The General GOOGLE+ Thread for tips, tricks, questions, etc.

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

There is already a thread for getting invites, I figured it might be nice to have a thread for other things. For one thing, for linking to your Google+ profile so we can find each other. Also for figuring out how to do stuff.

I am pretty sure, for example, that to send someone a message, you make a post and just “share” it with that person, rather than with a circle. Can someone tell me if I’m wrong?

Here is my profile if anyone wants to add me to their circles. I have an SDMB circle going, so please send me a message either there via the method I’ve explained or send me a PM here telling me who you are, so I can put you in the right circle.

I also have Google+ installed on my Droid phone, and it seems pretty slick.
So what have you learned to do on Google+?

#2

bold = bold
italics = italics
-strikethrough- = [del]strikethrough[/del]

Space scrolls down
Shift+Space scrolls up
J scrolls down one post at a time.
K scrolls up one post at a time.
Q jumps to chat.

Don’t forget to turn off resharing on messages you send to just one person if you want it to be like a true private message.
You can share things just by dragging the link to the share box.

#3

Inner Circle, how do you turn off resharing?

And your last point- do you mean you can drag a link from a browser into the share box?

(Opal I sent you a message to see if that works for me).

#4

I got the message and sent a reply–I don’t know if anyone else could see it though.

#5

Nevermind.

#6

After you make a post in your stream, click on the triangle in the top right and select disable reshare.

Yeah, if you want to add video, pictures or links to your posts you can drag and drop to the share box.

#7

Thisshould help a ton.

#8

I have it on my Droid as well, however it’s a bit useless since I still can’t get an account.
Having said that, I assume you can lock it down a bit tighter then your account is. Your’s is the only one I’ve seen so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but it was surprising to be able to see all your pictures/status in a world where more and more people have their facebook pages clamped down.

#9

Opal has a lot of her posts set to Public, which means anyone can view them. You can set the privacy on your posts to pretty much anything you want.

#10

+Name creates a link to that person in a comment.

#11

My OpalCat account is pretty open. I have another account for “real life” that I keep more private. Some stuff is still public on that one, but most of it is just shared with circles.

#12

The reason I’m interested in Google+ is because theoretically you can quite literally have one account for every aspect of your life and yet keep them all separate. Shove coworker accounts into a Coworker circle and just be sure to keep them out of the loop on personal stuff you don’t want getting back to the office, and voila. You just have to be careful about what’s displayed to everyone who views your page, but thankfully Google seems to grant a decent level of control.

Not that I’m saying you should only have one account, but I like that it’s possible. All the horror stories about bosses seeing their employees’ personal stuff was a big reason I’ve stayed away from Facebook.

#13

You can do that with facebook as well, that’s where I’m confused, but then I haven’t seen Google+, so maybe there’s a big difference. Also, I never really explored it that much on FB. There was just a few times where I’d put up a status or picture and though “Hmmm, I’d rather Auntie Susan didn’t see this” so I’d make sure she couldn’t see it. Also, I have few people who had a habit of comment on every single status so I just stopped letting them be able to see my statuses, wasn’t a big deal. I get the feeling Google+'s circles are going to be somewhat similar to Facebook’s Lists.

#14

From what I understand, Facebook lists were grafted on after the fact while the Google circles are incorporated from the start. I admit I’m not sure how much difference that will make in design, but it usually results in something more streamlined.

Can Facebook lists be arbitrarily assigned? If I have three circles – RL Friends, Family, SDMB – I can choose to make a post visible to RL Friends, SDMB, and my mother specifically fairly easily, and nobody in my Family circle beyond my mother will see the post. From the little I know of Facebook, I’d be surprised if that were possible. But maybe it is; I’ve heard that a lot of features people are excited about in G+ are in Facebook, just non-obvious.

#15

Opal, with that private message I got your response. (via email). However, for the life ofme I can’t find it on google +. I can’t even find where I originallyposted it.
Never mind. Found it.

#16

Okay, just two small things I noticed.

Firstly, Opal is in my SDMB cicrcle. I sent her a private message by sending it only to her name. As a consequence, my message and her response do not shop up in the SDMB circle feed. This makes sense I guess as I sent it to her individually, rather than as a member of the cifcle.

Secondly, if I change the setting to limit reshharing it takes a few seconds for the system to react and allow a message to be sent. This may be my machine or a slow connection though. (I did get an error message which I provided feedback on).

#17

You should definitely provide feedback on anything buggy.

Yesterday, one particular friend that is in a few of my circles was simply not showing up in my stream, even though all of the settings were right. (I.e., I had her in my circles, and she had me in hers, and she was publishing her posts targeted at the circle I was in.) I could see her posts if I went directly to her profile, but they weren’t showing in my stream, and vice versa.

I left feedback on the problem, and I’m sure my personal feedback wasn’t the reason why, but today the problem is fixed, so that was nice.

#18

Interesting, I’m getting the exact same problem. I received no notification that someone I put in a circle put me in theirs, and they don’t show in my stream, but when I go to their profile I can read the posts they confined to my circle. I’ll have to leave feedback too.

#19

Pro tip:

If you go to your profile page, there’s a box that says “View profile as.” If you type a contact’s name in there, it will display your profile page as it would appear to that person. This can be very helpful if you want to just quickly check which posts are visible to a particular person.

#20

Some questions, if I may:

  1. Unlike Facebook, I seem to be able to add people to my circles the instant I add them, ie the system clearly doesn’t wait for the other person to “accept my friend request”. Huh?

  2. I can add people to my circles that don’t even have Google+ accounts. When I add these people, does it trigger an email to them that I am inviting them to join Google+?

Thanks.