Discord Tips & Tricks

TIP #1: Have you joined the server late?

Daunted by scrolling all the way back up to the top of that busy channel to figure out what the channel is supposed to be for? OR, do you have a sneaking suspicion that a link to something important has already been provided?
CHECK OUT THE PINNED MESSAGES! That's right! Important messages can be pinned to the channel so they don't get lost. To see if a channel has pins, look up to your right and then click on the push-pin icon. That will then pull up a list of all the pinned messages in the channel. If you need more room to see the message, click on it, and Discord will take you to where the message is in the channel.

TIP #2: Want to get someone's attention in a channel?

Need to try and get a group of people's attention? You can do that!
To specifically tag an individual, type the @ symbol followed by the first letter of their name. Discord will then start showing you options to choose from. Click on the person you want, and their name will show up after the @ symbol. Like this. @Kathy - Business Exec
Need to grab an admin or reg or security---just type the @ symbol followed by Admin, Reg, or Security as appropriate. It will behave the same as with an individual.

TIP #3 Want to change your nickname on the server?

You can do that! (We ask that everyone try to keep things related to how we know you on ConCom.)
If you click on the down carrot up by the server name (NWC 43-Staff) at the top of the channel menu, it will bring up a sub menu of actions. One of those is "change nickname". Use your new power responsibly.

TIP #4: Don't really feel like typing up an entire comment to respond to something but also want to acknowledge its existence?

You can do that by adding a reaction to the post.

To add a reaction to someone's post:

1. On mobile, press down on the text and hold. On desktop, hover over the text and click on the smile/add reaction.
2. Click on Add Reaction
3. In search bar, type what you want to see if we have it. For example, typing heart will pull up all our heart emojis. Or, you can scroll through the emojis to find the perfect one.
4. Click on the emjoi you want. Lo! It shall appear. Test it out here on this post!

Bonus: someone else has already put an emjoi reaction on the post! Huzzah! You don't have to find one. Just click on the emjoi, and your reaction will be added.

TIP #5: Hey, I want a shiny looking picture! How do I get rid of this neon game controller?

I swear, I'm not a game controller! (Sure, we believe you. For now.)

To add a user pic on mobile:

1. Click on the 3 bars
2. Click on the gear icon down at the bottom of the screen.
3. Click on My Account
4. Picture adding and removing capability will then be there.

To add a user pic on desktop

1. Look at the botoom of the channel list.
2. Click on the gear. This is your user settings.
3. Huzzah! You've found your "my account" area. Your avatar circle will be at the top. Add a picture here.

Please keep all user pictures within the bounds of our Code of Conduct

TIP #6 Trying to avoid the dreaded wall of text but also have a lot to say?

Keep hitting enter only to post too soon? The struggle is real, my friends. To put a space between your paragraphs, shift + enter will do that for you.

TIP #7: We highly recommend that you use the Discord app!

While you can access Discord via the web, the app (which can be used on your desktop/laptop) is a much a better experience. Please download the app!

TIP #8: Voice channels

Voice channels are like the radios of the con. Need to talk with someone? Hop into a voice channel. Want to share your screen so you can show us what you're seeing? Hop into a voice channel.
Voice channels are the channels in the list that have little volume icons in front of them. To join one, just click on it. That will put you in the channel.
It also brings up some controls down at the bottom of the channel screen. If you want to join with your camera, click video. If you need to share a screen, click on screen.
To leave the voice channel, click on the phone icon. NOTE: You must manually disconnect/leave the voice channel. Discord will leave you in there until you do, which is the Discord equivalent to how you will end up with a hot mic situation.

TIP #9: Push to Talk

You know how every year we talk about not bringing your radio into the bathroom? How could we skip that in a virtual year?
By default, Discord settings will pick up your voice when you are in a voice channel and start transmitting. This could obviously be a problem if you're not actually meaning to either be in the channel or be talking to the channel.
How do you avoid this shame?
Enable push to talk in your user settings. Here's a handy-dandy guide that walks you through it with screenshots: https://www.howtogeek.com/662101/how-to-enable-push-to-talk-in-discord/#:~:text=Start%20with%20launching%20the%20Discord,to%20%E2%80%9CPush%20to%20Talk.%E2%80%9D

TIP #10: Notifications

You may be thinking to yourself, OMG, why won't my computer stop dinging at me. I hate life.

