Formatting on the Forums

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

@joshl Since you obviously like this kind of thing, I would make sure you read the entire syntax page, rather than the basics page we link to below (assuming you haven't already done this).

The syntax page, explains the corner cases and details of embedding HTML more completely.

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

Ruario, by the way, can I use some "character encoder" or something?
I saw you just use those "labada" replacements*:)*

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

Ruario, would you please stop *@*ing me? I'm the starter of this thread, so I get "nots" anyway.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

can I use some "character encoder" or something?

Is this what you are looking for?

http://dev.w3.org/html5/html-author/charref

P.S. I didn't know you actually received a notification. I don't perhaps because I am an employee or some other weirdness with my account.

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

@joshl Since you obviously like this kind of thing, I would make sure you read the entire syntax page, rather than the basics page we link to below (assuming you haven't already done this).
The syntax page, explains the corner cases and details of embedding HTML more completely.

It's all nice, but personally, I'd prefer that/if the basics would work as they should do - like those "emphasis" and other things ("promised" in that page every user can link to).

can I use some "character encoder" or something?

Is this what you are looking for?
http://dev.w3.org/html5/html-author/charref

I'll take a look.
Though for now, for most purposes those "backlashes" are enough.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

It's all nice, but personally, I'd prefer that/if the basics would work as they should do

They do with the exception of "emphasis". Most of the other stuff that initially seems odd, makes sense if you read the syntax guide.

In any case, you can just write HTML, with the limitation that only a subset is made available, roughly the same tags you would get with Markdown, plus a few extra.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

An example of a basic usage you claimed did not work was numbered lists but they work just fine

1. First
2. Second
3. Third

The problem seems to be that you left blank lines between items but the guide specifically tells you not to do this

If you put blank lines between items, you’ll get <p> tags for the list item text.

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

I had an impression that that was not "only emphasis". Maybe I'll revisit this thread from its beginning to refresh that "impression".
And to have it clear, this thread was started in order for other users to obtain basic knowledge how to make their contribution nice and tidy.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

I had a quick scan of the earlier comments and they appear to be people not following the guide (e.g. new lines between list items) or an expectation that all HTML tags would work and all CSS.

Barring emphasis, the Markdown methods seem to work to, when written correctly. HTML works if you follow the rules about mixing and matching and understand that only a selection of tags (that roughly matches Markdown), is allowed.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

How about a quick test to see what is really broken and what isn't? I'll use all of the features listed on the Markdown basics page.

Here my sample Markdown code:

Header 1
========

# Header 1

Header 2
--------

## Header 2

### Header 3

> This is a quote

> > This is a quote
> 
> This is a another quote, in reply

The last word of this sentence is *emphasized*.

The last word of this sentence is _emphasized_.

The last word of this sentence is **bolded**.

The last word of this sentence is __bolded__.

Unordered list with asterisk:

* Unordered list item
* Unordered list item
* Unordered list item

Unordered list with plus sign:

+ Unordered list item
+ Unordered list item
+ Unordered list item

Unordered list with hyphen (dash):

- Unordered list item
- Unordered list item
- Unordered list item

Ordered list:

1. First item in an ordered list
2. Second item in an ordered list
3. Third item in an ordered list

Ordered list with paragraph:

*   Unordered list item
    
    Second paragraph
    
*   Unordered list item

This is an [link to opera.com](http://www.opera.com/).

 This is an [link to opera.com with a title](http://www.opera.com/ "opera.com").

A link to [opera.com][1] and another to [Wikipedia][2]

[1]: http://www.opera.com/       "opera.com"
[2]: https://www.wikipedia.org/  "Wikipedia"

![alt text](https://forums.opera.com/themes/opera/design/static/css/img/opera-software-logo.png "Title")

![alt text][id]

[id]: https://forums.opera.com/themes/opera/design/static/css/img/opera-software-logo.png "Title"

Here is some inline code: `opera-developer`

Here is some code on a new line:

    $ whoami
    ruario

And this is how it outputs:

Header 1

Header 1

Header 2

Header 2

Header 3

This is a quote

This is a quote

This is a another quote, in reply

The last word of this sentence is emphasized.

The last word of this sentence is emphasized.

The last word of this sentence is bolded.

The last word of this sentence is bolded.

