[iMSystem]

Admin Update: This was the winning entry that won the last Diablo 3 Betakey giveway on sc2sea.

Formatting your forum posts Written and performed by System
So your wanting to post on this site, got a sick build / idea for your race and want to reap the rewards
of e-fame available to you through the reputation system on Sc2Sea?

Well now you can post absolutely a post full of shit, and still get Crazerk's +rep. 100% Guaranteed

You want to make a guide on the forums? Write up a tournament post or just about anything
on the site? To not get an angry Crazerk on your tail, you might want to format your post.

So, here is a guide on all the formatting options available to the website, in a single easy
convenient location.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Basic Formatting
• Using BBCode
  
  • Bold, Italic and Underline
  • Font Style and Colouring
  • Linking elsewhere
  • Spoilers
  • Displaying Images
• Advanced Formatting
  • Font Alignment
  • Lists and Tables
  • Anchoring and linking to Anchors
• Smilies
• Using Maps
• Things to note
• Conclusion

Introduction to BBCode Top
BBCode or Bulletin Board Code is a lightweight markup language used to format posts in
many message boards. The available tags are usually indicated by square brackets ([ ])
surrounding a keyword, and they are parsed by the message board system before being
translated into a markup language that web browsers understand—usually HTML or XHTML.

Basic Formatting Top
The very basic type of formatting is the Bold, Itallic, and Underline.
Even if you stick to just using these 3 types of formatting for your posts, I guarantee Crazerk
will give you a reply that is nice. Might not give you the rep that your after, but with more
advanced formatting, your post will be looking spic and span.
We will also cover other ways to style your font and linking to images and YouTube videos in
this section!

Using BBCode Top
Using BBCode is exactly like splitting your workers at the start of a game.
It might seem hard at first, but the more you do it, the more it becomes natural!

So how to use it, like we stated in the introduction you format your code using square brackets with the
keyword inside.

What you type:

[b]Bolded text woo[/b]

What you get:

Bolded text woo

The same thing applies for Itallic and Underline formatting, instead of [b] you would use [i] and [u] respectively.

+ [Pro-tip] +

Make sure you close your brackets when your finished with your formatting on the specific text
or else the code will most likely not work and might stuff up other stuff you have.
Try to keep a mental note on what you have open and what you need to close

You: Alright System, thanks for that now I know how to bold headers and useful information
and format other information, but I have seen colourful headers like yours, how do I do those?
System:




You can change the formatting of the text even more to be more specific in terms of size, colour and
even font type.

Font type is really depended on what is installed into the Forum and that is up to Nirvana, as it sits
right now, the font style is fine to read and the default size for normal text. But where you have
headers and other specific things you would want larger font.

Font colour is changed through the [color=x][/color] tags where x is equal to the colour you want your text to be.

What you type:

[color=red]Red font![/color]

What you get:

Red font!

+ [Pro-Tip] +

Because Jesus invented the Internet and he is American make sure in your colour tag to spell it color.
Make sure you leave out the 'u' or else it won't work!

Also just recently Nirvana has added custom BBCode into the forums that allow us to have pre-formatted
text with lovely shades of various colours, like the headers I used above.

What you type:

[blue]Sick header mang[/blue]

What you get:

Sick header mang

+ [Pro-tip] +

That is just one of the many different colours made available for use for the headers. You can try yourself what colours there are
or visit this link to find out more!

URL Linking is again just as easy as bolding a block of text, simply use the [url] tags and your good to go.

