Following the
topic I created about PM titles, I had the idea of creating a small tutorial on how to use PMs on the forum.
I never had any problems using the forum's personal messaging system, because I adapted its features and functionalities (however few they may be). Many people probably already know these tips that I'm going to share, but I believe they can be useful, and help everyone to be able to use the forum's PM system in the best way.
Basic pointsTo effectively use PM, two important points must be kept in mind. Understanding them is half the way to making everything simpler.
- Messages are listed sequentially, regardless of the subject or who sent them. Listed from oldest to newest.
- Automatically all received messages are in Inbox. In turn, shipments go to Outbox.
How to organize yourselfThe best way to do this is to focus on the index at the top of the page, which lists all the messages, and then click on the messages you want to read. It is in the index that you can see whether the messages in a given conversation are followed or not. This way, even if you receive messages from other users, between conversations, you know which ones are linked to a subject/user and which are linked to another subject/user. In turn, messages having specific titles can help carry out this analysis.
Avoiding saving messages that are not very relevant helps to keep a message box clean and organized. Sometimes a message at the end of a conversation with a simple "Thank you" has no file relevance and can be deleted.
And the biggest help is using the label system (I'll talk about it next).
Use LabelsOne of the great advantages of using labels is that you can divide the PM you receive by different categories, themes, user, etc. This will help you avoid having your inbox full of messages from several conversations at the same time. This is because, by assigning a label to a message, you will be able to remove the message from the inbox. If you immediately assign a label to the beginning of a conversation, and continue with this assignment, you will keep your inbox freer and it will be easier to manage the PMs you receive.
But how does this work? Let's see with images.
1. Enter the
labels tab.
Here you can create, edit and delete labels. Create all the ones you think are appropriate for your use, and create them according to the conversations you have.
2. There are two ways to assign a label.
2.1. Select the message in the index and select a label:
2.2. Choose the label in the message itself:
3. To remove the message from the inbox, you must first assign a label, and then using the same drop list, click to remove from the inbox:
4. To access the message lists for each label, simply use the side menu:
How to start/reply to a PMLast, but equally important, is the way we have conversations. This can help those who receive our response to organize themselves while reading it. This is because we must bear in mind that the other user with whom we are communicating may be having several conversations at the same time via PM.
In this sense, I recommend two things:
- Whenever you start a conversation, assign a subject (aspect discussed in the topic already mentioned at the beginning).
- When replying,
quote the last message received. Attention: this is not to
quote the entire conversation! It's just from the last message received. This will allow the other user to quickly understand the topic and point of the conversation we are having.
I hope this tutorial is useful for organizing your personal message box here on the forum.
Do you have any more tips? Share!
