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Bulletin Board software contains a number of common tags to help format that code. We've used many of these tags in this forum include a few of our own. Most of these have buttons at the top of a post that automatically apply them for you. Or being good programmers, you can type them in yourself! Notice that we said most. There are a few "secret" bb tags that you can type in, but are not in the UI. Uh oh. We've let you in on the secret. Let's get started.

Formatting

Formatting TypeHow to Code ItWhat it looks like displayed
Bold[b]Text[/b]Text
Italics[i]Text[/i]Text
Underline[u]Text[/u]Text
Strike Thru[strike]Text[/strike]Text
Fixed Width[tt]Text[/tt]Text
Color[color=red] Red[/color] Red
Size[size=9] Small[/size]Small


For the colors and sizes, suggested options are in the pull downs.

Quotes
You can quote with or without a name:

[quote]Foo has a bar[/quote]

Foo has a bar



[quote=The Moose]Foo has a bar[/quote]

The Moose wrote:Foo has a bar



When you click on the quote button in a post, it automatically quotes the entire text of the post using the later format.

Code
This is a development site. And code looks much better when there is syntax highlighting. Luckily, we support a variety of code tags. Code tags are so important that we have a wiki page just on Using Code Tags

Lists
The most common form of lists is an unordered bulleted list.
[list]one[/list]
[list]two[/list]
[list]three[/list]

  • one
  • two
  • three


  • You can highlight some text and then click the list button to make it a list item. Or you can can click the list button with nothing selected to be prompted to type the list content.

    There's also a secret form of list called a nested list. It doesn't work the same way as HTML so be careful. A "nested list" is more like an indented list item.

    [list]one[/list]
    [nestedList]
    [list]a[/list]
    [list]b[/list]
    [/nestedList]
    [list]two[/list]
    [nestedList]
    [list]a[/list]
    [list]b[/list]
    [/nestedList]

  • one
    • a
    • b
  • two
    • a
    • b


    Images
    Embedding an image in a post is helpful (screenshot) or fun (a bear eating your code). Adding an image is easy:

    [img]https://coderanch.com/how-to/content/Christmas_Moose3.jpg[/img]



    Maybe you want the image to be smaller. No problem.

    [img]https://coderanch.com/how-to/content/Christmas_Moose3.jpg width=50 height=70[/img]



    You can also add 'alt' and 'title' tags for SEO benefits.

    [img]https://coderanch.com/how-to/content/Christmas_Moose3.jpg width=50 height=70 alt="moose" title="moose on a stack of books"[/img]


    Links
    There's two formats for links. You can have just the URL or you can have a name to click on instead. There are also some special links so save you a bit of typing.

    Formatting TypeHow to Code ItWhat it looks like displayed
    Just a URL[url]https://coderanch.com[/url]https://coderanch.com
    A URL with a name[url=https://coderanch.com]CodeRanch[/url]CodeRanch
    Google shortcut[google]coderanch[/google]coderanch
    JavaDoc shortcut[javadoc]ArrayList[/javadoc]java.lang.ArrayList
    Wikipedia shortcut[wikipedia]doctor who[/wikipedia]doctor who


    Video
    You can embed Youtube or Vimeo videos right in the page:

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGgZrLB15q4[/youtube]
    [vimeo]https://vimeo.com/67249020[/vimeo]




    Tables
    You can create a table with a border.

    [table]
    ||header1||header2||
    |cell 1|cell 2|
    [/table]

    header1header2
    cell 1cell 2


    Horizontal Line
    This is another secret feature. You can use a hr tag to separate your post.
    [hr]

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