E155 Alta Vista Forum

This is what you need to do to get started. Much more detailed help is available within Alta Vista itself.

• Go to the SLAC Alta Vista Forum.
• First time users should register. Click on "register now" and fill in the blanks. Although there is no restriction, it is advised that you register using your regular account name so it is easy to tell who you are. However, do not your regular password, since it may be passed around in plain text form. Your e-mail address is technically optional, but it is obviously needed for the system to notify you of postings.
• Log in using this login name, which would typically be your regular account name.
• Select E155 Test, and play around all you want, read an existing post, reply to one, reply to a reply, start a new thread, etc. Some of the things you should notice when you are inside E155 Test:
  • Click on the "Tools" icon, and then "Enable/Disable Mail Notification" in the Per-User Administration portion. Note that this controls whether you will receive mail notification for this one Forum. It has no effect on other Forums. When you are done playing around, you may want to disable it to avoid getting lots of junk mail. (Mail notification is not working right now.)
  • The topics in the Forum are listed with the latest entry at the top. Clicking on the "#" sign will reverse it, but there is no provision currently to make that your default.
• There is only a few other E155 Forum defined at this time: E155 Code, E155 Target and E155 Cerenkov. Others will be added as we become more familiar with the operation of Alta Vista Forum and as the need arises, e.g.
  • E155 AllHands
  • E155 Radiative Corrections
  • E155 Hodoscope
• All E155 Forums except E155 Test have access control set up so that only E155 group members can get in. This E155 group is an Alta Vista Forum construct, and is distinct from other definitions of E155 group. You have registered as a user, but are not yet an E155 member. Send mail to Charlie Young to become one.

Some of us have used similar programs, e.g. HyperNews in BaBar, and found them quite sueful. However, we are all fairly new to Alta Vista Forum. Your help in investigating its use, suggestions of new Forums, etc are very much appreciated.

• Mail notification does not work.
• A Forum lists the title of each topic, but does not list the title of replies, or replies to replies.
• It is supposedly possible to customize Alta Vista Forum so it only shows E155 Forums, i.e. to have a custom interface to it. But we haven't figured out how to do that yet.