In this section we look at the search option, the Personal Messenger and what to do if you forget your password or need more help.

A very useful facility is the "Search" option. This allows members who have registered in the forum, and logged in, to search current and previous posts - all 35,000+ of them! This can be a great way to look for information.

The usefulness of any results is of course dependent on what you search for. Searching for general terms is less useful than, for example, searching for specific key words or products.

Some of examples where the search option is most useful include:

	Searching for a specific product, by name. Eg. If you want to see if anyone has posted about a particular firework, or included it in their displays.
	Searching for a particular brand of fireworks, to see what members have posted about it.
	Searching for a retailer or firework company, to see if any members have posted about their experiences with that company.
	Searching for a fireworks event, to see if other members have been.

The search option can be found on the top-right of each forum screen. Clicking on it will open a new screen which will look similar to this:

Enter the word (or words) you wish to search for in the box labelled (1) above. You can, if you like filter the results by specific members using the box labelled (2). You should then choose which forums to search in (3) - by default all forums are selected and we recommend you leave this as it is. Over on the right, you can decide how to search and how to show the results. The most important option here however is (4) - this defaults to the last 30 days only, so change this to "Any date" to search through all available posts.

When using the search option, you might find that some posts are listed out of date order. This is because we changed forum software a few years ago, and the old system had a different way of storing the date.

The forum has an integrated "Personal Messenger" (PM) system which you can use to communicate privately with other members on a one-to-one basis very much like e-mail.

The Personal Messenger system is only available to members who have registered in the forum. Please be sure to check our terms and conditions before using it.

Let's start by sending a Personal Message to another forum member. You might want to do this if you want to communicate with them privately, rather than through public forum posts. To send someone a message, first look for the PM option. You can find this in several places, for example underneath each post by that member:

Or, if you click on any member's name, you can send them a PM via their profile screen:

Whichever option you use, it will open up a new PM for you to fill in. The options are almost identical to entering a new topic, or replying to a post - but whatever you fill in can only be read by the recipient. As with a post or topic, you can use the "Preview" option first, before sending it.

When you are ready, click "Send Message". By default, a copy of the message will be stored in your Sent Messages folder. To avoid this, untick then "Add a copy of this message to my sent items folder".

To find out if the recipient has read your message, tick the "Track this message?" option BEFORE sending the message. You can then follow its progress by clicking on the "Message Tracker" option in your PM screen (see below).

If someone sends you a PM you will be notified in any one of (or a combination of) three ways depending on your settings. If you have chosen to be e-mailed if someone sends you a PM, then an e-mail will be sent to your registered e-mail address to tell you a new message is waiting for you and who it is from. You can enable this option by clicking on "My controls" and choosing "E mail settings" under Options.

You may also be notified of a new message by a pop-up box when you log into the forum. To enable or disable this option, go to "My controls" and click on "Board settings" under Options, and tick or untick the relevant box. Your browser needs to support this though (some browsers such as Firefox suppress pop-ups by default).

Finally, at the top right of each main forum screen you can see a "X New messages" link where X is the number of new messages you have (or 0 if you have none!).

If you have forgotten your forum password, you can reset it by clicking "Log in" then the forgotten password link as highlighted below:

Follow the instructions given. This will only work if you still have access to the original e-mail address you used to join the forum initially. If you no longer have access to this, we will need to manually reset your password and you should contact us to initiate this.

Password resets only apply if you have forgotten your actual forum password. Please do not confuse your forum username and password with your UKFR username and password. If you are a paying member and are having trouble accessing the forum, logging in or posting, please note that the whole process is explained step-by-step with pictures in our forum guide.

If you need any further help please do not be afraid to ask. If you already have access to the forum and are posting messages OK, please ask for help in the Suggestions and technical issues forum.

Otherwise, feel free to consult our FAQ or contact us for help.

If you are a paying member and having trouble accessing the forum, logging in or posting, please note that the whole process is explained step-by-step with pictures in our forum guide. Please be sure to read this before contacting us. If you do contact us it is VERY IMPORTANT that you include SPECIFIC information about what part of the forum process you are stuck with (include page URLs and error messages); we are unable to assist otherwise.

The forum has a wealth of other features. Once you have created a forum account the best way to use these features is to explore the forum. When you have a basic grounding in posting, most of the other options should be fairly clear with a little experimentation.

To change your personal settings such as signatures, avatars (the picture that appears next to your username), e-mail address and many other useful things, use the My Controls link (top right of the main forum screen).

If you need any further help with the more advanced features please do not be afraid to ask. If you already have access to the forum and are posting messages OK, please ask for help in the Suggestions and technical issues forum. Otherwise, feel free to consult our FAQ or contact us for help.