This thread is dedicated to helping persons post, use tags/codes to produce effects such as quotes, bold, italics, etc. Anyone is welcome to ask or answer questions. This will also serve as practice ground for those people wanting to practice how to use these effects. Ridicule is not welcome here and any unconstructive comments may be removed.

It's going to be difficult for me to show how to do this because codes and tags are applied to text when constructing a post and then when the internet actually posts the message, the codes disappear and only the effects are shown.

Let's try the easy way first.

If you hit the POST button to create a post, you'll see buttons at the top of the new post. These buttons are:

B (which is the button for bolding words like this.)
I (which is the button for applying italics to words like this.)
U (which is the button for underlining words like this.)
S (which is the button for applying strikethrough like this.)

If you would like to use one of these features for your words, follow these steps.

Example: Making a word bold.

1. type your post
2. use your mouse to highlight the word or words you want to be bold
3. when the words are highlighted, just click the B button and this adds the code for you in the area you have indicated. To you, in your post, it will look like this:



But after you post your message to the board, the tags will disappear and the text that was selected will be bold.

The same is used for the italics, underline and strikethrough buttons. Just highlight the words you want and hit the button for the effect you want to apply to those words.

The buttons add the code for you, but you don't have to use the buttons. You can add the tags yourself. It's easy. If you look at the example for bold, above, you'll see that all the button did was add brackets with the code in it. Just remember that there must be a set of left and right brackets at the beginning and the end of the words you want to use. Also remember, that a / shows where you want the code to end.

COLOR

The next button in the row is the A button with the color stripe beneath it. This is how you can change the color of your words.

The same instructions are used to change the color as you used to make words bold and italics. Just highlight the words you want to be a different color and then click on the A button. The only difference is that a bunch of colors will pop up and you have to choose one. Just click on the color you want and then that color will be applied to whatever words you had highlighted.

The tags will look a little more complicated on these though because codes are assigned to each color. The color will equal a combination of letters and/or numbers, so it's best to just use the button to change the font color.

Play around with the different colors. When you do, notice that we still use a set of brackets on each end and we still use a backslash to stop the color.

Thank You Heather! I never knew how to use this stuff since the change over. Lots of help.

LINKS...Or, inserting different different web addresses for other people to click on and go to.

This is the next button in the row. It's supposed to be a blue picture of the earth with a chain link. I know it's kinda hard to see it as that since it's so small...basically it's the blue ball.

A web address is like your home address. If I want to tell you how to get to my house, I'll give you my address: 654 Main Street in Martinsburg, WV 25401. On the internet, if I want to tell you how to get to the Herald Mail Forums, I'll give you this: www.heraldmail.com/forums

But when I give you that address, our lazy butts have to re-type that whole mess into our address bar and then click GO.

What the little blue ball icon will do is create a link to that site so that you just have to click on the link and it takes you right there without having to retype the address.

So, let's say I'm posting about buying a new computer. I have a certain computer in mind that I like and I've found it on the internet. Instead of typing all the details about the computer into a post, I can just insert the link to it so that people can just click on it and go right there and read it.

To do that I would:

1. Go to the web site and find the computer that I want.
2. Use my mouse to highlight the web address and then right click to hit copy.
3. Go to the Herald Mail Forums and create a new post.
4. I would type that I've found this computer and want everyone to check it out.
5. Then I hit the little blue ball icon and a new window will pop up asking for the "URL" or web address.
6. Click inside the space provided in the window. Right click the mouse and hit PASTE. This will copy the web address to the computer I want to show everyone.
7. Hit the OK button and then I'm asked to type in the name of the web site. This where I can type anything I want to. I'm just labeling what the link is for, where it will take you, what it is. So I could label the link: computer. Or I could just put: here it is. Or I could put: Dell.com.
8. Hit the OK button and then your link has been inserted into your post.

Examples:

"I read an article where President Bush said he wants to toughen immigration laws. I read the article at CNN."

Notice how the link is underlined. Some underlined words are just underlined to emphasize a point, but other underlined words indicate that the words are a link to another web address. You have to click on them to find out.

You can put this link anywhere in your post that you would like.

"I read an article where President Bush said he wants to toughen immigration laws."


When you have inserted your link, you'll notice the tags are much more longer and complicated than with the bold and italics and color tags. Don't let this scare you. It will disappear after you have posted your message and will look neat and tidy.

Again, the brackets are always present at the beginning and the end. The / is also there to end the link. But you can count on the blue ball button to do all this for you.

This brings me to another point. A very helpful point.

PREVIEW POST

When you are making a post using these special features, you don't have to just cross your fingers, hope it turns out and hit the ADD REPLY button. Instead, use the PREVIEW POST button to the right of the ADD REPLY button.

This way, you'll get to see what your post looks like before it's posted.

When you hit this button, a preview of what your post will look like comes up on your screen. Here you can see whether or not your tags have worked. If something is wrong or doesn't look right, just scroll down the page a little bit and there is your original post where you can edit whatever you want. You can keep hitting PREVIEW POST and continue changing things until you get it right.

Then you can hit the ADD REPLY button when you are satisified with what you have.

Excellent! Heather. Excellent!

Also, I'd like to point out, on the top of each page, in the upper right are links:

Live Chat Help Search Members Calendar Shoutbox



The Help topic is very useful and provides all kinds of assistance in using this forum. Click on it and go though each of the subsequent links.

Anytime. Glad to help.


Thanks, Yoss.

Where's the delete thread button?

But seriously I hope people read this and figure out how to use the Quote feature.

Glad you started this.

This is a text test.

Here is a fun web site for dog lovers.....pets

Hope it works and you all enjoy .[code]

Thank you, Heather!
You are a great teacher!

IGNORE USER FEATURE

Is another member annoying you? Wish you could make them disappear? You can...

Thanks.

Stop that! She'll get a big head and it won't go with her cute skinny butt!

Heather's got a cute butt? I never noticed...

Now wouldn't you think a moderator would move such a comment to the Back Page?

Just curious.

Liar,Liar,pants on fire!!

Yeah, you would, wouldn't ya?

na, na na, nah nah

You all need a "time-out" in the singing thread!

Required punishment: Read Id's "Theme from the Love Boat" ten times!

POSTING PICTURES INSIDE YOUR POSTS

This is difficult to explain because you can't just throw up any picture from anywhere. There's a whole discussion of bandwidth that needs addressed. But I'll try to skip that and get directly to the point.

If you find a picture somewhere that you want to put into a post, save it to either your own computer or to a picture hosting site. I use photobucket.com, but there are others like snapfish.com, kodak.com, etc. These places are usually free. Just sign up to one and upload your pictures.

After you have saved your picture, create your post. Inside your post, copy and paste the location of the picture. Wrap the location in IMG tags. This means that you will do the following without using spaces:

1. left bracket [
2. then type the letters IMG
3. right bracket ]
4. enter the location of the picture
5. left bracket again [
6. backslash to end /
7. then type the letters IMG
8. right bracket ]

Preview your post to make sure you've posted your picture successfully and then hit reply to post when satisified.

Just practicing using part of a quote.I read help topic want to see if I got it.

Hey teacher you can use the code button to show them the actual commands.

To post an image, the command would look like this.

That's pure genius. Thank you.

I know I bugged you about this exact thing yesterday...

Thank you Heather *blushing*

Nah, it's not a bother to help you.

Actually, you just called yourself out. A couple others have asked for help in the past day or so as well. Ever since the pet thread came out.