Using Markup in Posts - tips and tricks

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Using Markup in Posts - tips and tricks

Postby CarrieVS » Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:07 am

It took me ages when I first joined to work out how to post a link with text other than the URL, and I was surprised that there was nothing in this forum about how to do it.

So this thread is to post tips on things that you thought were hard to figure out, or to ask for help if you can't work out how to do something.

I'll start. Hopefully you've all figured out the basics of clicking the buttons above the box and typing the stuff you want to format inside the tags, (if not, have a go). You can also type it, highlight it, and click, and it'll put tags around the highlighted stuff.

Links with text other than the URL

Example. You have to put the URL inside the first tag, with an = sign, and the text for the link between the tags. (I think that's unintuitive and it should be the other way round.)

Like this
Code: Select all
[url=<URL>]<text you want to show>[/url]

(that uses the Code tag, btw, to stop it formatting and also put it in a box in funny font)

Quotes

A. N. Other wrote:Example.

If you're quoting a forum post, you can just click the 'quote' button and it'll format the tags for you (if you only wanted to quote a part of it, you can delete some of the text, but make sure you lave the tags there), but if you want to quote something else, you'll have to do it yourself.

You put the stuff you want to quote inside the tags and it formats it as a quote, which is simple enough. But if you want it to say "so and so wrote", you need to put the name inside the first tag, after an = sign and in double quotes.

Like this
Code: Select all
[quote="<name>"]<quote>[/quote]


Font size

Example. This is fairly simple, but there isn't a button labelled font size, it's the drop-down menu in the middle of the row. To type the tags (e.g. if you're using Quick Reply, it's
Code: Select all
[size=<number>]<text>[/size]

The number is a percentage of the normal font size, and you aren't limited to the five sizes on the menu, you can use any whole number between 1 and 500. Below 50 is almost impossible to read, though.
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Re: Using Markup in Posts - tips and tricks

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:26 am

This one took me a bit to figure out, how to hyperlink the quote name. For me, personally, when I'm citing a source I like to include the link to the source in the quote box as their name.

Basically, you have to combine the quote and URL tags as such:

Code: Select all
[quote="[url=<hyperlink>]<Hyperlink Text>[/url]"]<Quote Text>[/quote]

The tricky part (for me anyway) is remember to include the double quotes around the url box, but within the first quote box.

Example.

The Comments Section wrote:All sorts of cool shit.
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Re: Using Markup in Posts - tips and tricks

Postby CarrieVS » Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:28 am

I didn't even know you could do that.
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Re: Using Markup in Posts - tips and tricks

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:30 am

Yeah, I'm not sure if I've seen anyone else on here do it, but that's probably just personal preference.

*Feels special waiting for someone to prove him wrong.*
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Re: Using Markup in Posts - tips and tricks

Postby w00 » Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:36 am

A trick I like to use pretty much everywhere is for when you have something on the clipboard but need to copy some text without losing the clipboard contents.

Highlight the text to copy, click & hold on it, drag it into its new location... At some point before releasing the mouse button, press CTRL key on keyboard. Your mouse cursor should become a plus symbol, indicating a copy not a move.

This works for anything anywhere: files, text, etc.


For example, you've broken up a quote into parts and want each part to have attribution. Highlight the original quote="username" tags, drag into place at beginning of 2nd quote block, press CTRL, release mouse key: both quotes now have attribution.
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Re: Using Markup in Posts - tips and tricks

Postby w00 » Sat Oct 05, 2013 11:21 am

Another tip, not about creating markup per se, but dealing with others' markup madness.

It's fairly common for links that point outside a site to open in a new tab / window, and site-internal links to open in same tab / window.


But that's not always what you want. For example, you're done with the current story, want to visit a link, but do not want it in a new tab / window.

Drag the link to the URL / address / location bar, release; now you can re-use the current tab regardless of markup which tries to enforce a new tab to open.
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Re: Using Markup in Posts - tips and tricks

Postby Matthew Notch » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:30 pm

CarrieVS wrote:I didn't even know you could do that.


It's in the "How to Format Pictures" thread that surely exists somewhere... but you can also format pictures to act as hyperlinks. For instance, in THIS post, every picture takes you to http://www.hiyoooo.com.

Code: Select all
[url=www.hiyoooo.com][img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fIFVUA-kf5c/TxWncDpd5_I/AAAAAAAAAWM/BpGlb7Oh-fg/s1600/tumblr_lxkl38l2li1r6aoq4o1_400.gif[/img][/url]


becomes this:

Image

only don't do what I just did and hotlink to another site. Instead you should download your picture as an attachment, and that way w00 won't beat you up like he's about to do with me. At any rate, there's my picture, and if you click it you'll go to the HIYOOOO! button. Good times!
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