Just follow the instructions and you will be surprised at how fast you can be up and running with a professional discussion group.

Register and Sign Up

• To sign up for the FREE trial you need to register. Go to the Web Transitions ORDER and follow the instructions for ordering the free trial. No payment or credit card will be necessary.
• Once you have finished the order process, use the "Account Number" and "Password" from your catalog registration to login to the administration site from the "Component Login" section of the left navigation bar on the home page.
• Once you login, the Fast-Talk administration links will be on the left navigation bar.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT RENEWING YOUR SERVICE: FastTalk uses a completely automated process for providing the discussion group service. You can order any variation of the FastTalk component through our online order system. Thirty days prior to the expiration date of your service a "Renew Now" link will show on the administration navigation bar. If you do NOT renew the service will automatically expire on the expiration date. If this happens, simply use the order process to re-order the service. The order system will automatically update your order record and expiration date. You have the option of ordering the service by the month by entering the number of months you want to renew for in the quantity box of the order checkout shopping cart. 

Setting up your FastTalk discussion group site

FastTalk is a database driven software program. To operate, it pulls information from a database and dynamically builds HTML pages that are sent when that specific page is requested. 

To set up your FastTalk site, choose the "Edit Site Setup" link in the FastTalk section of the administration navigation bar.

You will be given two options for setting up FastTalk. If you don't know much about HTML you should use the "Quick Setup" option. This wizard will walk you through the setup process by asking simple questions. If you are familiar with using HTML you can use the "Detailed Setup" which allows you to use HTML code to create exactly the look you want.

Explanation of the "Detailed Setup" parameters:  The "Detailed Setup" page has the following data entry fields.

Page Width - You should enter the number of pixels wide you wish your discussion group to display. The program will adjust the display of the discussion group pages based on the pixel width you enter here. 
Typical web pages are designed to match the two most common screen resolutions. Until the last three or four years the most common screen resolution was 640 x 480 (640 pixels wide by 480 pixels tall). More recently the most common screen resolution has been 800 x 600 (800 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall). To insure that your discussion group will fit on most screens the page width should be set to no larger than 565 pixels. 

Page background color - HTML allows you to set the background color of your web pages by using a Hex value indicating the amount of Red, Blue and Green colors to display. If you are not familiar with Hex colors, simply leave the default color which is FFFFFF.

Page-Head background color - HTML also allows you to set the background color of certain sections of a page (table cells). The Hex color you enter here will be the background color for the "Header" section of the discussion group pages. If you are not familiar with Hex values, simply leave the default color which is FFFFFF.

Caption background color - The caption section of the discussion group pages is below the "Header" section and above the "Body" section and contains most of the links for navigating the discussion group pages. The header section contains the Name of your discussion group or any HTML you wish to add. The body section is the section where the discussion group messages are displayed. This field sets the background color for the caption section of all pages using a Hex value. If you are not familiar with Hex values, simply leave the default color which is FFFFFF.

Message body background color - The body section of the site contains the discussion group messages. The background color for this section is set in the Message body background color field using a Hex value. If you are not familiar with Hex values, simply leave the default color which is FFFFFF.

Message Alternate Colors 1 and 2 - To help clearly define the separate messages in your discussion group, the program allows you to set up two different colors that alternate for each message in Hex format. For example, enter FFFFAA in Message Alternate Color 1 and FFFFCC in Message Alternate Color 2 to show the messages in alternating light yellow colors.

Admin Email Address - Enter the email address you wish people to use to contact you with questions about your discussion group.

Home URL - This section allows you to determine how users will return from your discussion group site to your main site. If you enter a URL (fully qualified in the format http://www.yourdomain.com/yourpage.html) the program will add a link on the all discussion group pages to that location. If you enter nothing in the URL field, choose the top radio button to include no link (do this if you are using html in the header with a link back to your site) or the bottom radio button to put a javascript "close window" link (if you are opening the discussion group in a new window) on the discussion group pages.

Header Information - You may use HTML code (See NOTE Below) to design a header for your discussion group site. Using Java-Script or CSS may cause the pages to display improperly. The information or HTML you enter in this field will be displayed at the top of all pages in the discussion group site.

Footer Information - You may use HTML (See NOTE Below) code to design a footer for your discussion group site. The information or HTML you enter in this field will be displayed at the bottom of all pages in the discussion group site.

Terms and Conditions - You may use HTML (See NOTE Below) code to design a Terms and Conditions page for your discussion group site. The information or HTML you enter in this field will be displayed when the user clicks the Terms and Conditions link in the discussion group pages.

NOTE: When using HTML code in these fields you must either enter all code within <p></p> tags or within <table></table> tags. For example, to include a header that displays your logo and your company name as the header for the discussion group site you can use the following format(s):

<p>
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/images/yourlogo.gif" align="center">
<font face="arial" size="3" color="#FF0000">
My Company Name
</font>
</p>

OR

<table width = "100%" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td width="100%" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/images/yourlogo.gif" align="center">
<font face="arial" size="3" color="#FF0000">
My Company Name
</font>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

You may not use <HTML></HTML> OR <BODY></BODY> tags in these fields. Doing so may cause the pages to display improperly. Any improperly formatted HTML tags may cause the pages to display improperly.

Add new discussion group - This link will let you add a new discussion group if you have not yet reached the maximum limit of groups for your registration. Once you reach that limit, this link will no longer be available.

Link to discussion group page - FastTalk provides a page that lists all of your active discussion groups. This link is near the top of the page.

Edit Group - To the right of each discussion group listing is a link to edit that discussion group.

Discussion Group Hits - Under each discussion group is the number of hits for that discussion group for the month to date. At the bottom of the page is listed the number of hits for all of your discussion groups.

Adding a new discussion group - Choose the Add new discussion group link at the top of the page. This will give you an administration page to enter your new discussion group. The group ADD and EDIT pages are the same.

Name - This is the public name for the discussion group. You may enter a maximum of 35 characters for this name.

Description - You may use basic HTML tags to format this information. (See NOTE above) This description is only used if you choose to link to FastTalk's discussion group listing page.

Active - You must enter a check in this box for your discussion group to be activated for public use. If this box is not checked the program will not show the discussion group on FastTalk's discussion group listing page but will perform correctly from a direct link to the discussion group.

Save Changes - Saves the changes you have made to an existing group or saves the information you have entered for a new group.

Cancel - Cancels all edits and returns you to the group listing page.

 

Editing and maintaining a discussion group - From the Discussion Group List page you have access to all of the maintenance and editing pages for the discussion group. At the top of the page is a link to add a new discussion group. To the right of the discussion group description is a series of links to edit and maintain the discussion group.

Discussion group link  - The text box on this page contains the code needed to create a link to this specific discussion group. Copy the code exactly as listed here and paste it into your site link. Examples:

HREF:
 <a href="paste-the-code-here">Discussion Group</a>

HREF IMAGE:
<a href="paste-the-code-here"><img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/images/imagename.gif" border="0"></a>

Edit group - This link lets you edit the name and description of the group and will let you activate or de-activate the group. The Edit discussion group page is the same as the Add discussion group page.

Delete group - This link will allow you to delete the group. You will be asked to confirm the delete action. When you delete a group you also delete all messages in that group.

Group stats - This link reports the stats on the discussion group and allows you to delete messages older than a specified date.

Edit threads - This link allows you to delete specific message threads. Threads are displayed from newest to oldest.

List all groups - This link returns you to the discussion group list page.