What you type:

[url]www.sc2sea.com[/url] or [url="www.sc2sea.com"]Link behind text[/url]

What you get:

www.sc2sea.com or Link behind text

Email linking is also another use of linking, while it may not be useful for you, it will be useful for at least one
person reading this :P

What you type:

[email]systemsc2@hotmail.com[/email] or [email=systemsc2@hotmail.com]Hate mail goes here[/email]

What you get:

systemsc2@hotmail.com or Hate mail goes here

You can also embed a YouTube video into a forum post by using the [youtube] tags.
Important note about using the YouTube tags is that you want to only put inside the tags the video
code for video you want, and not the entire link.
You get the video code by looking up at you address bar on your browser and copying the assorted letters and numbers after the v= part.
Example,

You Tube

You Tube

so the code would be jtMv6V7ZvmE

+ [Pro-Tip] +

Sometimes, or more than often there will be more stuff in the address bar when your either watching
stuff from a playlist or have been linked to it from somewhere else. Thats no issue!
Remember to look for the ?v= in the link and copy the letters and numbers after that and up until the '&' symbol

What you type:

[youtube]jtMv6V7ZvmE[/youtube]

What you get:

System baby we love you!

Spoilers can be a big issue on major Starcraft websites when people come wanting to read stuff, and
not the actual results of the game, they can become upset and sad. So, this is where spoiler tags work wonders!

What you type:

[spoiler]HuK won MLG 2-0[/spoiler] or [spoiler=MLG Results]Huk won 2-0[/spoiler]

What you get:

+ Show +

HuK won MLG 2-0

or

+ [MLG Results] +

Huk won 2-0

+ [Pro-Tip] +

Spoilers can still be formatted from inside, and can be done so through the normal way

And lastly, showing Images is pretty much the same as linking a URL. Plain and simple.

What you type:

[img]http://img.perthstreetbikes.com/img/3/3/0/lolcat-funny-picture-moderator1.jpg[/img]

What you get:

The true face of Skybreaker!

That is pretty much the basics, you are now no longer a forum posting noob and can start to make your posts look amazing and readable.
Don't forget that proper grammar and paragraphs also go a long way!


Stick around for Part 2 where we will cover the more advanced side to BBCode usage and formatting!

Quick Comments

	Maynarde:	Nice!
	Eddie:
	:	S
	Bugalugs McScruffin:	Haha, why didn't I think of this first. System wins. And I haven't even read it yet. :)
	ToRPandarine:	appreciate the effort put into it for us n00bs :P
	nirvAnA:
	DtorR:	Probably the best explanation on how to format writing.
	Cyanide:	God sent post.
	ToRSpartaz:	I LOVE YOU SYSTEM! (No homo (: )
	lolwut:	:D
	TCPLemminks:	You're just lucky I didn't have internet and couldn't compete ^^
	MooZfY:	Really helped alot, thanks!
	ZiggyD:	Very helpful!
	ROOTPetraeus:	should probly rep this considering how much I've used it
	Delraich:

[iMSystem]

Advanced Formatting Top

So now your all itchy and ready to tackle the big stuff? Good! All in all it is still quite easy to understand
and you will realize what I mean by that as we go through it all.

Font alignment is great and simple way to position text across the forum, it is a bit
messy by for simple and basic usage it does it's job well.

What you type:

[left]Left text[/left] or [center]Center text[/center] or [right]Right text[/right]

What you get:

Left text

Center text

Right text

+ [Pro-Tip] +

You can also postion things like images and YouTube videos by using the same tags.
Those aren't specifically used only for text, its to align anything withing the tags

Indenting certain lines of your text can also improve the visible quality of text.
Simply use the indent tags around the code you want indented and enjoy.

What you type:

Indenting is[indent]fun[/indent]isnt it?

What you get:

Indenting is

fun

isnt it?

So now all your text is colourful and aligned and sorted out properly, you may be thinking how do I organize some more formal
information, player names for the tournament. Prize pool tables etc. Well don't you fret we have all the tags you can dream of
and more!

Listing players name that are apart of a tournament you run can be done in two ways.

Through the use of Unordered lists and ordered lists.

Unordered lists are pretty much what you guess. Lists that are unordered. They will show up with the information you put
in it and stuff that into a Bullet point list.

