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edit:
April 4th, @04:31PM
|  Posting How To - Examples
basic posting how-to
Find the NEW TOPIC button (see the screenshot - it is in the top right) Click it.
just type your post.
If your post is not a new topic, it is polite to use the REPLY link on the post to which you are replying. More so because then this person gets a notification of your reply (if they have so chosen). If you are adding more information to the entire topic, or replying to the original post, you can use the ADD REPLY link at the bottom of the topic.
If you let your paragraphs continue and wrap naturally in the text input box, then your paragraphs will appear to flow to the full width of the topic window.
If you must, you can
push return every few words
in order to create your own
narrower post. Although this can
look a little odd. |
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edit:
November 25th, @09:22PM
| basic post formatting
When you are tired of just typing text, you can try some basic typesetting features. Careful use of bold, or underline, can make your post more readable. Execessive use can make your post less readable.
I am going to use code blocks here (more on these later) to explain some basic post highlighting. The code block will introduce you to a feature, then show you what you type, and the next line under the code block, will show how it looks.
To put part of your post in bold, use the <b> attribute,
and end it, </b> at the end.
Here is a line with <b>two words</b> in bold
To put part of your post in italic, use the <i> attribute,
and end it </i> at the end of the italic section.
Here is a line with <i>two words</i> in italics.
To the right of the post window is a short list of hints for these magic attribute tags. By the way, when you use these, you are actually using some of the most basic HTML tags! |
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justin
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edited
| Quoting
Another useful tag you should try out is to quote blocks, perhaps from an article, or something else.
The best way to do this is to use quote blocks. Quote blocks are are done this way:
Anywhere within a post, you can highlight some text as
a quote, in the official "this is quoted text" message
board style. You do it this way:
[quote=someone said]The text of the quote..
it can be as long as you like. When you are done..
[/quote]
said by someone said:
The text of the quote..
it can be as long as you like. When you are done..
As you can see, the 'quote block' is a quick and easy way to make some copy/pasted text stand out from the rest of your post. |
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justin
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| Quoting other users
If you REPLY to a user, then the AUTO QUOTE button will automatically fill in a quote block for you, at the start of your post. You can even press it after you have finished typing, the added text is inserted for you.
It is polite to TRIM the quoted block, if necessary, so the quoted text is as short as possible.
You can of course just make your own quote blocks, with copy and paste, even if you are replying to another user. This may be useful if you wish to quote several parts of the post, and reply to each part immediately. In that case, you need many quote blocks. Make sure for every quote block start, you have a quote block finish! otherwise, you may end up with nested quotes. |
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justin
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| Making a list.
• Item 1
• item 2
• item 3
And so on...
This was done by typing:
Making a list.
<li> Item 1
<li> item 2
<li> item 3
And so on...
|
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justin
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edit:
December 2nd, @04:40PM
| Including links
If you copy and paste a recognizeable link (URL) into a post, it will be automatically converted to a real link. If the link is very long, then it will be truncated, but the actual link will remain untouched.
»www.cnn.com
»https://www.linkedin.com
»ftp://ftp.wustl.edu
The above links were recognized after I typed
http://www.cnn.com
https://www.linkedin.com
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu
Any links that refer to dslreports.com or broadbandreports.com are treated specially, and the domain name is stripped off. Additionally, if the link is a common one, a full name is substituted!
»/aboutdsl
»DSL FAQ
»Re: Posting How To - Examples
»Security
But they will still work as per normal. In addition, if the link is a FAQ entry or another topic on the forums, the TITLE of the FAQ entry or forum topic is automatically included for you.
If a link does not convert properly, or you wish to supply your own title, you can use plain html
<A HREF="http://www.cnn.com">CNN news site</A>
As above. |
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justin
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| Attaching Files
You can include with your post an attached file. The file is displayed along with the post and is available for download if a viewer so chooses.
Normally, files are ZIPPED, before they are available for download. Unless the file is an image, or already a ZIP file. This saves on bandwidth, and also ensures that users viewing posts do not accidently click on an attachment that is an executable of some kind and have it run before they notice what is happening.
I've attached a file to this post. It is the notepad EXE from windows. I've also given it a caption. |
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justin
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| reply to justin
Attaching Images
Images are a special case of attached files. If possible, the image is displayed as-is, within the post. If, however, the image is too wide, we create a thumb-nail of the image and display that. The original image can be recovered by clicking on the thumbnail.
