[quote]
Still do not get what the difference in the grey and green icons are, nor the blue question marks (?) in a circle or the red exclamation marks (!) in a circle, but guess eventually I will see some rhyme or reason for it all. Sure wish Kovels would put a Legend on the Home Page for all the various icons; would be very helpful![/quote]

Grey icons = no new posts, green icons = new posts. How I know? Headers with a green icon also have a green “(# NEW)” added to the header/thread description (note: this of course refers to added (new) posts since your last log-in).

Question marks / exclamation marks: you opened an own thread and completely ignored the Topic Icon bar which offered you a method of customizing the appearance of your topic? No further comment required.

I therefore conclude that you don’t focus on what is already shown. This forum software is horrible, yes, but that is still no excuse for people demanding Legends where none are required. Hold in mind that you already missed the obvious, hence an additional Legend would also be ignored (Murphy’s Law of Computer Use).

Kovel’s should rather concentrate on installing a true forum moderation. Getting rid of the spam posts in under 24 hours, offering generic advice, and using reply macros asking for missing pictures (and offering help links on how to add them) are a must-have nowadays. But then again the Kovel’s business model has outlived itself anyway, so who cares? Other sites are much user-friendlier, better organized, and offer help by true collectors or dealers, real people that can be reached every day *and* know their stuff.

Have to agree that the site is not real user friendly or maybe it is just my newbie learning curve right now. Have had a real hard time logging in tonight; it kept telling me my ID or password was incorrect. Well, it wasn’t and I finally did get logged in. After doing the first Quick Reply and wondering WHY it was in a red bordered box with red text, after I sent the reply, when it showed up on the Forum, it WAS black. So “I think” I have that straight now. Still do not get what the difference in the grey and green icons are, nor the blue question marks (?) in a circle or the red exclamation marks (!) in a circle, but guess eventually I will see some rhyme or reason for it all. Sure wish Kovels would put a Legend on the Home Page for all the various icons; would be very helpful! Thanks for the info. on the antique-shop site; will definitely go there too.
Yes, I am located in SE Texas about 90 miles east of Houston. Happy to see other TEXAN members on board. Maybe with you in the NE area, our moderator in the DFW area and me in the SE area, we can pull a convention of our own one day. Go TEXANS!!! GO COWBOYS too! Now if there are any other live bodies out there, maybe we will get a ripple from those so NOT
TEXAN or COWBOY fans! 🙂 Blessings to all!

This is the most aggravating site !! Typed two paragraphs and it failed to post,,can not backtrack to find it !! But I can answer another of your questions now !! If you use the Quick Reply what you type will be in black,,if you use just the Reply,,or Reply to Topic the letters are in red !! Submitted replies are all in black,,I think !!
Since you are new to antiques and the collecting or buying and selling world I would suggest that you join www.antique-shop.com !! It is a much more active forum and everyone there is more than willing to help !! No reason you can not be a member of more than one forum.
A question, if I may,,are you in Texas ?? Noticed the TX in your name,,just curious !! I am in NE Texas and our moderator at antique-shop is in the DFW area !!
As to the error message you see,, it has been there as long as I have been a member here !! Have no clue what it means !!

OPPS! The last two paragraphs in above reply should not have been included. I had deleted my entire reply and then typed in a new one. Don’t know how these two paragraphs got carried over after being deleted. Sorry

But now that I have your attention, now that the above reply was sent and received successfully, I have a notice that “The following from address failed: administrator @kovels.com” and this error notice appears twice. ??? Please advise.

Thanks for your prompt reply and warm welcome. I had noticed when scrolling through lots of the posts that your name had shown up a LOT. Appreciate your active participation. I was disappointed that so many posts never got any replies at all. It would seem, as many participating members Kovels has world wide, that lots more replies and answers to inquiries would be forthcoming. OF course they may all be new like me and not KNOW the answer or have a clue. I am so loving my new world of antiques and collectibles though and looking forward to the learning curve process!

Your reply helped answer my confusion in regards to the KOVELS GENERAL forum and the KOVELS DISCUSSION BOARD and what their separate purposes are suppose to be. Really confusing though to have those topics have to be searched in both places. I notice at the bottom of the KOVELS GENERAL section it does indicate that it was for “General Area for Discussion about the Kovels.com website” which is what you explained. Would offer as a suggestion that Kovel consider showing the TWO separate locations at the beginning of their Forums link with specific instructions that IF a question is in regards to website navigation, guidelines or help about the use of the website, to reply to THAT forum area. And IF our questions are in regards to products (categories) to reply to (Use that link). That could help reduce or eliminate the cross referencing searches now required.

It appears also that the FORUM HELP GUIDE is quite out of date and not in sync with the actual website at this time. I.E: first instruction in the HELP GUIDE says log in and then see the BLUE Forums tab at the top right. There is none. Finally found the FORUMS link at the very bottom. Then it says that currently the ONLY forum available is “Kovels Discussion Board”. ??? Then it says I will see a green “New Thread” button…..do not see or find that either…..unless that is referring to the blue and the green folder looking icons I had questioned. If you look at the Kovels General forum, the first topic shown is KOVELS DISCUSSION BOARD and it has the BLUE live folder looking icon. Then the second topic shown is POTTERY & PORCELAINS and it has a GREEN live folder looking icon. Could it be that GREEN is to notate that that particular category has some new posts???

Then go to KOVELS DISCUSSION BOARD – first column to the left shows # of Replies. Then the second column shows greyed folder icons or a blue circled question mark (?) or a red circled exclamation mark (!). What do these two indications?
An Icon legion on the home page would be helpful.

Sorry for the long reply and questions. Will try to not be so lengthy in future postings. Thanks again for your help.

I did answer my own original question about my text showing up in RED. Thank goodness, when it posted, it was in BLACK! 🙂

Not sure what you were asking me as to “WHAT TOPICS” I was looking at. I am assuming it was relating to my question about why a topic showed a certain number of replies, but then, when I clicked on the topics sometimes it did show the replies and other times they did not show any replies. For example: