Anyone who is able to participate in any Groups.io
group already has an account registered and your e-mail address
is the user id for that account.
If you’ve been an e-mail only user, what you don’t have
is an actual password to allow you to access that account via
the web interface.
Groups.io makes it easy to establish a password for
your existing account so that you can then log in to the web
interface to do things like reading the groups you’re subscribed
to or their wiki pages, search the online archive for content
you know came through that group at some time in the past, and
more.
Using your favorite web browser, navigate to https://groups.io/sendloginlink
You will be presented with a window that requests
the e-mail address you’ve used to subscribe to your Groups.io
group(s). This is
your user Group.io User ID, which was established when you
subscribed, so enter that e-mail address.
Navigate to the Email me a link to log in button. Activate it.
Note: Once
you’ve followed the instructions provided to you in the e-mail
message from Groups.io, you will be logged in to the Groups.io
website once you finish.
If you wish to log out, the easiest way to log out of
the Groups.io web interface is simply to enter https://groups.io/logout in the address box of your browser and then
navigate to that page. You
don’t need to locate the link showing your name, activating it
to get the drop down menu, then choosing log out from that
menu.
[Last Update: 9/7/2020]
If you have never used the groups.io website, you
will need to follow the instructions just below to get a
password so that you can log in to the site. Otherwise jump
straight on to the section, Advanced Preferences for Your Group
Subscription, for the preferences that give you precise control
over the messages you’ll receive from groups.io, and in what
format, afterward review the section, Groups.io Message Reply
and Other Options Sent In Individual Messages and Digests. Note: The easiest way to log
out of the Groups.io web interface is simply to enter https://groups.io/logout
in the address box of your browser and then navigate to that
page. You don’t
need to locate the link showing your name, activating it to get
the drop down menu, then choosing log out from that menu.
If you’ve subscribed via e-mail you have a
Groups.io login id, your e-mail address, but you’ve never been
assigned a password for the website. To get one:
1. In your web browser, go to the Groups.io main
site login page: https://groups.io/login
2. Find the “Forgot your password?” link and
activate it.
3. A page with a single edit box, e-mail address
will open. Enter your e-mail address in it.
4. Navigate to the one and only button on the
page, “Email Link to Log In,” and activate it.
5. Watch your e-mail, including your spam/junk
box, for a message from Groups.io that will contain a link you
need to activate that takes you to your Groups.io profile page
where you set your password. This is the password
you’ll use to log in to any Groups.io group webpage where you
wish to do something, such as changing your preferences, that
requires you to be logged in to do. You are, at this
stage, actually logged in.
These preferences allow you to get very precise
control over what messages you will receive in e-mail from
groups.io and the format in which you’ll receive them. You can significantly
decrease the amount of e-mail you receive from high-traffic
groups while also being able to decide what's important enough
to keep an eye on.
Once you get to the main Groups.io webpage, https://groups.io, you will need
to navigate to the "Log In" (two words) link and activate it.
Once you've entered your username, which is the e-mail address
you've used to subscribe to the group(s) you routinely read, and
password, activate the "Log In" button and you will be taken to
the "Your Subscriptions" page.
If your browser window is not already maximized, do
so now (keyboard shortcut is Alt + Space, then X or Windows + Up
arrow).
If the page is restored or minimized, then at the
top of the page you'll see a button labeled "Toggle navigation",
followed by a link with a graphic labeled "groups.io". This
version of the interface will not allow you to edit any of the
subscription preferences as far as I can tell.
If the page is maximized, then the top of the page
should have a link with a graphic labeled "groups.io", followed
by a link labeled "Your Groups".
Use your screen reader's table navigation commands
to move to the first table found on this page. The columns
should read "Group", "# Members", "Latest Message", and
"Delivery". Move to the row for the group for which you wish to
set up your advanced preferences, navigate over to the Delivery
column, and activate the link found there. This will bring up the
Subscription page which contains the advanced email preferences. You will have to start
back at this step for each group for which you wish to set up
the advanced mail preferences.
Just so you're aware these are on the Subscription
page, there is a radio button cluster for the Email Delivery
options: All Messages, Full Featured Digest, Plain Digest, Daily
Summary, Special Notices Only, No email. This is immediately
followed by two checkboxes related to using a signature: Use
signature for web posting and Use signature for e-mail posting.