If multiple images are uploaded, they are laid out in a grid. The grid is no more than 3 columns wide, and as many rows as necessary. An image can occupy 1, 2 or all 3 of the columns, depending on its width. Thumbnails occupy just one column. |
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justin
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| Hot linking images
You can hotlink images inside your posts. Hot-linking means the viewers browser will locate the remote image and attempt to download it.
The trouble with hotlinked images is that the forum has no control over the potential width of the image. Thus, the margins maybe "blown out" and a horizontal scrollbar appears in the viewers browser.
Try not to hot-link images. |
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justin
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| reply to justin
Using code blocks
A code block is a yellow box of mono-spaced text. Several code blocks have been used above.
A code block is very useful when you do not wish anything you type to be interpreted (or misinterpreted) within the code block itself. The format of the text is also exactly preserved, all spaces, and everything.
Code blocks are started with the tag [code] and ended with [/code]. But these tags must be on a line by themselves otherwise they are ignored!
Within a code block, special characters, > < ' &
and so on, can be used without any interpretation
being done on them by the forum software or by the
viewers broswer.
|
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justin
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edit:
January 9th, @06:48PM
| Code blocks and wrapping
As far as possible, stuff in code blocks is not changed. But in order to preserve margin width, lines that are long may be auto-split. If this happens, a note at the bottom of the code block indicates so.
This code block contains a line that .. (etc .. not shown)
...continuation.
NOTE: 1 line(s) longer than 90
note: the code tags must be alone on a line and against the left margin |
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justin
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edit:
December 17th, @10:44AM
| reply to justin
Using Emoticons
Emote-Icons .. Geddit? due to popular demand, we grudgingly allow shortcuts to some typical smilie faces. The post input area shows the emoticons to the left. Just hover to see how to insert them, or click to auto-insert. |
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justin
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| Site Shot
Using some simple syntax, you can snap-shot the current look of a normal web page, into a buried image. The advantage of this over a link is that the image will remain as evidence, even if the site changes again.
To site-shot a URL, just use the following syntax, replace the ... with the full URL of the site you wish to siteshot.
Some text...
[siteshot]...[/siteshot]
some more text..
Some text...
some more text..
Then press PREVIEW. The preview will show "website imaging in progress". You can either wait 30 seconds or so and preview again, or just post. The site-shot will show up later, if it did not show up in preview.
After the siteshot shows up in your post, you will notice you can either click on the image to go to the site, or you can click on "enlarge" in order to see the fullsized snapshot of the web page in question. |
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justin
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| reply to justin
Time for some random tips and notes
Reply statute of limitations
After 90 days, a post cannot be replied to. After two weeks, various warnings appear reminding you that by replying to this post, you are potentially dredging up an ancient topic to the first row of a forum.
Edit grace time
After just 12 hours, a post of yours may no longer be edited. This rather strict rule stops confusion caused in topics when someone decides to erase what they posted, even after subsequent posters had quoted and replied, and so on. It also makes moderation less of a hassle: moderators need only worry about the last 12 hours of postings.
Editing a post with attachments
It is quite possible to edit a post with attachments, but with a few twists. Editing the text takes place normally, except since the edit screen defaults to the version with file-attach fields, and an UPLOAD button. Never fear, you can leave those file-attach fields blank and your old attachments will remain.
If you wish to change an attachment, you must re-upload ALL of the, not just one. If you upload just one attached file on an edit, then your end result post will have just that file and none of the older ones!
It is not possible to delete all attachments when post-editing, you must upload a single empty or boring file, which will remove old attachments but leave your post with an attachment "stub" .. the empty file you last uploaded.
Don't lose that text!
Typing a long post then accidently hitting a link or the back button, should NOT be a disaster: if you use BACK or FORWARD, your browser SHOULD return you to the input form with your contents preserved! if your browser insists on clearing the contents of a form too easily, then ask around - your browser is broken, perhaps someone can help fix it. The paranoid may wish to COPY then PASTE into notepad a large post, before pressing any preview or post buttons. Just in case the browser crashes!
Already seen that text?
If you post then post the same thing again, the site will notice the duplicate and refuse to take it. If you see this message, but your post really is necessary as a duplicate, then adjust it by just a single character (a space for example) to get it past this check. |
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