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A Primer on Using HTML Tags in ezboard Forums
The ezboard forums are well-suited to novice users who don't know, or aren't used to, HTML tags. If you want to post a message and can't be bothered with fancy formatting, type away! If you want to start a new line, type <Return> once; for for a new paragraph, type it twice.
However, ezboard can also display a limited set of HTML markups that you can use for emphasis, amongst other things. I, and other people who mark up their messages, often receive questions about how we've done something. This Web page tells you about some of the HTML features you can use to make your posts more expressive.
In this message you'll find out how to:
Note: HTML tags aren't case-sensitive. I prefer to write them in uppercase, but if you prefer lowercase tags, it makes no difference.
HTML supports these three types of emphasis: bold, italic, and underline.
To make a selected portion of text bold, put <B> and </B> tags around it, like this:
This text is <B>bold</B>.
To make a selected portion of text italic, put <I> and </I> tags around it, like this:
This text is <I>in italics</I>.
To underline text, put <U> and </U> tags around it, like this:
This text is <U>underlined</U>.
Many people associate underlined text with hyperlinks, so it's best to avoid underlining if there's a chance you'll confuse someone.
Periodically you may wish to direct a reader's attention to another message, Web page, image, or what have you. This section describes how to link your message to someone else.
To link to a Web page, first determine the URI (Web address) of that page. If you simply type the full URI into your message (e.g. http://www.example.com/home.html), ezboard's software can detect it and render it as a link.
Note: For whatever reason, you need at least one space after a URI and before any punctuation or closing tags. Otherwise, ezboard assumes the punctuation or whatever is part of the URI and you'll never link to it properly.Also, Web addresses are case-sensitive. Make sure that you type everything in the address that follows the http://www.example.com/ part properly, or you'll link to the wrong resource, or no resource at all.
If you want to be a little more fancy, you can do it this way:
<A HREF=http://www.example.com/home.html>My Example</A>
This form embeds your link into regular text, like this: My Example. Note that normal HTML requires quotation marks around the URI, but you need to leave them out for ezboard posts.
As it does with URIs, the ezboard software can detect email addresses and render them as links, as follows: somebody@example.com. Again, remember to leave at least one space after the address so you don't confuse ezboard.
Or, you can do it like this:
<A HREF=mailto:somebody@example.com>Email Joe Blow</A>
This version embeds the link into the text so you can inform someone how to email Joe Blow without interrupting your sentence.
Every so often you'll want to link to an illustration of some kind. The following code fragment is the least amount of HTML that will do this:
<IMG SRC=http://www.example.com/image.gif>
where image.gif is the path and file name to the image you want. (In the following examples I will substitute image.gif for the full address.)
It's possible to wrap text around the image on the left or the right by using the ALIGN tag, like this:
<IMG SRC=image.gif ALIGN=LEFT>
which will align the image on the left margin of the page. To put the image on the right, use ALIGN=RIGHT instead.
If you want to tell the browser how big the image is (it helps it lay out the page on-screen), use the WIDTH and HEIGHT tags. For example, if image.gif were 60 pixels high and 120 pixels wide:
<IMG SRC=image.gif HEIGHT=60 WIDTH=120>
Note: It's possible to change the size of an image on screen simply by entering bogus values for width and height. However, the results usually don't look very good, and it's considered "cheating"—poor HTML style.
If you want to centre a block of paragraphs, just enclose them in <CENTER> and </CENTER> tags.
To indent a block of text, such as an extended quotation, enclose it in <BLOCKQUOTE> and </BLOCKQUOTE> tags.
This document covers the basics: those HTML features that most users are likely to want. For a comprehensive reference to the HTML standard, I recommend HTML Help by the Web Design Group. Please note that although the basics of HTML will work on ezboard, many of the more advanced features apparently do not.
Created February 7, 2000 by Scott A. McClare.
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