Formatting on the Forums

[joshl]

joshl last edited by

We've discovered some troubles recently still, haven't we?

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

We've discovered some troubles recently still, haven't we?

Like what? I see nothing outside of the two issues I listed, that isn't already covered as a caveat in the Markdown guide. People just need to pay a little attention.

[joshl]

joshl last edited by

It took me a tinkering to properly show the example above:
these forums' markup gets something corrupted even within its own "code" parsing (embracing within a pair of those "back apostrophes"(I can't figure out how to show them now)); while the HTML "<code>" tag doesn't show the full parsing either - it hid the angular brackets in my example.

<hr>

<font>: With various attributes (e.g. face and color), further styling of posts is possible

I read this tag is deprecated - no?

<hr>

I should probably end with a word of caution. I suspect anything in addition to the Markdown basics is just a nice bonus that could go away. So don't rely heavily on them and always consider how your post will display if they ever go away.

That makes sense. Using HTML commenting is a bit slower though.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

I read this tag is deprecated - no?

Sure, one of the reasons I said, "I suspect anything in addition to the Markdown basics is just a nice bonus that could go away."

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

By the way (within the limitations of the formatting options that are available) you could write in another format and then use an extension like Marksy.

Just right click and "Activate Marksy!" before you post (or Ctrl+Shift+m), to convert back to Markdown (or HTML) before you post.

P.S. It looks like Marksy might use an external service for conversion, so use with caution if your are converting personal or private texts.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

it hid the angular brackets in my example.

Looks like it is a feature of Markdown. Go read those guides.

[Deleted User]

Deleted User last edited by

You could improve the forum and add all markdown stuff in the editor of posts and when posting a new thread or in a thread. Because use that code may be a bit difficult for beginners.

[sgunhouse]

sgunhouse Moderator Volunteer last edited by

The biggest formatting problems are people who post without reading (or understanding) the markdown guide. If you are posting a link and not expecting the forum to "linkify" it for you (that is, you use a proper URL format) then you're fine. If you want to post a link as text, a code tag works fine for that. But as soon as you post a URL and expect the forum to linkify it automatically, you can run into trouble. Likewise people who can't post images because they don't know the tags. As long as they fixed that issue with the smilie for XP (which they did) then everything is behaving as specified.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by admin

I had a look at a random thread. As I have mod access I can look at what they wrote and what actually displayed. It is fairly easy to see what the user intended and clearly the display doesn't always come out the way they hoped.

The most common problems are:

• Not leaving a blank line, before and after starting a list
• Putting extra new lines in a list (a single carriage return should be used between each item)
• Using the wrong characters as bullet points in a list. For example # or 1), rather than * or 1.
• Not adding an extra a new line after someone is quoted (making the the reply look like part of the quote)
• Not putting angle brackets '<>' around a URL that includes an underscore

If we could help people avoid those mistakes, all would be good!

P.S. I fixed the mistakes I saw in that example thread. Including a few from people who have posted here.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by admin

Maybe I should make an FAQ about formatting. Though I suspect it would not make a big difference.

[joshl]

joshl last edited by

• Not adding an extra a new line after someone is quoted (making the the reply look like part of the quote)

Do you forget the forums had different quoting rendering not so long ago?

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

Do you forget the forums had different quoting rendering not so long ago?

I think that specific mistake has always wrong since we started these forums.

[Deleted User]

Deleted User last edited by

Maybe this editor is useful here.

[joshl]

joshl last edited by

Maybe.
Though the rendering will be executed here anyway:

Italics

[ruario]

ruario last edited by admin

This thread is too long and messy. Here is a new post that summarises things. Markdown often provides multiple methods of doing things. To keep things simple I only list one way and its HTML equivalent tag. Plus some notes to avoid common errors.

[joshl]

joshl last edited by admin

You can insert horizontal rules with three dashes on a line of their own line:
---

>

Aha, I just checked it there in that thread.
What then about the underscores?

---

Yes, it looks the same as with the dashes:

---

[joshl]

joshl last edited by

This thread is too long and messy.

This thread was intended so*:D*

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

This thread was intended so*:D*

Fair enough

[joshl]

joshl last edited by

When you do want to insert a break tag using Markdown, you end a line with two or more spaces, then type return.

It's not exactly on the forums, but you know, in HTML5 you don't need a slash there:

:P, it's simpler and it works just fine*:happy:*

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

That quote is from the Markdown syntax guide, written in 17 Dec 2004, when self closing tags were all the rage.

P.S. I corrected your quote, as you actually left the out.