The following are the two recommended ways to find your content.

The top of almost every page, has access to three very useful drop down boxes. They are fairly self explanatory and easy to use. Depending on the content that you are looking for you can use one, two or all of the boxes to narrow your search before clicking apply.

If you are already involved in a game, the My Games page, located under My Tools in the Left Hand Navigation column, will be very helpful. You will be automatically subscribed to all games that you have permissions to, and all blog, game, image, poll and forum updates will show up there. You will also find a quick search table at the bottom of this page, that will allow you to find content that you might like to follow, even if you aren't in the games.  The table will default to your preferences each time you use it.

As the site grows, these two tools will be the quickest and most useful ways for finding your new game moves, catching up on blogs and finding other site related content.
 

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A good way to find your game initially and read up on game details and game moves, is by going to the main campaign page for your game. You can locate your game's home page by looking in Campaigns, located in the Content Directory section on the left hand navigation column. Once you are inside of your Campaign's home, the GMs will have links to their galleries, forums and game guidebooks. In addition, all old moves will be archived and a list will be available from this page that will allow you to read through them.  You can find the list on your left hand navigation column.

For game play purposes, establish a habit of checking your My Games Page. This will provide disappearing blocks for all of the games that you have permissions to and if there is new content in any of them, it will show up.

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When a game move is created or updated, you will see it listed in your My Games Page. Simply click on this link when you have a chance to read it and it will take you to the game file for you to read the new content.

For members that would like to customize their experience a bit more, following are some options.  ...but remember, if you want to keep it simple, at first, the 'My Games' Page will keep you on top of your game.

There is also an optional block available to add to your left hand navigation section, called New & Updated Game Moves. You can turn this on in the Edit Tab section of your Control Panel.  When using this block, it is important to understand that after a link is visited, it disappears from the New & Updated Game Move block, and the link will not reappear until it is edited again.  This block will show all new game content and not just your games, the five most current updates will always be on top.  If you have no block available after activating it, it's because there is no new content available.  Click here for instructions.

In addition to the official game moves, many of the games will have opportunities for side fiction pieces that tie into the overall game. A lot of GMs will encourage their players to post these into their player blog. There is another optional block, located on the left hand Navigation Column, called New & Updated Blogs. This section will list all new blogs that have appeared since the last time you logged on. Once the link is clicked on, it will disappear from the block.  You can turn this on in the Edit Tab section of your Control Panel. This block will show all new blog content and not just your games, the five most current updates will always be on top.  If you have no block available after activating it, it's because there is no new content available. Click here for instructions.

There is also a Recent Content page located on the left hand navigation menu that will take you to pages where you can cycle through the most recent content.  And another useful place to look, is in the Track tab of your Control Panel, but it is important to note, that until you post to a game move or blog, it will not show up in that tab.

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1. Click on your Control Panel, located on the left hand navigation Bar.
2. Click on the Edit Tab.
3. It will default to Account Information
4. Scroll down to Block Configuration and choose which blocks you would like to see

Following is a complete list of content blocks that are available.

• Block Configuration - This is the place that you go to turn on and off the blocks of content that are located in the left hand Navigation Column and My Games Page.  Most of the blocks are set as on off default, but please feel free to customize this to your liking.  Following are instructions on how to turn them on/off, as well as descriptions of each of the blocks.
  • Scroll down to Block Configuration
  • Place a checkmark next to the blocks that you want to see.  Descriptions to follow.
    •  Optional: new_update_book: Block - This will eventually disappear after you click through all the content.  Once that happens you will ONLY see this block if there is new or updated content since your last move.  Similar functionality can be found on the My Games page.
    •  Optionaol: new_update_blogs: Block - This will eventually disappear after you click through all the content. Once that happens you will ONLY see this block if there is new or updated content since your last move. Similar functionality can be found on the My Games page.
    • Recommended: new_update_forum: Block - This only shows in the forum and will eventually disappear after you click through all the content. Once that happens you will ONLY see this block if there is new or updated content since your last move.
    • Recommended: my_games_favorite: Block - This only appears in your My Games Page.  It provides a quick search table on all Next Gen content.
    • Optional: Community_Forum_Updates: Block - This only appears in your My Games Page, and show new/updated community forum posts.
    • Optional: Helpdesk_Forum_Updates: Block - This only appears in your My Games Page, and show new/updated helpdesk posts.
    • Recommended: Book Navigation: Block - This appears in your game moves and blog pieces that are assigned to a book outline.  It will show the book outline of your game in the left hand column, under the Navigation Information.
      
