A threaded topic/thread is a series of messages that are direct or indirect replies to each other and discuss a common subject. Message threading allows you to navigate through a group of messages, and it displays the relationship each message shares with other messages in the thread.
Thread organization:
You can think of a message thread much like a family tree where a "parent" message can have "children" (i.e., replies to the parent message). If there is more than one direct reply to a parent message, the replies share a "sibling" relationship. A long thread can span many "generations" of parents, siblings, and children.
There are three different ways to view a topic/thread within a message board that show this parent-child relationship. When viewing a topic/thread you can change View options that appear just above the list of messages:
- To view the discussion as threaded with only the subjects of the messages displayed, click the Simple view.
- To view the topic/thread with a short summary of the message as well as the subject, click the Summary view.
- To view the topic/thread with the full messages displayed, click the Expanded view.
Tips for navigating the messages in threaded view:
- The message that is currently displayed above the message view box is highlighted in blue.
- The threaded messages are sorted with the first, or original, message at the top.
- If there are more messages in the thread than can be displayed on one page, there is a "see more replies" link in green that, when clicked, expands the topic/thread and display the messages below it.
- To read a message in the topic/thread using the Threaded view, click the subject of the message. The topic/thread still displays, and the subject is highlighted in blue.
- Indentations and dotted lines indicate the relationship between the messages. A message that is indented and has a dotted "L" next to it is a reply to the message above it.
- Successive messages that have the same level of indentation are replies to the same message.