful, even for the oldies.

[Xenophon]

If you're replying to a recent post or quoting multiple recent posts you can also tackle it a different way.

After starting a new post by selecting "Post Reply" at the bottom of the thread. You can then scroll down to see recent posts. Highlight the text you want to quote and then press the " button on that post:







This is especially useful if you've already started working on a post and want to go back and add some quoted content. Or if you are responding to a recent post and want to break apart their larger post to respond in smaller chunks.

[Xenophon]

Thank you, Xenophon! That was very helpful, even for the oldies.

Excellent, I'm glad it was helpful!

[Hound of Heaven]

Greetings, Hound of Heaven. I don't think we've spoken yet so I'll just sneak my "welcome to the board" post here. Welcome to the board!

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain how to extract specific lines from another board member's message, I truly appreciate it. You've expressed it perfectly. I'll feel much better posting now. In the coming weeks, I plan to practice posting images. If you don't mind, I have one question about it. Can I submit photographs directly from my gallery, or do I need to use an app like Imgur?

If you're replying to a recent post or quoting multiple recent posts you can also tackle it a different way.

After starting a new post by selecting "Post Reply" at the bottom of the thread. You can then scroll down to see recent posts. Highlight the text you want to quote and then press the " button on that post:

Very helpful information,.

[Xenophon]

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain how to extract specific lines from another board member's message, I truly appreciate it.

Absolutely my pleasure, I'm glad my instructions were clear and you certainly got the hang of it quickly! Truthfully I've been meaning to do a few posts like these for some time as we've had plenty of questions on the topic here and there so thank you for presenting the opportunity.

Can I submit photographs directly from my gallery, or do I need to use an app like Imgur?

You will need to use a third-party hosting platform to share pictures. There are countless out there and perhaps others may share which ones they use but I do use Imgur out of habit. I started on it back in 2010ish and old habits die hard. If you aren't familiar with those platforms I can take a run at doing a tutorial for it but in the meantime I'll just post how you add an image once you have the image saved on a hosting site.

If the image service you use has a "direct link" option I have found those tend to work best. You'll note that there is a BBCode option on Imgur but I have found sometimes it doesn't work so often I don't use it, YMMV. Copy that link and then in your post, select the icon that looks like the picture of a landscape. This will add the appropriate ["img"]["/img"] (minus the quotes again) and you'll paste the direct link between those brackets to have the picture display. You can also just post a link to the image without the bracket and users can click on it to see the picture on the hosting site. When posting the image directly on the board, picture size can occasionally be an issue and you may need to scale your pictures down or resize them for proper display. As always I highly recommend giving the Preview button a click to ensure you've got all your brackets lined up (as I often fail to do on the first try).

Example of the hosting platform and direct link options:

Using the image button and pasting the link: