Many of us have develop a friendship and would like to contact each other privately. The Private message (PM) allows members to do just that without showing ones email. Private messages may be described as basically a cross between email and a instant messaging system when two are on at the same time.

In order to use private messages, you must be logged into the board. Look at the top of any page, and click on You have xxx new messages, or you could go into your User Control Panel and depending on your style there's a tab (either on top or on the side). Click Private Message. Either way will take you to your private messaging center. One directly the other one added step.

Sending
There are three primary ways to send a private message. First, you may go into your private messaging center and click New Post. Second, you may click Post Reply from a private message you are reading. Finally, you may click the PM link on any user's profile or post.

The posting form is identical to the normal posting form with a few exceptions:
Username - The username of the person you want to receive the message. If you are replying to a PM, or clicked the PM link in someone's profile, this field will be automatically filled for you.

Receiving
There are three ways that one may be notified of a new private message. Most obvious is the Private message link at the top of every page. It will display You have X new message(s), where X is the number of new messages you have. You may click this link to take you to your Inbox.

You may be informed of new PMs by an email sent to the email address your username is registered to. It's a good idea to have that feature on so you get notified as to when a friend PM you.

You may also be informed of a new PM by means of a small window that pops up while you are viewing the board. This feature doesn't work with IE 6. Email and pop-up notification will contain a link to your Inbox. Email and pop-up notification may be enabled/disabled in your user control panel under board preference.


The Outbox
When you send a PM, the message goes to your Outbox. It remains in the Outbox until the recipient visits his/her Inbox, at which point it is moved from your Outbox their Inbox and you'll have a copy in your sent box. While the message remains in your Outbox you may edit or delete your post if you like. The message remains in your control until it is received.

The Savebox
The Savebox is provided as a place to keep important PMs. Often it is used to save valuable messages from the Inbox, and then you can use the Delete All function to discard the rest.

You may save messages in your Inbox by selecting the messages (with the checkboxes next to each message) and clicking Save Marked.

Drafts
An added feature is that you could also save you post as a draft until at a later date. When going to your draft you have to click load or edit to pop it up.