Understanding this forum

On your phone, you should be able to change between mobile site & desktop site.
It's in tiny print at the bottom of the page .

*Granmarie
Thanks for the tip about using an asterisk to highlight a poster's name in bold. I'd tried putting @ in front of the name but it didn't work!

Put an asterisk both before and after a word so that it will appear in bold .

The @ function hasn't worked for a long time.
GN said they would fix it but haven't.

To put names in bold, I click on the I in circle (next to the ) and this gives various options

Thanks grannmarie

Ex Dancer, I have gathered you can write how and what you like as long as it's not criminal or malicious. There is a lower tolerance for 'malicious' on this site than on some other online discussions.

FarNorth

On your phone, you should be able to change between mobile site & desktop site.
It's in tiny print at the bottom of the page .

Curiosity nearly killed the cat there! I couldn’t resist clicking on the tiny print desktop link - just to see - and found the tiny print mobile link to get back was even tinier and my fat finger had trouble clicking on it. I was nearly stuck in desktop world forever….

Sorry!

Wow Fanny!
I didn't know that worked by just tapping it.
I thought it was just information on what to do.

https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202209/medium-229028-mobile-site.png%3C/span%3E https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202209/medium-163219-bold-user-name.png%3C/span%3E https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202209/medium-208215-italics.jpg%3C/span%3E

Thought these might help.

Apologies to Rascal, this was a screenshot I took to show her/him some time ago.

Thank goodness I'm not the only ignoramus. The abbreviations still confound me and can sometimes lead to my not fully understanding a thread.
Wriglys if you tap the 'preview' purple box to the left of the 'post message' box, your bold text should show for you to check. Same as emojis.

Can I put in a plea here though?

Please don't use the quote function for quoting very long posts and then quoting and requoting if it turns into a conversation. It makes for massive 'posts' which take up lots of room.

It is perfectly possible, if slightly more time consuming to copy and paste into your reply the particular part in a post that you want to respond to and enclose it with a ^ at the beginning and end of the quote (no spaces, just like for embolding)

And don't forget to name the person you're responding to.

Sorry, forgot to say that enclosing the quote with ^ ^ will put it into italics like this

Agree with MaisieD - it makes long threads seem even longer! Though a bit more fiddly to do on phone.

On a desktop you see this (follow orange arrow)

The instructions for italics, bold etc. are underneath the thread.

MaizieD, I second your plea!

FarNorth

On your phone, you should be able to change between mobile site & desktop site.
It's in tiny print at the bottom of the page .

A note on this - if you currently see all OP posts throughout their thread as green and enjoy it- do not switch between the two versions.

I did this and lost the highlighted OP posts. Gransnet is unable to figure out why I had it to begin with, but I did, and I miss it

That must have happened to me too Summerlove!
I did wonder why it had changed

FannyCornforth

That must have happened to me too Summerlove!
I did wonder why it had changed

This has function never worked for me on either mobile or desktop versions.

Put an asterisk both before and after a word so that it will appear in bold .

The @ function hasn't worked for a long time.

@Wrigleys I think the @ function was intended to send an email to the user to show there is a response to their comment. I've received them in the past but not for a while now. But then I don't think most people use it. If it works you should now have an email

I have never know the @ feature to work on Gransnet. Might you be thinking of messages you received from Mumsnet AreWeThereYet?

Until quite recently there was a note under the message box telling you that the @ would take the message to that person. It never worked (no idea how it was supposed to) and they have now removed it.

And I am intrigued by the grey box mentioned in the OP. I can't see anything like this on my phone and can't tell where a quote ends and the poster's comments start, which is why I try to remember to put a row of * first, if I am using a quote.

I can't quote a post if it already contains another quote - the option is not clickable. Yet I have seen others quoting such posts. How do they do it?

This is what the "quote" function looks like if I try to quote a post with a quote in it.

Marydoll

FannyCornforth

That must have happened to me too Summerlove!
I did wonder why it had changed

This has function never worked for me on either mobile or desktop versions.

This is what see, when I quote a post with a quote. It is the same for both PC and tablet.

It must have something to so with the device being used.
I never use the mobile site, don't like the layout.