What you type:

[list][*]System[*]Metsys[*]Some noob[/list]

What you get:

• System
• Metsys
• Some noob

and Ordered lists are the same, but the points are either numbered or listed alphabetically depending on what value you put into the tag.
Using the value of 1 will give you a numbered list, and using the value of a will give you a alphabet list.

What you type:

[list=1][*]System[*]Metsys[*]Some noob[/list]

What you get:

1. System
2. Metsys
3. Some noob

+ [Pro-Tip] +

If you put another list tag inside an already existing list tag, you will get a second, slighty indented list. See the table of contents above for what I mean.

Tables can also be created through the use of BBCode but it is a little difficult
to do, and needs quite a lot of mental imagery to get the picture just right.
You could also just spam preview changes when your making the post as well if your a bit slow :P

What you type:

[table]1st Place | TBA | $10,000
2nd Place | TBA | $5,000
3rd Place | TBA | $2,500[/table]

What you get:

1st Place	TBA	$10,000
2nd Place	TBA	$5,000
3rd Place	TBA	$2,500

+ [Pro-Tip] +

There are other commands you can add to the table tag to change the style of the table.
For example the width.
This can be done by: [table="width=80%"]

Anchoring Links is a cool little way to add 'Anchors' to your posts so that you can link to different sections on the page.
A quick example would be the Table of contents I have here up the top, as well as
the Top links I have next to each header!

Creating the Anchor
It is just a simple tag that goes around the text you want to link to.

What you type:

[aname=TestHeader]Link to me![/aname]

What you get:

Link to me!

You: System! That doesn't look like anything even happened?!
System: Patience my child, we need to now link to it.

Creating the link
Basically the exact same as linking to any other URL except we use [jumpto] tags, shown below.

What you type:

[jumpto=TestHeader]Click me to scroll slightly upwards![/jumpto]

What you get:

Click me to scroll slightly upwards!

Smilies
Smilies are small pictures of various images that have either been pre-loaded into the forums, or added by Nirvana.
The way that we write smilies here is by adding a lower case i before the word.

What you type:

iTroll

What you get:

Using Maps
If you are writing up an Offline Tournament and need to have a map showing where it is located, simply use the GMAP tag shown below.

What you type:

[gmap]Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore[/gmap]

What you get:

+ [Pro-Tip] +

There is an entire list of every availble smilie to use on this forum over Here for your spamming plesure.

Things to note Top
Try not to go overboard with formatting a post. While it is a good idea to spruce up a post, too much can make
it look over crowded and even more worse than it was before the formatting.

Think about what you want to do and don't over do it.
As you can see in the 2nd post here, there isn't all that much formatting. I can change all the headers to stand
out some more, but I feel that it would just over kill the post, instead of portraying the information.

As you can have also probably noticed, there are a lot of bolded words in the entire write up. These are mainly
important terms that need to stand out to someone that is skim reading the post. Feel free to try this tactic
out on your posts as well. It really does work doesn't it!

Remember to use proper Grammar and spelling so that your paragraphs are placed out nicely, and you don't just have a wall of text.

Don't forget to Close off your tags as you are finished using them. Prevent yourself going bald over trying to
figure out whats wrong with your post.

The preview button is your best friend!

Be careful of using Case words. As some of the tags and values for the tags may be Case Sensitive.

The smilies work in the website chat!

Most of the formatting works in your Forum Signature. Go make it beautiful!

If you want to know how someone formatted something in their post, simply hit the Quote button
and it will show you exactly what they had written!

Conclusion Top
So hopefully now you have an understanding on how to properly use the forum's BBCode effectively, keep in mind
that every forum uses BBCode and you will find that most of the code shown here will work on any other website. So go
forth and create the most handsome text filled boxes of information you have ever dreamed of creating!

Updates
Added the new gmap tag - 7th Jan


Thanks for reading

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:
	Zanderax:
	TCPLemminks:

[crAzerk]

How can I not rep this?