Unordered list with asterisk:

• Unordered list item
• Unordered list item
• Unordered list item

Unordered list with plus sign:

• Unordered list item
• Unordered list item
• Unordered list item

Unordered list with hyphen (dash):

• Unordered list item
• Unordered list item
• Unordered list item

Ordered list:

1. First item in an ordered list
2. Second item in an ordered list
3. Third item in an ordered list

Ordered list with paragraph:

• Unordered list item

  Second paragraph

• Unordered list item

This is an link to opera.com.

This is an link to opera.com with a title.

A link to opera.com and another to Wikipedia

Here is some inline code: opera-developer

Here is some code on a new line:

$ whoami
ruario

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

So it would seem that emphasis and lists with paragraphs are broken. Everything else works as expected.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

Let's try a similar test with HTML:

Firstly, here is the code I will be using:

<p>Let's try a similar test with HTML:

<h1>Header 1

<h2>Header 2

<h3>Header 3

<blockquote><p>This is a quote</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><blockquote><p>This is a quote</p></blockquote><p>This is a another quote, in reply</p></blockquote>

<p>The last word of this sentence is *emphasized*.

<p>The last word of this sentence is **bolded**.

<p>Unordered list:
<ul>
  <li>Unordered list item</li>
  <li>Unordered list item</li>
  <li>Unordered list item</li>
</ul>

<p>Ordered list:
<ol>
  <li>First item in an ordered list</li>
  <li>Second item in an ordered list</li>
  <li>Third item in an ordered list</li>
</ol>

<p>Ordered list with paragraph:

<ul>
  <li>Unordered list item<p>Second paragraph</p></li>
  <li>Unordered list item</li>
</ul>
  
<p>A link to [opera.com](http://www.opera.com/" title="opera.com) and another to [Wikipedia](https://www.wikipedia.org/" title="Wikipedia)

![](https://forums.opera.com/themes/opera/design/static/css/img/opera-software-logo.png)

<p>Here is some inline code: `opera-developer`

<p>Here is some code on a new line:</p>

`$ whoami
    ruario`

And this is how it outputs:

Header 1

Header 2

Header 3

<blockquote><p>This is a quote</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><blockquote><p>This is a quote</p></blockquote><p>This is a another quote, in reply</p></blockquote>

The last word of this sentence is emphasized.

The last word of this sentence is bolded.

Unordered list:
<ul>
<li>Unordered list item</li>
<li>Unordered list item</li>
<li>Unordered list item</li>
</ul>

Ordered list:
<ol>
<li>First item in an ordered list</li>
<li>Second item in an ordered list</li>
<li>Third item in an ordered list</li>
</ol>

Ordered list with paragraph:

<ul>
<li>Unordered list item<p>Second paragraph</p></li>
<li>Unordered list item</li>
</ul>

A link to [opera.com](http://www.opera.com/" title="opera.com) and another to [Wikipedia](https://www.wikipedia.org/" title="Wikipedia)

Here is some inline code: opera-developer

Here is some code on a new line:</p>

`$ whoami
ruario`

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

With raw HTML everything that is expected to work, works. A few more tags might work as well but I can at least confirm the basics are all working as they should.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

And to have it clear, this thread was started in order for other users to obtain basic knowledge how to make their contribution nice and tidy.

That appears to have already been covered in the Markdown basics link at the bottom of every post. There are only two obvious breakages (emphasis and lists with paragraphs). Both of which can be worked around for now.

[ruario]

ruario last edited by

I did just a few quick tests looking for additional tags—outside those equivalent to the Markdown basics page. I just tried obvious ones, including a few that have already been mentioned here:

• <strike> (or <s>): strike through
• <u>: underline
• <kbd>: Defines a keyboard chatacter (a monpspace font is displayed)
• <table>: tables
• <font>: With various attributes (e.g. face and color), further styling of posts is possible

I should also mention that many tags, actually end up on the page (try using them, then look at the the page source) but the text looks no different, probably due to CSS styling. Some examples of these include:

• <em>
• <dl>
• <q>
• …

It's late now so I am giving up investigating further. But in summary, Markdown basics give enough options for most people. For advanced users, the extra HTML possibilities allow them to work around two Markdown implementation issues (only one of which—emphasis—has a common use case) and give them quite a few more options.

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.

[A Former User]

A Former User 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.

[A Former User]

A Former User 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.