Trixology

General Category => Web-site/Forum news => Topic started by: xairbusdriver on September 08, 2017, 10:49:33 PM

Title: Formatting your posts
Post by: xairbusdriver on September 08, 2017, 10:49:33 PM
Always cut the top of your posts at an angle so that... wait... wrong "posts"

OK, I'm talking about making posts here on the forums. [banghead]

I suspect many folks simply use the "Quit Reply" box that appears at the bottom of most threads. It's conveniently in sight. Period. That's about its only advantage. It offers absolutely zero formatting options. Most of us know the basic Bold, Italic and maybe the Underlining 'tags'. "b" for Bold, "i" for Italic and "u" for Underline. Of course, all 'tags' are enclosed by square brackets: "[" and "]". Those are just about as easy to type as clicking on a button. 'cept, there ain't no buttons in the Quick Reply editor... [banghead]

So, unless you have some others memorized or use a text expanding app of some kind, I highly recommend using the 'Full' editor. This lets you easily access all the formatting controls available in this nice forum software. It really is quite simple and powerful. And it's free! ThU32:-)

You'll probably not use some of the controls very often. You may never use some of them... ever! But there are some very important controls that may prevent others from making miztakes!

One of these important controls is the "Code" button/format. It does have a label that appears when you hover your mouse over the button, but there are 26 buttons on the page (not counting three Font button: Face, Size, and Color pop-downs)! All the buttons have an icon and most are fairly obvious, the "Code" button, not so much. Its icon is the "#" character. I suppose that character was chose because that is used to signify a 'comment' in several programming languages. Of course, if you've never used any of those languages, the connection is rather opaque! [lol]

Opaque or not, this is one of the most important formatting options available. Its basic function is to prevent your browser from breaking a line of text just because it might be longer than your window is wide. If your window is not wide enough to show the entire line of text, it will cause a horizontal scroll bar to appear at the bottom of the 'code'. Here is a piece of fake code formatted with the 'code' tags to show you what I mean:
Code: [Select]
Now is the time for all good men to jump over the lazy fox and land feet first in the mud without ruffling his hair even without wearing a hat or a whole can of hair-spray in the process as shown in this image <img href="www.MyIncredibleJump.tiff" title="A man jumping over 100 feet of mud in which a fox is laying" size=100%>
So, why would anyone (else) write such a line? Perhaps they have a particularly useful script that can be entered into a Terminal window! In that environment, 'spaces' are extremely important. Leave one out and you can completely change the results of the script. If you simply copy what is displayed when the "code" tags are used, your browser will break the line at any 'space' character it wants, based on the width of your window. If your text is as long as my example, it may be difficult to copy it completely without losing one (or more) of the all important 'space' characters!

The solution is very simple! That's it! There is no step three! [cheer] [bounce]
I guarantee anyone copying your script will sincerely appreciate your "efforts"! ThU5:-)

Bottom line: Open the 'full' editor sometime and simply 'play' with the buttons and see what they do. You may be surprised at how easy it is to make your posts a bit more understandable and pleaseing to the eye and our (my?) frustrations! cmu:-) And if your text was a Terminal 'command', you'll sleep better knowing you may have helped prevent a disaster. [sleep]

Thanks for your attention. You may now sit back and relax.
Or you can sit up-right and be tense!
Your choice, same price.
Title: Even more information (Re: Formatting your posts)
Post by: elagache on September 08, 2017, 11:38:08 PM
Thanks X-Air for that tutorial on all the formatting possibilities in the forum!  [tup]

For those who are looking for more there is a website that describes the BBCodes that are used to format text on the forum:

https://www.bbcode.org/ (https://www.bbcode.org/)

One sort of formatting that can be really useful is a table.  Here is an example (https://www.bbcode.org/examples/?id=14) from the above website:

Code: [Select]
[table]
[tr]
[td][b]Name[/b][/td]
[td][b]Age[/b][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]John[/td]
[td]65[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Gitte[/td]
[td]40[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Sussie[/td]
[td]19[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

The result is:

NameAge
John65
Gitte40
Sussie19

So if you really want to be expressive with BBCodes - you definitely have a lot of formatting resources to work with!

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

P.S. I had to tweak the example slightly because our forum software doesn't support table header tags.
P.P.S. They also mention a Youtube tag on the website, but that isn't supported by our forum software either.
Title: Re: Formatting your posts
Post by: xairbusdriver on September 09, 2017, 12:17:30 AM
If you memorize' "BBcodes", just remember, different forums use some different subsets or versions of the codes. Especially if the forum is running very old software. [banghead]

You can also avoid some typing with some things, like lists. While the "List" button will place...
Code: [Select]
[list]
[li][/li]
[li][/li]
[/list]
If you are lazy, like me, you can 'get away' with not including the
Code: [Select]
[li][/li] for each item. Just press 'return' at the end of each item. NOTE: This only works for un-numbered lists. Of course, you can always type in any kind of numbering system you want. One of my favorites is:That was generated with:
Code: [Select]
[list]1. Item won
B. Item bee
III. Item tree
d. Fourth item[list]A. Sub item of d.
B. Another sub-item of d.[/list]
?. Last item[/list]
Title: Re: Formatting your posts
Post by: Blicj11 on September 09, 2017, 03:45:05 AM
The solution is very simple!
    1. Click the "Code" button
    2. Paste in the script text between the two 'tags'

Alternatively, It will wrap your text selection correctly inside the Code tags.
Title: Re: Formatting your posts
Post by: idunn on September 09, 2017, 07:39:16 AM
Many thanks guys. I find this formatting stuff both fun and useful.
Best regards, Irving (an old dog with some new tricks)