If you have already went through our 🚀 Getting Started Guide, you might next be interested in some more advanced features and customizations offered on the Tech Community.
Hamburger menu
Under the Hamburger menu, you’ll find quick links to users, challenges and badges, main sections, FAQs, keyboard shortcuts and more useful stuff.
Users
The Community members are of course the heart and backbone of the Community. Visit the users page to find out who were the MVPs of the last week, month, quarter or year. Click on the table headers to sort by created topics or replies. Click on the avatar to see short info and quick buttons to message the user directly, follow or see their articles.
Click the big avatar again to see much more, including top content, stats, links to social networks and more. We encourage networking and would be thrilled if you find new friends.
Settings and preferences
- Under Security, you can set up 2-factor authentication and see the devices that have logged in to your account recently
- Under Profile, you can add about me info, update details, set a profile header and background or even a featured topic
- Under Emails, set your preferences for when you want us to email you. You can also change the period when you’ll receive an activity digest (when you haven’t logged in).
- Under Notifications, you can enable Live (Browser) notifications, notifications schedule, disable private messages or update settings for user following.
- Under Saved Searches, you can save up to five searches and receive notifications about new search results. Each saved search can have a different frequency for notifications.
- Under Settings, (the cog button second left to your avatar):
You can customize the site according to your needs e.g. change font size, default home page and several more:
Badges and challenges
Take a look at our Tech Community challenges and have fun while becoming our next Top Member.
Topic lists
Topic lists (home page, section page, tag page, etc) include details about the listed assets including: title, section, tags, author and discussion participants, number of replies and likes, and time of last activity. Here are few hidden tips:
- Selecting a title from the topic list will always take you to your last read post in the topic. To enter at the top or bottom instead, select the reply count or last reply date.
- Topics above the light red line are new or updated since your last visit. If you have read all the way to the end of a topic, its title will be light grey instead of black.
New topic indicator
All topics less than two days old are considered new, and will show a new indicator.
Any topic you’ve actively participated in – by creating it, replying to it, or reading it for an extended period – will be automatically tracked on your behalf and will show an unread post count indicator.
You can change your notification level for any topic via the notification control at the bottom, and right-hand side, of each topic. (Notification level can also be set per category, look for the notification control on the upper right of each category page.)
To change any of these defaults, visit your user preferences.
See who is participating
There are several ways to see who is involved in topics.
On the homepage, you will see a selection of avatars (profile pictures) of:
- The user who started the topic (always the first photo)
- A selection of the most active participants
- Who created the most recent post (usually the last photo).
- In some cases, the first photo has a blue border or blue halo to indicate the original poster is also the most recent poster
Reading topics
A healthy community needs members to be posting new content, but this activity is not everything. As a more advanced user, you’ll be spending most of your time reading. There are several tricks you can use to skip what you’ve already seen and get directly to what’s important.
Keep scrolling
Click a topic title and read down the list of replies in chronological order, following links or previewing replies and quotes as you go. Use your mouse to scroll the screen, or use the timeline scroll bar on the right which also shows you how far through the conversation you’ve read. On smaller screens, select the bottom progress bar to expand it.
Jump back in
- Selecting a topic title will take you to your last read post in the topic. To enter at the top ↑ or bottom ↓ instead, click the reply count or last reply date.
- Topics above the light red line on a list are new or updated since your last visit. If you have read all the way to the end of a topic, the title will be light grey instead of black.
Related topics
Sometimes conversations are clearer if topics are split where posts are moved to a more appropriate topic or two related topics are merged. If a post is moved, a link will appear that will allow readers to jump to that comment wherever it has been moved to, and the person who posted it will also be notified.
At the end of the OP, you will also see lists of related topics that link to the one you are reading.
Contact us
If you’d like to get in touch with our team visit your Private Messages → Click New Message 
→ Type “Community-admin” in the Add a user text box
Interactive tutorial
For even more tips, take our interactive tutorial - go to Private Messages → search for the “Greetings” PM (should be the first Personal message you have received after creating your account).
This article is part of the TECHniques newsletter blog - technical tips and tricks for the Software AG community. Subscribe to receive our quarterly updates or read the latest issue.