How many members would like the ability to "favorite" a member's site for reference later on? How could we go about making this change?

Lioba, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a "members" site. Are you referring to a garden.org member's profile page? You can just click on someone's avatar to go to their profile page; or scroll to the bottom of any page and click on Membership and type in the name which will also take you there.

And as I said earlier in this post... The thread "Favorite Member Sites" in Ask a Question forum

The little star feature saves it to your profile for your future reference.

edit...Ok in re-reading this...Your wanting to "favorite" a member?
I'm not sure I get that.

The star feature allows you to "favorite" a post...Maybe made by a said member?
And then you can go to your profile, and make your own comments as to why you "favored" it.

or, are you meaning to know when a specific member (a your favorite) makes a post anywhere, you'd be made aware of it?
If that's the case I think dave addressed that once.

Hi @Lioba

>> the ability to "favorite" a member's site for reference later on?

If you mean a way to make a book mark to some webiste OUTSIDE the NGA website, most browsers have "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" for that purpose.

But if you want a fast, convenient link visible only from inside NGA, Dave already made two kinds of those (or three if you count "stars" which someone mentioned.

1. You can add a link to your own, customizable menu bar on the far left, under the generic site menu bar.
Go to "Your Profile", which is the head-and-shoulders icon at the top of the far-left blue menu bar.
"Change Your Site Preferences"
scroll down to "Manage your custom menubar" and click that
copy-paste a URL into the right column, and type a label into the left column.
"add another link" or "save your work"

These new links will be added to YOUR left-hand menu bar, and no one else's.

2. You can add text and links to your signature block, below each post, but the syntax for those is slightly tricky.

Your profile
» Change your public profile
Signature appearing below your posts:

RickCorey, you come very close to what I am looking for (1.) but much too much work. I want something like the star but not to save a forum post but to save a member site to go to it to view their pics, go to their forums, etc.... There are some members that I relate to for my garden ideas but may not want to contact directly just favorite their site for reference.

Are any of you interested in this too?

And thanks folks for your input.

plantladylin, What do you mean by, "You can just click on someone's avatar to go to their profile page"? Where would I find their avatar? My problem is memory. An avatar would help me recall with recognition who I am interested in but with a lot of members thats a lot of avatars. I am cognitively challenged.

Your avatar is the picture by your name. The only problem with that is that all of us can change the pictures at will.

Lioba, please forgive me. Sometimes I'm not so good at explaining things. The avatar is the photo that each of us use for our profile, such as the lovely (hosta?) plant that you show on your profile page and that shows up in each of your postings here on site: http://garden.org/users/profil... For my avatar photo, I currently have my puppy's picture: http://garden.org/users/profil...

When you click on a members name or their little avatar photo, it will take you to their home/profile page.

Lioba, you already know how to star a post. I see you have done so by looking on your profile page.


When you click on the number character of your starred pages, you can add notes for each post you starred. (Click on the 'pencil and note paper' icon to the right.)
This is mine.


Why not just star a post of your desired member(s), and add a note that it is your "favorite"? Then you can go to that starred page and click on the avatar (or name) of your desire member to go to their member profile (or member site as you call it).

Your starred pages are arrange in alpha-numeric order according to your notes, so as long as you tag each member with the same word to start, they will all be together and easy to access.

I'm glad that I'm getting closer, but I still don't think I understand completely. If you already got the information you want, you don't need to keep answering my "cross-examination"!

You said:
>> to save a member site to go to it to view their pics, go to their forums, etc.... There are some members that I relate to for my garden ideas but may not want to contact directly just favorite their site for reference.

When you say "a member site", I'm not sure if you mean some part of this NGA website (garden.org) that the member created or is associated with. For example, members here have their Profile Page in THIS website (garden.org). Each Profile Page lists articles and "Ideas" they've written, their blog, things they've contributed to the Plant Database and companies they've written a review for. You can also view posts that they've made to threads in the forums in garden.org.

Here in NGA, we each have our "favorite forums", but we don't "own" our own forums, except for Moderators or Admins who do take care of specific forums.

If you just want a quick way to link to members' Profile Pages here in NGA, I can't think of anything other than going there (for example by clicking on the picture in the upper-left corner of each post), then copying the URL to a list you keep somewhere, or the blue custom menu bar. Or, once you went to their Profile Page, you could use your Browser's "Bookmark" feature, or "Favorites" feature to bookmark their profile page.


... or maybe you meant websites anywhere on the Internet, that an NGA member created or maintains.
For example, many NGA members came from the "Cubits" website, and still maintain their own sites over there.

For that, I don't know ANY way other than asking that member what website they have of their own, going there, and bookmarking it in your browser.

If you wanted a bunch of those "external" links handy here in NGA, I do the same thing with my signature block (below this post). If you make up a list of 4-10 URLs of websites you would like quick access to, with a short nickname for each site, I could turn them into a "signature block" that you would copy-paste into YOUR profile page's box for "Signature appearing below your posts:" That might be a little tricky, but let me know if you want to try.

I hope some part of this is helpful!

That's what confused me too, "member sites". This NGA is a web site.

I've noticed that many people use some terms almost interchangeably, like "website", "page", "forum" and even "thread".

I'm guessing the exact answer would be "some of the above". But then, unfortunately, the answer to "how to link to them easily" would become the answer EVERYONE hates: "it depends". Sorry about that!

I would like something similar to a friends list

@Leftwood understands what I mean and comes close to a solution with the tools given to us. But I am still confused being new here.
@Suga hit it on the head. However, I don't want to ask permission to be a friend.
To @RickCorey, I'm sorry I'm not using the correct terminology. I mean profile page. Member's profile page here on NGA. That is what I want to favorite.
Thank you folks for explaining avatar to me.
Who runs this site so I can make a suggestion?
I love you all.

@Leftwood I did as you suggested and it is working. I will still pursue having the web designers of this site add some type of favoriting a member's profile page.

Thank you Leftwood for hearing me.

Glad to be of help.

I was informed by the site manager that it would be very difficult to program into the site a way to follow or favorite a member's profile page at this time. The site manager would like it but that isn't what they are working on. using the star, although meant to save articles, photos, etc... could be a way to remember a member you like by choosing a photo or article and write a note when in the starred pages section like Leftwood suggested. It is working for me.