Getting started with the new forum

This is an intro to the new Java Q&A Forums.

The first thing you'll probably notice is that your current JavaWorld forum login won't work here. We apologize for that! A key part of our migration plan is to bring those logins into our new platform, but we wanted to give you back a place to talk as soon as possible, and we're not quite ready yet to move the user info from the old to the new database.

You'll also notice that you have to "join" this forum to post, even if you're already logged in. Why? We're using "groups" software (similar to the idea behind Google Groups). As we add more forums, this will become more useful because you'll be able to build your own personal forum list, get notifications for the forums on the list and the like. In the short term, yes, it's a bit annoying, but you'll only have to do it once.

You'll notice you can post two ways here. Click on "Create Thread" to start a discussion or "Create Poll" to create a poll.

When you click on "Create Thread," you'll get a new page with a simple text editor. But the best part is:

You can post code examples again!

Yay! Just type or paste in your snippets. For added goodness, wrap them in ... - either by typing the tags in, or highlighting your code example, then clicking on the CODE button in the editing toolbar. This will format the code to make it a bit easier for somebody to copy and paste.

One possible thing to look out for: By default, the software we're using interprets single carriage returns as a place to put a line break, two carriage returns in a row as a place to put paragraph marks.

Enter the Java Q&A Forums.