Using the Living in Costa Rica Forum on Google Groups

[Sam Wilson]

Hi All!

I know many of you are new to Google Groups and might be more familiar with how the old group on Yahoo! Groups works.  I'm new to Google Groups as well, but there are a lot of helpful videos and how-to webpages out there to make it easier to get up to speed on this stuff.  If anyone has any questions about how to do something please let me know or post a question to the group.  I'll try to summarize a few tips and how-to's in this post/thread as a guide or reminder about how a particular task is done.

First off, signing up.  The forum messages are publicly accessible and you don't have to be a member to read them.  Posting requires signing up and becoming a member.  To sign up, you must have a Google Account similar to having a Yahoo! account to sign up on the old forum.  You can create a Google Account with a non-Gmail email address, so if you don't have one and don't want one, no problem!  Some of these videos I've linked to are a bit dated and the look and feel of a particular webpage or form may be different, but I think things still pretty much work the same as what you will see illustrated.

How to Create a Google Account (video)

TUTORIAL: Join Google Groups with a Yahoo Email Address (video) 

Google Groups Help: Find & join a group

You can also create a Google Account without changing your email address or from that same webpage, create a new Gmail account instead.

Once you have a Google Account, you can sign in to Google, join the Living in Costa Rica group, and adjust your default member settings if you wish.

How to use Google Groups (video)

You can start or join conversations in Google Groups by posting a new topic or responding to posts.  If you receive Living in Costa Rica posts via email, you can simply respond to one of those emails to post your response.  Replies by default go back to the entire group.  Or if you prefer to use the online webpage for reading and posting you can reply to messages by using the Living in Costa Rica forum webpage.

Google Groups Help: Create & respond to posts

Replying to a post online is almost as easy as replying to a post via email.  With the post you want to reply to up, you can click the POST REPLY button at the top left of the message, or use the "Click here to Reply" link at the bottom of the post, or click the "Back Atcha!" arrow in the upper right -- they all perform the same function.  I've highlighted all three spots below:

 

The message editor is a rich-text editor and you can easily make pretty messages by changing fonts or color, bolding text, and inserting pictures from your computer or by URL.  Creating links is a breeze: highlight text, click Link, enter or paste in your URL.

 

Folks using mobile devices to access the group, might prefer to use the Living in Costa Rica mobile site.

Those are pretty much the basics!  Easy as pie!  Or in our case, "¡pan comido!"  jajaja

Please ask if you have any trouble doing anything around here.  There are many helpful folks on this forum and you are sure to have many friends that will be happy to share what they know.

--

Sam

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Changing Email Delivery Option

Hi Camille,

On Friday, May 4, 2018 at 9:04:15 AM UTC-6, camillesteen wrote:

Any help you can give with this site. Would like to get a daily digest, similar to CRL. Camille

I changed your settings for Email Delivery to Digest Email so you should be set now.

I'd be happy to help anyone adjust whatever settings or with any issues they may have, so don't hesitate to let me know if anyone has anything.  For reference, if anyone wants to adjust their Email Delivery preferences, you can toggle one or the other of 4 options via the My Settings pull-down list/button in the upper-right

The in your Membership Settings, click the "Email delivery preference" pull-down and select your delivery option.  Be sure to click the Save button in the lower-left when you have things as you wish:

¡Pan comido!  (Easy as Pie!)

--

Sam

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Tagging Posts with Topic Category

LiCR,

I enabled Tagging of posts with suggested or ad hoc labels so if when someone creates a new topic, or if a new thread has useful info about certain common themes it will be easy to find topics by category Tag.  If you use the webpage front-end to the forum posts you may have already noticed some of the tags we are currently using, depending upon your view (this is Standard View):

The Topic Tags in gray to the right can help you find more related topics.  For example, click the  Garden   tag to provide a list of all the Garden-related topics or the  Volcán  tag to find Volcano discussions.  When creating a new Topic one can choose a Topic Tag at that point, or one can be added later as a conversation evolves.  I've added the few you see now.  When posting online there is now a Tag option towards the bottom of your compose screen:

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions about using this feature.

¡Puro ordenado, Batman!

--

Sam

[Berni J]

See POST REPLY big red button?  Hit arrow to left of it, Berni

[epicatt2]

On Sunday, April 29, 2018 at 9:51:28 AM UTC-4, Sam Wilson wrote:

Hi All!

I know many of you are new to Google Groups and might be more familiar with how the old group on Yahoo! Groups works. 

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Sam and LiCR Members,

Just for the record the old CostaRicaLiving group on Yahoo is still there but it is now inactive.  Because of all the problems and frustration Yahoo was causing with email delivery and posting to CRL we finally decided to move CRL over to Groups.io.  We have been there now for just one year.  

Groups.io has proved a great choice because it works just like CRL did  on the old Yahoo Group –BUT! without all the problems.

I just wanted folks to know that CRL is still alive and it is over on Groups.io.  Anyone is welcome to come check us out there in our new digs.

We're now at [ https://groups.io/g/CostaRicaLiving ].

BTW, anyone who was a member of CRL back on Yahoo Groups, all the members were transfered over to the new site on Groups.io when we moved, so you may still be a member of CRL –just now on Groups.io.  All you would need to do to access CRL there is to set up a pasword which is simple and free to do.  That is done on the CRL home page at the upper right corner

And just for what it's worth, I'm really glad that Sam started up Living in Costa Rica.  The more places to get information & help, the better it is for everyone.

¡Pura Vida!

Paul M.

CRL Moderator

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