FAQ for NANOfutures community members

These FAQ are for NANOfutures community members. You have to create an account to use the community pages.

If you need to contact an administrator, please write an email to communication@nanofutures.info.

General Questions

What is the structure of the community?

NANOfutures is organised in working groups. You can see the list of working groups under 'Community' in the Member Area.

If you would like to participate in a working group, click the 'Join' link right to the group. You can join more than one group if you like.

Every working group has discussion forums and potentially polls, created by it's members.

Beside the working groups there are pools for documents, interesting links and related events to share with the community. Don't hesitate to extend these lists by uploading own documents, adding links or posting an event if you know about one.

What can I do if I have problems with the website?

As an introduction you can read this FAQ and surf through the community pages.

If you need specific help, you can contact communication@nanofutures.info. Please describe your problem as accurately as possible.

You can also open a forum topic if you want to ask for help from the community.

How to keep track of new posts on NANOfutures?

There are several ways to keep up to date about new posts on NANOfutures.

  • You can see the latest posts in the community on the overview page.
  • To see a list of only the unread posts in the working groups you are a member of, see the 'My unread' page.
  • To set up email notifications of new posts and comments, see My Account > Subscriptions. You can activate/deactivate subscriptions by
  1. single posts or forum topics you have opened or posted in
  2. post types like Polls, Forum topic, News, Document
  3. Forums/Working Groups

The email subscriptions also include comments on the subscribed posts. So you can easily keep track of all new posts in the Working Groups you choose.

Posts/Participate

How to make a new forum topic?

You can post messages in any working group you are a member of.

Go to the working group in which you want to open a new discussion under Member Area -> Community -> Working Groups and choose 'Create Forum topic' in the Navigation menu on the right-hand side.

Enter a subject and choose in which forum of the WG your topic fits. If you are not sure choose 'General Discussions'. You may attach files from your computer to discuss about. These files will also be available in the documents section.

Enter a body text and press the 'Preview' button to see if the formatting (if used) and the spelling is correct. Then press the 'Save' button to save your post in the WG forum.

How to post an event?

Go to Member Area -> Community -> Events -> Add new Event. Enter the event name (Title), the location of the event and the date it will take place. In the big text area, enter any information about the event that might be interesting for NANOfutures website visitors. If the event has a website please also provide the link to it. You can attach files from your computer to provide more information about the event.

When you click the 'Save' button at the bottom an administrator will be noticed of your submission. After the entry was approved it will be visible both in the Member Area and in the Public Area of the NANOfutures website.

How to make a new poll?

Go to the working group it which you want to create a poll under Member Area -> Community -> Working Groups and choose 'Create a Poll' in the right menu.

Enter a question and at least two choices. If your poll has more than two possible answers click the 'Add another choice' button.

Under Poll duration you can choose a time from 1 day to 1 year after that the poll will automatically be closed. Choose Unlimited if you don't want the poll to have an end time.

Under Audience you can choose to which of your Working Groups the poll belongs.

You can attach files from your computer if more information is needed for the members to make a choice.

How to upload documents?

Go to Member Area -> Community -> Documents -> Upload a Document to provide document or image files to the community.

Enter a title for the document or group of files and choose a category for your upload. If you are not sure, choose 'Other Document'. You can enter a description for the upload to help other members find the files they search for or are interesting in. You can reorder the files by dragging them on the cross symbol on the left in the list. When you are finished click the 'Save' button and wait until the files are uploaded. One file may not be larger than 8 MB.

Another way to provide documents to the community is posting forum topics or polls in your working group(s) and attach files to the post. These files will also show up on the documents page.

How to add a link to the list?

Go to Member Area -> Community -> Interesting Links -> Add a link to provide project related web links to the list under Member Area -> Community -> Interesting Links. Enter a title and the URL and click the 'Save' button. Your link will be added to the list in alphabetical order.

Please don't add links to advertise a company, product, project or event. Links not related to NANOfutures will be removed. You can enter those links in your profile. See 'How can i fill my member profile?' on this page.

How to write a comment on a post?

When you view a post in the NANOfutures community (like a forum post, an event entry, an uploaded document or a poll) there is a comment field at the bottom, where you can type in your reply. Click the 'Preview' button to see if your formatting (if used any) and the spelling is correct before saving your answer. When you click the 'Save' button your comment will be added to the page and can be read by every NANOfutures member.

If you want to answer on a comment (not on the top post) you should choose the 'Answer' link below the comment. Your answer will then be added at the correct place on the page.

How can I participate?

Feel free to post any information you want to contribute to the project. If you have joined a working group, you can post in the WG forums. Go to Member Area -> Community -> Working Groups -> YOUR WG -> Group Forums to see already existing discussions and to open a new one.

Under Member Area -> Community -> Working Groups -> YOUR WG -> Polls you can vote on existing and create new polls in that WG to help finding a decision regarding the work in NANOfutures.