Definitely stiicky-worthy and should be published even if it doesn't win.

P.S. Guide* not guild

[ToRPandarine]

this feels like a conspiracy ;P lol jk...nicely done...it helps!

[iMSystem]

No conspiracy I swear :P

Everything is now finished, and typos have been fixed. I don't think I missed anything but yea.

Enjoy!

[xpaperclip]

Originally Posted by System

What you get:

Surely you mean

a table	where	the
columns	actually	line up

Originally Posted by System

Don't forget to Close off your tags as you are finished using them. Prevent yourself going bald over trying to
figure out whats wrong with your post.

Originally Posted by System

[b]What you get:[b]

Otherwise, amazing!

Quick Comments

iMSystem:

Can't hide anything :P Thanks, looking at a post box for 3hrs now hurts! Fixed

[x5_Potter]

gg wp grats on tourney win? :P Awesome guide, and I agree that this should be stickied and added to the recommended to read thingy in the sign up(if sc2sea has one?)

[Zepph]

Ahhhhh this is so helpful!! Thanks for the post

[inFeZa]

Just take the beta key already gosh

[Meatex]

GEEZUS!!

Well i was going to try writing an article for the D3 key contest but with that now over...
Awesome article - might as well give him the key now :P

[Cyanide]

Now we need to make a post about proper grammar and paragraphing.

[Delraich]

This is a really good write up but is it not possible for this forum message system (e.g. when you press the "go advanced" button) to have options like you get in Microsoft Word where you can simply press buttons to get bold or different colours or whatever so that you don't need to know/ remember all these special things/ type in all the special words. What would also be great is if this message box could expand to the size of your whole screen so you can see all your writing easily and pick up spelling errors etc.

[sRFullstop]

Wow, amazing post. It will really help future article writers. I won't have a good opportunity to use this though because I mainly respond rather than start posts. The effort required to format is sometimes very huge and to be honest I don't have the patience to do all that formating.

Well deserving to be the D3 Key winner.

[iMSystem]

I know some forums that have buttons on the top that automatically put in the code either where your cursor is at the time, or around whatever text you have highlighted.

It is just an issue of implementing it, and something I am sure Nirvana will do eventually :P

[xpaperclip]

Originally Posted by System

I know some forums that have buttons on the top that automatically put in the code either where your cursor is at the time, or around whatever text you have highlighted.

There's that already (not everything like spoilers, etc., but the basic stuff). Go to Account -> Settings & Options -> Edit Options, scroll all the way to the bottom and change the Message Editor Interface to one of the more fancy ones.

Quick Comments

TCPLemminks:

Brilliant

[Delraich]

Originally Posted by xpaperclip

There's that already (not everything like spoilers, etc., but the basic stuff). Go to Account -> Settings & Options -> Edit Options, scroll all the way to the bottom and change the Message Editor Interface to one of the more fancy ones.

Well there you go... exactly what I was hoping for!!

[Nemo]

Well done System !

Personally, I have bookmarked those 2 pages and use them when posting articles:
http://www.sc2sea.com/misc.php?do=bbcode
http://www.sc2sea.com/misc.php?do=showsmilies

[iMSystem]

Now you need a 3rd :P

Quick Comments

Nemo:

Bookmarked ! :)

[TCPLemminks]

And all the time I've spent deciphering this...

Then you came along and Systemized it (aka made it easy to understand and awesome).

Looks like no more excuses for quickly written and limited BBcode write-ups anymore T_T.

Jolly Good Show Lad.

[TN.Fitz]

Wow Brosky!

Thanks for posting this guide to help others that do not know how make fine edits to their forum posts to make them much more appealing to the eye and the code structure.

I am indeed quite confused. All of the above instructions are pretty much are under the advance post comment button all you have to do is select the text and edit the post that way. I'm not quite sure I understand the intent of using the code instead of just pressing a button for the simplicity of the users.

Otherwise great information!