The Big "How To" Archive

[The Camo]

And I've just figured out how to use tables, so I'll update the tutorial when I get back around 9:00pm.

[DELTA]

K

[The Camo]

Table Tutorial

An Explanation:
Tables aren't the most obvious of the formatting options available, as proven by my total lack of understanding of them until just recently. To create a table, you first need to tell the forum that it should create one for you, so use the button to give you the tags,  [table] and [/table] . Then you need to tell the forums how to arrange your text, pictures, smileys etc, so you need to first tell it to create a row with the button, then tell it to create a cell within that row with the button. After you have all that, put the contents of the first cell inside the tags for the first cell (the  [td] and [/td]  tags), then create another cell after the first one, put that cells' contents inside that set of cell tags. Repeat this until you have the number of cells you want in each row. Then you'll need to click the Insert row button again, to give you another row. In this row, it's the same as the last row, just create cells and insert the contents inside them.

Unfortunately, I don't think the forums can put lines in between the cells yet, but I may be wrong. You can make lines with the underline, horizontal lines, and the ' | ' character

The Buttons:

Insert table 
This will give you tags to tell the forums where your table starts and stops

Insert row
This will tell the forums to move the next set of cells down a line

Insert Cell
This will tell the forums where the contents for each cell starts and stops.


Here's an example table:

Cell A1	Cell B1	Cell C1
Cell A2	Cell B2	Cell C2
Cell A3	Cell B3	Cell C3

And here's the code for the very same table:

Code:

[table]
[tr][td]   Cell A1  [/td][td]   Cell B1   [/td][td]  Cell C1   [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]   Cell A2  [/td][td]   Cell B2   [/td][td]  Cell C2   [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]   Cell A3  [/td][td]   Cell B3   [/td][td]  Cell C3   [/td][/tr]
[/table]

And that's all there is to creating tables in these forums!

[Jonny]

I didn't even know that!  Thanks. 

[The Camo]

And now you do, only two more buttons to figure out now    Also, I figured out a way to finally align stuff the way I wanted it aligned using tables.

[The Camo]

Signature Tutorial

I realized that I had mentioned posting a tutorial for creating signatures in the first post, but it never got made. So here it is.

Signatures are the things that appear on the bottom of the post every time the person makes a post. You only have to create your signature once, and it will be applied to all future posts. Also, if you change it later on, all your previous posts will also get the change.

Step 1: Click on the "Profile" tab up at the top of the screen, right under the news.

Step 2: You should see a menu on the left side of the screen, click on "Forum Profile Information"


Step 3: Scroll down a bit until you see the box marked "Signature"


Step 4: In here, you can type in whatever you want, it will display using the same formatting as a normal post. You can use images, text, smileys, links, and just about anything else in here. A handy way to make sure your signature will display like you want it to is to reply to a topic, and type in your code there, then use the preview button to see the effect. A warning though, you only have 500 characters, including spaces, returns and the visible characters.

Step 5: Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click the "Change Profile" button in the lower right.

And that's it, you're done! You should see your signature attached to the bottom of all of your posts. To change your signature at any point, just repeat the steps you used to create it.

[The Camo]

Ok, I've just updated the Reply tutorial 2 with new information that may even be useful to experienced forum users.

[Jonny]

Wow!  There is a lot I didn't know.  Thanks for finding all of that out. 

[The Camo]

The SMF website is good for that, apparently they know what works and what doesn't 

[DELTA]

Btw Camo I know how to use the ftp thing, you just put in the ftp address:

ftp://distantages.net

[The Camo]

Ok, I'll update the tutorial then. Thanks. 

[The Camo]

Extra BBC Codes Tutorial

Since the Reply tutorial 2 was getting rather long, I've split it up. All the extra BBC codes that aren't associated with buttons will go here. You'll need to type these in manually.

Acronym: Creates underlined text that will show the full name on mouseover. WTF

Code:

[acronym=Welsh Toasting Forks]WTF[/acronym]

Abbreviation: Same as acronym, creates a piece of text showing the full expression on mouseover. Like this.

Code:

[abbr=Uh, that is the full expression]Like this.[/abbr]

Same page URLS: Most URLs will open in a new window or tab. You can make them open in the same window by using the iurl tags.
This will open a new tab/window
This won't

Code:

[url=http://distantages.net/forums/index.php/topic,193.0.html]This will open a new tab/window[/url]
[iurl=http://distantages.net/forums/index.php/topic,193.0.html]This won't[/iurl]

Ignore BBC Codes: Tags are ignored, so you can type [b]Badger[/b]  instead of Badger

Code:

[nobbc][b]Badger[/b] [/nobbc]

IRC action: Typing /me followed by an action, or other string of words for that matter will give you a red line of text with an asterisk at the beginning, IRC style. There are several other ways of doing this, illustrated below. Note that with the first example, it must be on it's own line to work

* The Camo likes updating this thread with piles of random information.

Code:

/me likes updating this thread with piles of random information.
[me=The Camo]likes updating this thread with piles of random information.[/me]
[me="The Camo"]likes updating this thread with piles of random information.[/me]

PHP highlighting: The php tag colors text with php syntax. For example,

<?php echo "Hello world!"; ?>

would be made by typing [php]<?php echo "Hello world!"; ?>[/php]

Extra List Styles: You can create different types of bullets in lists by using these codes:

[o] [O] [0] [*] [@] [+] [x] [#]

circle circle circle disc disc square square square

circle circle circle disc disc square square square

Code:

[list]
[o]circle
[O]circle
[0]circle
[*]disc
[@]disc
[+]square
[x]square
[#]square
[/list]

Anchor: The anchor tag produces an anchor which can then be linked to.
This is the anchor
This is the link to it

Code:

[anchor=id]This is the anchor[/anchor]
[url=#id]This is the link to it[/url]

Line Break: This is effectively the same as hitting return/enter. Note that there is no closing tag.
Line1
Line2

Code:

Line1[br]Line2

Colors: In addition to using the change colour drop down list, you can type the hexadecimal colour code to change the colour of your text. You can also use the following colour names.


Example: This is a lime green text

Code:

[color=#0f0]This is a lime green text[/color]
[color=#00ff00]This is a lime green text[/color]
[color=limegreen]This is a lime green text[/color]

Note that when using the three letter long hexidecimal colour code, the missing digits are replaced by duplication, not adding zeroes, so #fff would become #ffffff, not #f0f0f0

[DELTA]

Very nice but the acronym and abreviation the line is really tiny, like a dotted line, I can't read it.

[The Camo]

You're supposed to hold your cursor arrow over it.

[DELTA]

Oh cool!