These are followed by the signature edit box, should you wish to
set up a signature that goes on to all your messages if you
check one of the previously mentioned checkboxes.
Use your screen reader quick navigation command to
find and activate the "Advanced Preferences" heading level 3
link.
There are three major sections to the advanced
preferences:
Message Selection. There are two radio buttons: All
Messages and Following Only. If the first is selected then every
message sent to the group will be sent to you in the format you
selected for e-mail delivery. If you select Following Only then
the only messages you will receive are messages you've chosen to
follow. There is a checkbox associated with "Following Only,"
"First Message Also." If this checkbox is checked it serves as a
selective override such that the first message in any new topic
is sent to you so that you can see it and elect to follow it
with the link at the end of the message if you wish to keep
monitoring this topic.
Replies. There is a checkbox, "Auto follow
replies," which will make any topic that you start yourself, or
any topic in which you reply to a message, followed. This
checkbox is generally only used if you have elected to use the
"Following Only" feature for message selection.
Max Attachment Size (only for groups that allow
attachments). This is followed by a dropdown box that allows you
to choose from four different maximum sizes for attachments to
be delivered to you via e-mail. The default is unlimited size.
If you're using an internet service with data caps you may wish
to change this. If you choose the zero option it means that all
attachments will be stripped before a message is sent to you.
Find the "Save" button and activate it to save
these settings.
As you can see, if you choose a setup where you
have elected to get messages with the "Following Only" option
combined with the "First message also" checkbox this will
greatly decrease the flow of e-mail you receive while allowing
you to decide for each topic whether you wish to follow it to
receive further messages or not.
In the first message that does get delivered, there will
be an additional link in the group that appears in the footer,
Follow this topic. If you do nothing then you will not receive
any additional messages for that particular topic unless you hit
the Follow this topic link at the end of the message or reply to
it, if the Auto follow replies option was checked. I suggest using the
Auto follow replies option so that if you start a topic, or
simply reply to a first message, it will make sure that you see
all messages that come later (unless you were to mute the topic
at some later time).
At the end of each individual message is this collection
of links:
View/Reply Online followed by the Groups.io message
number assigned to that message.
Reply to Group (which you’ll probably never use
since a straight e-mail Reply does the same thing)
Reply to Sender.
This is how to send a private message to the person who
sent the message you’re currently reading. Activating this link
will fire up a new message in your e-mail client of choice,
including web based ones if you have that set up, and will put
the e-mail address of the digest snippet’s sender in the “To:”
field and put “Private:” followed by the actual topic’s
“Subject” line after it.
Mute this Topic.
If you wish to stop receiving any further messages
related to this topic, whether in the digest or as individual
messages if you switch to that mode, activate this link.
New Topic (which you’ll probably never use because
it throws you into the web interface for the group to compose a
new message for a new topic.
Most will do this just by e-mailing the group posting
address).
A number of additional links related to the
specific group, which can vary somewhat by group.
A fixed collection of links:
Change Your Subscription – which will take you to
the Groups.io page where you can change your basic subscription
options or tweak the advanced options for message delivery that
I’ve written about separately.
Group Home – which will take you to the Groups.io
home page for the group this message originated from.
Contact group owner -
uses the mailto command to cause a new, blank e-mail
message to be created with the group owner address of the group
already filled in.
Terms of Service
Unsubscribe from this Group – which throws you into
the Groups.io web interface for unsubscribing from the group
where this message originated.
At the end of each digest message is a collection
of links:
View/Reply Online followed by a count of messages
in that topic already.
Reply to Group (which you very well may use to
reply to a single message in a digest via e-mail)
Reply to Sender.
This is how to send a private message to the person who
sent the message in question to the group. Activating this link
will fire up a new message in your e-mail client of choice,
including web based ones if you have that set up, and will put
the e-mail address of the digest snippet’s sender in the “To:”
field and put “Private:” followed by the actual topic’s
“Subject” line after it.
Mute this Topic.
If you wish to stop receiving any further messages
related to this topic, whether in the digest or as individual
messages if you switch to that mode, activate this link.
