Creating Groups In Your Friends List

IF AT ANYTIME DURING THIS PROCESS YOU USE A "DELETE" COMMAND BE SURE THAT YOU ARE NOT ON THE MAIN FRIENDLIST PAGE. THE MAIN FRIENDSLIST PAGE HAS THE WORD "ONLINE" (meaning your friends currently online) NEAR THE TOP OF THE PAGE!! IF YOU SELECT A DELETE COMMAND AND YOU ARE ON THIS MAIN FRIENDLIST PAGE YOU RISK DELETING PEOPLE FROM YOUR FRIENDSLIST AND CREATING A MAJOR HEADACHE FOR YOURSELF!

Before we start be aware that you can create many groups and anyone on your friendslist can be placed in multiple groups.(Unlike yahoo Instant Messenger or Windows/MSN IM....wish they both had that ability)

Creating Or Editing Your Friendlist Groups

The first step is to create all the groups you want. Once we have done that THEN we will go and add people from your friendslist to each group.

When on any page on Railbirds and you are logged in hit the "edit" button located near the bottom of your friends list.

At the top of the popup window that opens hit the "new grouplist" link.

The window changes to another one. Here you need to select a name for the group you wish to create. The first group you create should be a "noname" group (the reason for this is expalined later) since if you follow these instructons the first group you create will be deleted once all other groups have been created. (or you can leave it there if you plan to add more groups in the future. Thats what i did.)

If you already have other group(s) it will also ask you where you would like to put the new group in the order of the all your other groups. Select the "after" pip and use the dropdown menu to select where you wish the new group to be in the order of all your groups. THE "FIRST" AND "LAST" PIPS ARE COMPLETLY FUNCTIONLESS AND DO NOT WORK!(or so it seemed to me...might just be I'm using the FireFox browser. This is also why you create the first "noname" group. You cannot place any group in the list before the first in the list. So that you can put any groups you create in the future in the order you wish I'd just leave the "noname" group there although you can delete it if you like using the instructions further down the page.)

Once you have typed in the name of the group and where in the your list you want it to be located hit the orange "create grouplist" button. The page changes again and has two links in it. If you want to create more groups select the "new grouplist" link at the top of the page and just repeat the steps above. If you are finished creating groups select "Go Back" link and proceed to adding friends to the groups you created as outlined below.

To delete or re-name any group from your list select the "edit grouplist" link at the top of the popup window. In the "select" dropdown menu choose the group you wish to edit. That group's name should appear just below the select menu with an "edit" link next to it. Select that "edit" link making sure it is the group you want to edit. The window changes and the group name should appear with two orange button below it. Either change the group name and select the "save" button or just hit the "delete" button to delete to the group. Deleting a group does nothing more than delete the group. Any friends you had in it will still appear in your friendslist. IF AT ANYTIME DURING THIS PROCESS YOU USE A "DELETE" COMMAND BE SURE THAT YOU ARE NOT ON THE MAIN FRIENDLIST PAGE. THE MAIN FRIENDSLIST PAGE HAS THE WORD "ONLINE" (meaning your friends currently online) NEAR THE TOP OF THE PAGE!! IF YOU SELECT A DELETE COMMAND AND YOU ARE ON THIS MAIN FRIENDLIST PAGE YOU RISK DELETING PEOPLE FROM YOUR FRIENDSLIST AND CREATING A MAJOR HEADACHE FOR YOURSELF!

After deleting a group it may be necessary to shut down your internet browser and restart it and then relog onto Railbirds to see the corrected changes to the grouplist.(This may just apply to the FireFox browser. Not positive about that but it's what I had to do.)

I myself created a whole bunch of groups and will probably make more. I have one for the Railpros, one for each of the major clans, one each for those that have contributed to either of my index blogs (strategy and members guide) and one for my "good friends" - those I'm always chatting with. just thought of another one to create as I write this for those that have "daily postings" so I don't have to sign up and get a PM notice for every blog they publish. God.....just that will be a great thing. No more getting home from work to 50 PMs.

Editing/Adding/Removing Friends From Your Friendlist Groups

Now to add (or remove) people from our friends list to each of the groups we created.

When on any page on Railbirds and you are logged in hit the "edit" button located near the bottom of your friends list.

At the top of the popup window that opens hit the "Edit grouplist" link.

Select the group you wish to add or remove friends from in the "Select group" dropdown menu.

Below this in an "Edit" link. Ignore this link. Only use the "Edit" link to change the name of a group or to delete a group as instructed above in section on setting up groups.

Everyone on your friendslist appears in the list in the window with a checkbox next to their name. Any friend you have that is currently online is denoted by the absence of a gray birdie next to their name.

In this list check mark all the friends that you want to add to the group you selected or remove the check mark if you want to remove them from the group. For example for my "RailPros" group all the railpros that are on my friends list have a check next to the name.

Once you have selected all the friends you want to add or remove from this group scroll all the way to the bottom of the window and you will find an orange button "Save Group". Hit that button and the group is saved with the friends you selected. BE CERTAIN THAT THAT ORANGE BUTTON DOES NOT SAY "DELETE" IN ANY WAY. IF YOU SELECT A DELETE HERE YOU RISK DELETING PEOPLE FROM YOUR FRIENDSLIST AND CREATING A MAJOR HEADACHE FOR YOURSELF!

If you want to edit/add/remove more friends from your groups select the "edit grouplist" link at the top of the page or the "go back" link in the window and just repeat the steps above to add friends to all the groups you created.. If you are finished editing/adding/removing friends from your groups select the "Close this window" link. Once the window closes.....presto...the groups you made should appear at the bottom of your friendslist on any Railbirds page.

Heres a picture of what it looks like when you are done. I still have to add friends to most of the groups but it will show you what it should look like when you are done.