Forum BBCode
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What is BBCode?
BBCode is a special implementation of HTML. BBCode itself is similar in style to HTML. Tags are enclosed in square brackets [ and ] rather than < and >. It offers greater control over what and how something is displayed. There is a clickable interface above the message area on the posting form that will insert the basic code structures. Even with this you may find the following guide useful. Top
Text Formatting
How to create bold, italic and underlined text
BBCode includes tags to allow you to quickly change the basic style of your text. This is achieved in the following ways:
- To make a piece of text bold enclose it in [b][/b], e.g.
[b]Hello[/b]
will become Hello
- For underlining use [u][/u], for example:
[u]Good Morning[/u]
becomes Good Morning
- To italicise text use [i][/i], e.g.
This is [i]Great![/i]
would give This is Great!
How to change the text colour or size
To alter the colour or size of your text the following tags can be used. Keep in mind that how the output appears will depend on the viewers browser and system:
- Changing the colour of text is achieved by wrapping it in [color=][/color]. You can specify either a recognised colour name (eg. red, blue, yellow, etc.) or the hexadecimal triplet alternative, e.g. #FFFFFF, #000000. For example, to create red text you could use:
[color=red]Hello![/color]
or
[color=#FF0000]Hello![/color]
Both will output Hello!
- Changing the text size is achieved in a similar way using [size=][/size]. This tag is dependent on the template the user has selected but the recommended format is a numerical value representing the text size in percent, starting at 20 (very small) through to 200 (very large) by default. For example:
[size=30]SMALL[/size]
will generally be SMALL
whereas:
[size=200]HUGE![/size]
will be HUGE!
Can I combine formatting tags?
Yes, of course you can, for example to get someones attention you may write:
[size=200][color=red][b]LOOK AT ME![/b][/color][/size]
this would output LOOK AT ME!
We don’t recommend you output lots of text that looks like this though! Remember it is up to you, the poster, to ensure tags are closed correctly. For example the following is incorrect:
[b][u]This is wrong[/b][/u]
Quoting text in replies
There are two ways you can quote text, with a reference or without.
- When you utilise the Quote function to reply to a post on the board you should notice that the post text is added to the message window enclosed in a [quote=""][/quote] block. This method allows you to quote with a reference to a person or whatever else you choose to put! For example to quote a piece of text Mr. Blobby wrote you would enter:
[quote="Mr. Blobby"]The text Mr. Blobby wrote would go here[/quote]
The resulting output will automatically add "Mr. Blobby wrote:" before the actual text. Remember you must include the quotation marks "" around the name you are quoting, they are not optional.
- The second method allows you to blindly quote something. To utilise this enclose the text in [quote][/quote] tags. When you view the message it will simply show the text within a quotation block.
Generating lists
Creating an Unordered list
BBCode supports two types of lists, unordered and ordered. They are essentially the same as their HTML equivalents. An unordered list outputs each item in your list sequentially one after the other indenting each with a bullet character. To create an unordered list you use [list][/list] and define each item within the list using [*]. For example to list your favourite colours you could use:
[list]
[*]Red
[*]Blue
[*]Yellow
[/list]
This would generate the following list:
- Red
- Blue
- Yellow
Creating an Ordered list
The second type of list, an ordered list, gives you control over what is output before each item. To create an ordered list you use [list=1][/list] to create a numbered list or alternatively [list=a][/list] for an alphabetical list. As with the unordered list, items are specified using [*]. For example:
[list=1]
[*]Go to the shops
[*]Buy a new computer
[*]Swear at computer when it crashes
[/list]
will generate the following:
- Go to the shops
- Buy a new computer
- Swear at computer when it crashes
Whereas for an alphabetical list you would use:
[list=a]
[*]The first possible answer
[*]The second possible answer
[*]The third possible answer
[/list]
giving
- The first possible answer
- The second possible answer
- The third possible answer
Creating Links
- The first of these uses the [url=][/url] tag, whatever you type after the = sign will cause the contents of that tag to act as a URL. For example to link to LotusElan.net you could use:
[url=http://www.lotuselan.net/]Visit LotusElan.net![/url]
This would generate the following link, Visit LotusElan.net!
- If you want the URL itself displayed as the link you can do this by simply using:
[url]http://www.lotuselan.net/[/url]
This would generate the following link, http://www..lotuselan.net/
Showing images in posts
Our preferred way for images to be shown in posts is via attachments. This allows the image to always be available. The other approaches relies on external websites to remain active without changes.
Adding attachments into a post
Attachments can be placed in any part of a post by using the [attachment=][/attachment] BBCode. Instructions to upload images is available at how do I upload images to the forum?
Adding an image to a post from another website
BBCode incorporates a tag for including images in your posts. The image you display must already be available on the internet. The image must also remain at the exact same location forever.
To display an image you must surround the URL pointing to the image with [img][/img] tags. For example:
[img]http://www.anyplace.com/imagename.gif[/img]