Independent of the working groups you can provide documents, images, interesting links and project related event information. You will find those under Member Area -> Community.

Please see the other questions and answers on this page about posting.

How to upload images?

Go to Member Area -> Community -> Documents -> Upload a Document to provide document or image files to the community.

Enter a title for the document or group of files and choose a type for your upload. If you are not sure, choose 'Other Document'. You can enter a description for the upload to help other members finding the files they search or are interesting in. You can reorder the files by dragging them on the cross symbol on the left in the list. When you are finished click the 'Save' button and wait until the files are uploaded. One file may not be larger than 8 MB.

Other ways to provide documents to the community is by posting forum topics or polls in your working group(s) and attaching files to the post. These files will also show up on the documents page.

What kind of opportunities of discussion are there?

Every working group has discussion forums for the members to use. On the page of a working group click the 'Forums' tab on the top or the 'Group forums' link at the right.

There is also the possibility to create a poll inside one or more working groups ('Create Poll' link on the right of the working group page). The comment function of a poll can also be used to discuss a topic.

People/Members

How to find other people on NANOfutures?

Every member on NANOfutures has a profile with personal data and contact data that they might provide optionally. You can see a members profile by clicking on their name (e.g. in member lists, in the members posts or in your contact list).

To find a specific member go to Member Area -> Community -> Members. This is an alphabetical list of all members of the NANOfutures community. You can order it by their registration date by clicking on 'Member since' in the table header or filter the list with the search filter.

If you would like to have the member list or member profiles saved in a file, choose from file the type you prefer by clicking the appendant icon (CSV, Excel, Word or plain text).

How to contact other members?

There are several ways to contact others on NANOfutures.

If one member provided contact data of their own, you can see it on their member profile (click on the members name to get there).

If you want to answer to a post in the forums or in the comments of other posts, click the 'Answer' link below the post or just type your answer in the field at the bottom of the page. Posts and comments can be seen by every NANOfutures member.

If you want to send an email to the representatives of a working group, you will find the email address under Public Area -> About NANOfutures -> Contacts.

How to manage my contact list?

When viewing a members profile page, there is an 'Add to contacts' link below the Members name. If you already have this member in your contact list, it says 'Remove from contacts'.

You can see the list of your added contacts under Member Area -> My Contacts. There you can also remove multiple contacts from your list.

Other members can not see who you have added to your contacts nor can one member see who has added oneself to his contacts.

How can I export the list of NANOfutures community members?

You can save the member lists of the Business section, the R&D section and the list of all NANOfutures community member in four different file types:

  • XLS - An MS Excel Spreadsheet
  • CSV - A Comma Separated Values file
  • TXT - A plain text file
  • DOC - A MS Word document (does not contain all profile data)
To export the list of community members go to Member Area -> Community -> Members and scroll down to the end of the list. There is one icon for each file type.

Account/Membership

How to manage my bookmarks on NANOfutures?

You can bookmark pages and posts on NANOfutures with the 'Bookmark this' link below the content. To see the list of bookmarked content go to Member Area -> My Bookmarks. There you can remove bookmarks by choosing 'Unbookmark' at the right. You can also unbookmark pages and posts when viewing the piece of content (Use the 'Unbookmark this' link below).

Other members can not see what you have bookmarked.

How can I fill my member profile?

Go to Member Area -> My Account -> Edit Profile. Then click Edit to update the form with your member profile.

Only fill out those information that you would like other members to see in your profile.

The form can not be saved if the Name, Company or Country field is empty.

You can also choose to add/remove your profile from the NANOfutures business and R&D platform on the same page.

To join or leave working groups, you have to visit the WG page and click 'My membership' in the right menu.

What account settings are there and how do they work?

You can change your account settings under Member Area -> My account -> Settings. The following settings exist.

Account information

  • Change your email addres that is used to send you news and updates about NANOfutures. This address will not be shown to other members.
  • Change your password to login to the member area. You should do this from time to time to avoid account abuse.

Picture

  • Set up, change or delete your user picture (avatar) that is used e.g. on your profile page, on your posts and on your entry in the member list. If no picture is set, the default picture will be used.

Contact settings

  • Choose whether  other members can contact you via the web form

Locale settings

  • Select your time zone to adapt the times and dates used on NANOfutures

The subscription settings are available under Member Area -> My account -> Subscriptions. See 'How to keep track of new posts on NANOfutures?' for information about using the subscriptions.

How can I delete my account?

If you don't want to use your NANOfutures account anymore, you cast just keep it like it is. We will not pass any personal data to other party, so this way you can keep options open.

If you want to make your account generally unusable you can delete it under 'Community -> My account -> Settings' in the Member Area. It then will be deleted after a few weeks. So it still can be reactivated by an administrator if it was deleted accidentally.