    • Optional: Recent_ImageContent: Block - Shows the last five uploaded image links
    • Optional: Dice Roller - Block that contains the die roller
    • Optional: Counter - This block shows only on the front page, and gives PHP Site Stats.
    • Optional: Most recent poll - disappearing block, it will only show poll content if there are some
    • Optional: Who's Online
    • Optional: Who's New
    • Optional: Latest Image
    • Optional: Random Image

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Yes. Underneath the text of a game move you will see the Subscribe option. When you subscribe to a page you will get an email every time the page is updated. You can also subscribe to authors, characters, or even all content in a campaign (not recommended - you'll be swamped with emails!) You can manage your Subscriptions from your Control Panel. Click on your Subscriptions tab, and select which items you would like to send you email notifications when they're updated. I will warn you that they can sometimes be prolific, so be ready to tweak them until you're happy with the number of email notifications that you are receiving.

On the home page you'll find an RSS link for all new content. This feed won't tell you when content is updated; we're working on that.

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There are a few different ways to do this, the easiest of which is to use the drop down boxes at the top of the home page, or the favorites quick search table on your My Games Page. These will allow you to search by content type (game move, gallery, blog, etc.), game/story or by author. It will list the items in order of the most recent to the oldest.

Other ways to find your item of interest include

• Doing a search, located on the top left of NextGen RPG's home page
• Clicking on Campaigns in the Content Directory, and finding it in the campaign's home page directory
• Clicking on Blogs in the Content Directory will list all blogs from most recent to oldest
• Clicking on Recent Content in the Content Directory, this lists all content contributions from newest to oldest

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Some GMs will use color codes to help with this problem, and others may rely completely on the highlighted text. This will be decided on a game by game basis. The best way to ensure that you don't miss any new content, is to click into your game move, and select the author drop down box (ex: #6 Torchwood). Find the last update that you are sure that you've read, and from there, click on each author revision, one by one. Ensure that the checkmark box next to highlight changes is checked and click view revision.

What this will do, is highlight only the text that was touched by that author. Yellowed areas will indicate new content or changed content. Gray text is an indicator of content that was removed. Do note that sometimes an entire sentence or paragraph might be highlighted, even if their change was a minor edit. Skimming for obvious new content will make for good results. GMs that use color coding as well, will find that when they go into the file to remove the codes, it will make for a lot of highlights in the view screen. It is recommended, that they drop the code first, and then do a fresh edit to incorporate any new content. It will help their players find the new content easier.

Some additional notes:

If you expand it you will see a list of recent revisions to the document.

This will allow you to see who added to the game and cycle through each addition with the latest revision at the top.

By selecting a version and clicking the view revision button the text added in that version will be highlighted in the main body of the document.

By cycling through the revisions you can see what each person added.

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The New and Updated Content Blocks will list all items that you haven't looked at. So when you're on the site and see no new content block, it is because there is no new content.  The same is true with your New Content Game Blocks on your My Games Page.  If they aren't there, it's because there is no new content.

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1. When you are in your blog piece, select Book Outline
2. Click on Book, and select the game that your story is associated with
3. Click on Parent Item, and select the catagory AND/OR the order chronologically where your piece should fall.

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Subscriptions Tab - This tab is used for controlling the content notifications that you would like sent to your preferred email account.  All subscription notifications will be delivered to the email address that you have indicated in your account settings.  There are five subtabs located in the subscriptions area; Overview, Pages, Blogs, Content Types and Categories.

• Overview Tab: This is the quick reference tab to see all of your subscriptions
• Pages Tab: Every page at NextGen RPG, has the subscription option.  This is a great way to follow just the game moves that you participate or lurk in.  As you select subscriptions to individual pages, they will show up in this tab.
• Blogs Tab: The blogs tab allows you to subscribe to your favorite user's blog.  Each time they add content to their blog, you will be notified via email.
• Content Types: This is a way to subscribe to broad sections of the site.  I will warn you that this could become overwhelming, so subscribe with caution.  You can select certain content types, such as blogs or forums that you would like to receive notifications on, when new items are posted.
• Categories: This tab allows finite control over the content that you want to subscribe to.  It contains forum categories, game books, authors, characters and galleries.  Once you subscribe to a catagory, you will get email notifications, every time new or existing content is added or updated with the category tags that you've subscribed to.

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Track Tabs - The Track Posts Tab follows you as you navigate through NextGen RPG.  It keeps track of each piece of content that you've edited or commented on.  When you visit this tab, it will show a 'red' new or updated alert on any of your tracked content, if it has been added or changed since your last visit.  The Track Page Visits Tab keeps a list of your most recently viewed content.

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