Top ^, which shoots you back to the top of the
e-mail message.
New Topic (which you’ll probably never use because
it throws you into the web interface for the group to compose a
new message for a new topic.
Most will do this just by e-mailing the group posting
address).
You can send a blank email to the following email
addresses (substituting your group name for GROUPNAME):
GROUPNAME+help@groups.io
To receive an automated help email containing a
list of these commands plus additional information
GROUPNAME+subscribe@groups.io
To join a group
GROUPNAME+unsubscribe@groups.io
To unsubscribe from a group
GROUPNAME+owner@groups.io
To contact the owners of a group
GROUPNAME+nomail@groups.io
To stop receiving messages via email (you may still
read messages on the Web).
This can be reversed by sending an e-mail message
to any one of the addresses that follows to resume receiving the
messages in the format of your choosing. This option may be
preferable to unsubscribing since you can resume posting to the
group without a hold on your first message, which is in place
for new subscribers.
GROUPNAME+single@groups.io
To receive individual messages instead of digests
or a summary
GROUPNAME+fulldigest@groups.io
To receive full featured digests instead of
individual messages
GROUPNAME+digest@groups.io
To receive plain digests instead of individual
messages
GROUPNAME+summary@groups.io
To receive a daily summary instead of individual
messages
GROUPNAME+special@groups.io
To only receive special messages
GROUPNAMEs include, but are by no means limited
to:
jfw
for
the JAWS for Windows Support Group
nvda
for the NVDA Screen Reader Users Group
blindtech
for the blind technology discussion group
[Last Update:
12/4/2020]
In order to change the e-mail address for your
Groups.io Account, which will be the same for every group you’ve
subscribed to using your current e-mail address, you first need
to go through, Establishing
a
Groups.io Website Account Password If You’ve Been an E-Mail
Only User, if you have not already done so in the past.
When you change the e-mail address for your
Groups.io Account, all groups that you’ve ever subscribed to
using what will become “the old address,” will recognize “the
new address” after you’ve changed it.
Go to the Groups.io Login Page, https://groups.io/login,
and enter your current E-mail address, which is your Groups.io
login ID, and your password, then activate the Log In button.
Navigate to the account submenu button for your
account. I cannot
tell you how this will be announced, but it is most likely to be
read as your e-mail address, followed by the phrase, “collapsed,
submenu link.” If
you have established a Display Name in the past, this is what
will appear on the button instead of your E-mail address. Expand this button,
then down arrow to the Account item and activate.
You will now be in the Account Settings, Login
Pane, which happens to be the pane you need to be on. Navigate to the e-mail
edit box which will contain your current e-mail address
associated with the account.
Replace the existing e-mail address with the new one you
now wish to have associated with your account.
Navigate to the Change email button, and activate
it. You now have
associated that E-mail address with your Groups.io account. It will now become
your login ID in place of your old one, and all groups to which
you are subscribed will recognize your new address.
If that’s all you wish to do, you can logout, and
the easiest way to do this is to throw focus to the address bar,
enter https://groups.io/logout
and activate. You’ll
be logged out. You
can also navigate back to the account submenu button, activate
it, and choose the logout item – your choice. Should you wish to
establish a Display Name, then hold off on logging out, and
continue with Steps 6 and forward.
Navigate to the Identity link and activate it. This will put you in
the Identity settings for your Account. The first item with an
Edit Button will be your Account Profile, and I will only focus
on the Account Profile. There
are individual Group Profiles that follow it, but since we’re
trying to establish a Display Name used for you for all Groups,
and to identify you when you login, we’ll stick with the Account
profile. Activate
the Edit button associated with the Account Profile. This will open it for
editing.
Use your screen reader search to find Display Name,
which is a label, then hit tab to land in the Display Name edit
box.
Enter whatever it is you wish to have as your
display name. First
and last name is common, but some prefer to establish nicknames
that they use for groups. It’s
whatever you wish.
If you wish to explore the other edit boxes in your
Account Profile, then feel free to do so and to edit the
information. After
having entered your Display Name and anything else you wish to
enter, navigate to the Update Account Profile button, then
activate it.
You can now log out (see step 5 for the easiest
way).