Welcome to the TriStar Commons. The purpose of this page is explain the features of TriStar Commons, and how to set up your own blog. It is a work in progress, so if you have any questions, email randy.keating@tristar.com with them, frequently asked questions will be added as they are recieved. Here you will find information on:

• Blog setup
• Groups
• Forums
• Wires
• TriStar Commons netiquette guidelines (coming soon)

Blogs:

Having a blog is sort of like owning your own talk show. You select what to talk about, what to share and moderate the conversation. You interact with your “audience” through comments left on individual posts. Blogs are becoming a more important part of the media

Once a user is created, there will be a header menu bar on the top of the page. There is a drop down option call My Blogs. In this menu, there is a drop down list that says Create a Blog!.

On the blog creation screen the first thing you will be asked to do is give your blog a name and title. The name will be your URL, the title is what will appear on the blog itself. These can be whatever you want. Once that is done, click Create Blog, done!

In the administration of your blog, you will be spending a lot of time on your Dashboard, or your blog’s control panel. From there you will be able to add new posts, moderate comments, add widgets, and choose a theme. The menu to the left contains all the links necessary to establish and edit a very professional looking blog. You will also get an overview of your blog as a whole. Informaiton like number of posts, comments, authorship, tags, and storage space can all be found here.

The next think you should consider is to set a theme, as some find the default theme to be somewhat bland. A theme is just the background and color scheme, they come premade, but you can be customized through editing the CSS and HTML. You can also browse a list of BuddyPress themes here if you don’t find one you like in the TriStar Commons. To do this click on the drop down My Blogs, there you will see your newly created blog. Hover the mouse over your blog and another menu will expand to the right, click on Dashboard. Under the Appearance there is a Themes link.

On the themes page you will find fifteen different themes you can apply. If you click on a theme, it will generarate a preview. When you find one you want to apply, there is a link in the top right corner of the preview that says Activate. Click that and you are done. You are now ready to blog.

Widgets add a higher level of interactivity and functionality. They are optional, but most bloggers will tell you they provide significant enhancement and should be strongly considered. Under the Appearances tab, there is a Widgets link. Once on the widgets page you will a list of available widgets. To add a widget to your page you must first select which of the three columns that make up your blog you would like to put it in. This is done on the far right of the screen; use the drop down list to select a column. When the desired column is selected, simply click Add on the widget title bar, and then Save Changes back to the right. What each widget does is apparent by its name. Don’t worry, you can always remove a widget or move it to a different column at a later time.

Groups:

Groups provide an opportunity for members with the same interest or in the same field can congregate for discussion and news. Each group has its own forum where users can create new topics of conversation or ask one of our engineers any related questions one may have. To create a group hover your mouse over My Account in the header menu. There will be an option that says Groups, from there you can create your own group, manage the groups you are in, or invite others to a group.

Forums:

The TriStar Commons Forums allow you to engage in topic-minded conversation with other users and TriStar experts. We encourage you to ask our team any questions you may have regarding our services or PTC software. In a group forum you can create a new topic, or comment on an existing conversation. When on the forum homepage you will see a list of ongoing conversations. The part you see is just the first post, if you click on the title, it will take you to the conversation taking place. Adding a new topic is easy. There are two ways to do this. First on the group home page, there is a Post New link to the far right in the title bar. Also, from the forum homepage, scroll down past all the current discussions and you will find a Post Topic form.

Wire:

The wire is for any general announcement or news that ought to be shared with the entire group. If such information was posted only in the forum, it is most likely not all the users would see it. This shouldn’t be used for conversational topics. Each individual user also has a wire where you can leave public messages or links. To add a new wire post to a group simply go to the group home page and click Wire on the menu to the left. Once there if you scroll to the bottom of the page there is a form for posting. It is the same for posting on the wire for another user; just find the wire link on their main profile page.