CSE Support Forum
The CSE Support Forum can be found at https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~forums/support/.Purpose
The purpose of the forum is to enable all members of the CSE community to share knowledge, and contribute towards solving each other's problems. It is intended to replace a large amount of consultation and support which was previously provided by the System Support group (ss@cse email).Using the Forum
Asking Questions
You should ALWAYS consult the FAQ first.When asking a question, be sure to include plenty of information to save you and your helper time. The more information you include, the more likely that someone will recognise and answer your problem.
As a guide, you should always include the computer name and operating system that you're having trouble on. You should include the version number(s) of (and name of!) software involved. It might be useful to knwo the time you encountered the problem.
If you are getting errors, include the full text of the error messages (if under 50 lines).
Do say what you've already tried to do to fix it, and/or where you've searched on FAQ/google.
Be wary of assumptions. Sometimes the problem is deeper (or shallower) than you might guess, and your assumptions may cause you to exclude useful information.
Treat those who help you with respect.
General Rules
Basic netiquette rules apply, and all use of University resources (including this forum) are under the computer use policy.Monitoring the forum
Several mechanisms have been provided to make it easier for people to participate and monitor the forum.Monitor topic (email)
When posting to a topic, there is an option below the message box, titled "Notify me when a reply is posted". We encourage leaving this ticked so that you can follow the thread to receive answers or requests for clarification.Monitor forum (email)
If there is a particular forum that you are interested in, then you can choose to receive emails when all new topics (and/or replies) are posted in a forum. Visit the main page of the forum (click on its name), and at the bottom you should see a "Watch this forum for new topics" link.Email Digests
By visiting this URL, or selecting the "Digests" option on the top of the main forum pages, you can configure email digests. These can be setup to be received daily or weekly on whichever forums you are interested in, plus there are several other useful options.RSS feed
There is an RSS feed available for recent posts. It's URI is https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~forums/support/rss.php. You may use any RSS aggregator to view the feed.Firefox provides a very simple facility to view an RSS feed:
- Open Manage Bookmarks from the Bookmarks menu.
- Click on the Bookmarks Toolbar Folder
- Open the File menu (in the bookmark manager), and select New Live Bookmark....
- Give it whatever Name and Description you'd like (e.g. "CSE Support Forum"
- Put the RSS URI: https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~forums/support/rss.php into the Feed Location field.
- Press OK.
You should now have a "CSE Support Forum" (or whatever you called it) drop-down list in your bookmarks toolbar. You can click on this to see all the recent topics, and click on a topic to open it.
You can customise the forums and categories that are included in the RSS feed if required :
- To change the number of posts returned
- The default number of posts that is returned in the RSS feed is 15. You can change this to any number between 1 and 50. The querystring option for this is c=. rss.php?c=30 will return a maximum of 30 posts.
- To choose the forums you wish to monitor
- You can change the RSS feed to only include the forums that you are interested in. The querystring option for this is f=. You can now include more than one forum ID if required if you separate them with commas. You can find a forum's ID by looking at its URL. For example, the URL for the New Services forum is https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~forums/support/viewforum.php?f=2. This would mean that the forum ID is 2. rss.php?f=2 would only show posts from the New Services forum rss.php?f=1,2,12 would show posts from forums 1,2 and 12 (CSE Service Notices, New Services and Requests&Suggestions)
- To exclude certain categories
- You can exclude certain categories from the RSS feed. The querystring option for this is c=. You can include more than one category ID if required if you separate them with commas. A category is a 'main heading' on the main page, such as Announcements or CSE Courses. The category ID can be found by looking at its URL. For example, the URL for the CSE Courses category is https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~forums/support/index.php?c=6. This would mean that the category ID is 6. rss.php?x=6 would exclude any post from the CSE Courses category rss.php?x=5,6 would exclude any posts from the Other/Miscellaneous and the CSE Courses categories
- Combining querystring options
- Options can be combined using the & character. For example to exclude posts from CSE Courses (category 6) and return 30 posts, you would use the following URL
Course forums
(course lecturers/administrators only)For course forums, see Course Support Forums.