Don't worry, you can change that to suit your needs and preferences. By default, Discord will notify you about everything. Especially if, when you downloaded the app, you clicked yes to allow notifications from Discord.
To turn off the notifications Discord-wide:

1. Click the gear icon at the bottom-left of the application window to open your settings.
2. Select "Notifications" from the sidebar on the left.
3. This will bring up a host of different options. Here, you can turn off message and notification sounds, as well as desktop notifications (these are the alerts your computer sends you when you receive a message).

To turn off notifications for just the NWC 43 Server:

1. Go up to the down carrot next to NWC 43-Staff. Click on it.
2. Choose Notifciation Settings.
3. This will bring up options to change the notification settings just for this server

TIP #11: Muting Channels

But, you say, I kinda like the notifications because it gets my attention---I just don't want it for EVERYTHING. Like, I love you all, but the chatter really is a bit much.
You can customize that part too! Leave the notifications set, but mute specific channels.
To Mute a Channel:

1. Right click on the channel
2. Choose mute channel
3. A menu of options will appear---choose the one that feels right.
4. Also go down to notifications
5. Choose only @ mentions so that you will still get notified if someone tags you.

TIP #12 FOMO, or I must be able to see all channels

Ok, I hear you. You don't want to miss anything so you want to have all the channels available, and you don't want to mute because what if you miss something. But, scrolling through everything to see if something new has popped up is time-consuming.
You don't have to! Each channel is grouped into a category. You can collapse the categories so that you only see the category name. (Click on the carrot next to the category name.) When someone posts in the channel, it will then show up in white, and then you know something new has been posted in that channel. In general, look for channels names that are white to follow the breadcrumbs of where people are actively posting.

TIP #13: So you want to build a search term?

Discord has a search bar! It's really handy for finding things later especially once this server gets hopping! And, the search bar lets you dig into some boolean logic if you want.
To search for something:

1. Click in the search bar in the upper right hand corner.
2. When you click on the search bar, a menu of options will appear. This is where you get to choose your own adventure. To perform a basic search, go to step 4. To be more extra in your searching, go to step 3.
3. The menu of options lets you filter your search results by certain criteria. For example, you can choose to only get results before a certain date or that mentions a specific user. To activate the filter, click on the one you want (you can choose more than one). After activating the filter, enter in your search term.
4. If you want to do just a basic search, type your search term in the search bar and do not choose to activate a filter. That's it. You're done.

TIP #14: Wait, I can talk to people privately on this thing?

You sure can! To send someone a direct, or private, message, you can do one of two things:

1. Click on their user icon. A box will pop-up. This box will provide information about the user's roles.
2. At the bottom is a note field, start typing in this field.
3. When you hit enter, it will pop up a private message screen with that user with what you've typed so far in that field.

OR

1. In the list of people on-line on the right side of the screen, right click on the person.
2. A pop-up with a lot of options will appear, click on message.
3. This will pop up the private message screen. Type away.

To find your private message history/chat log with a user, go to the left hand side of the screen and click on the game controller above all of your server icons. This takes you to your home page, and in the channel list area, you'll see a direct message history with each user you have ever direct messaged on Discord.

TIP #15: You can make the text bigger?

• This is brand-new to me too! In addition to just hitting ctrl + or ctrl - while in the area that you want to make bigger or smaller, you can change the default settings altogether.

• 1. Look down at the very bottom of the channel list. See your username and picture? There's a gear icon there too. You've used it before! This takes you to your user settings.
  2. Once in your user settings, click on appearance.
  3. There are so many things you can customize here! Change from the default dark theme to a light theme. Change the color of your sidebar! Change the size of the font! You can also add more space between message groups. Fiddle around to your heart's content.
  4. Underneath the space between groups, you can chose the zoom level!

• May your eyes thank you for the lack of strain you are about to bestow!