Using Private Messaging

MyLeague now has a Private Messaging feature! This new feature allows you to contact any other member of your League, without having to know their e-mail address or IM information.

You may have already noticed the "New Mail" notification in the Navigation bar. This notification will tell you how many unread messages you have in your Inbox, and the mail icon will flash red to help grab your attention, and let you know that someone has sent you a message.

To access the Private Messaging feature, all you have to do is click on the "New Messages" listing, next to your LadderBux total on any of your League pages. This will take you to your Inbox. (Alternately, you can use the "Private Messages" link, located in the navigation bar for the My Account tab.)

Inbox

This is the Inbox screen:

From here, you can use the tabs to switch between your Inbox, your Sent Messages, your Trashed messages, and your Blacklist. You can also access the "Compose Message" screen from here, to send a new message to someone. To open a received message, just click on the message row. To delete multiple messages, simply click the checkboxes next to the messages that you want to delete, and click the "Delete" button. This will move the selected messages to your Trash. Read messages older than 30 days and unread messages older than 60 days are automatically purged from the Inbox and the Trash. Messages in the Sent box that are older than 30 days will automatically be purged. If you wish to save messages for longer than this, you should copy and paste them to a word processor and save them to your hard drive.

Reading Messages

This is what the inside of a message looks like:

Here, you can see who it's from, the subject, and the date/time that it was sent. You can choose to Reply to the message, Delete the message, Block the sender, or go back to the Inbox to read other messages. If you choose to reply to the mail, it will take you to the Compose Message screen with the recipient automatically entered. It will also include a copy of the original message's text. If you choose to delete the message, it will move it to your Trash. If you choose to Block the sender, it will add the person to your "Blacklist," which means that they will be unable to send you any more messages as long as they're on the blacklist.

Composing Messages

This is the message composer:

This is where you go to send a message to someone else. To start, just type in the Username for the person you want to send your message to. (If you're replying to someone, the name will already be entered.) If you don't know the person's exact username, just type in a part of it, and the AutoComplete function will suggest some possibilities. It is only possible to send your message to one person at a time. This is to help prevent spammers from signing up to your League and mass-messaging everyone.

Once you have chosen a recipient, you can add a subject to your mail, and type in a message. The Message editor works like a simple word processor. You can adjust bold, italics, underline, font colors, background colors, font faces, and font sizes using the toolbar. Or, if you prefer, you can just type using the default text with no formatting.

Once you have finished typing your message, you can click the "Send Message" button and it will be delivered to the recipient. A copy of the message will also be saved in your own "Sent Items" page for 30 days.

Blocking/Unblocking Senders

This is the Blacklist screen:

This screen lists the usernames of all the people you have blacklisted, as well as the date and time that you blacklisted them. Anyone listed on this screen will be unable to send you private messages until you remove them. If you change your mind about blacklisting someone and want to unblock them, simply click the checkbox next to their name, and click the "Remove" button.

Tips and Tricks

You may have already noticed this new links on profile pages:

By clicking this link, you can send a message to the person whose profile you are viewing. When you click the link, you will be taken to the composer window, and the Recipient field will already be filled out with the name of the person whose profile you were viewing.

You can also just click the player's username when you search for them using the Player Search tool on your League page:

This will also take you to the Compose Message screen, with the recipient's name automatically copmleted.

It's important to remember that read messages will be kept for 30 days and unread messages will be kept for 60 days. After that, they are automatically purged from the Inbox. Additionally, messages in your Sent mailbox will be purged after 30 days. So, if you want to save any messages for longer than that, you'll have to copy and paste them into a word processing program, and save them to your hard drive. Once you've done that, you can keep the copy on your hard drive for as long as you like.