Tips on using the board

I thought a thread of this kind might help out our new members. If anyone has a question, just ask away.

When you're writing a post, you can make the html tags in it visible by pressing the 'html' button (the rightmost one above the reply box). This is particularly helpful if you want to put a "reply" quote at the start of your post. When you press the "reply" button immediately below a post you want to respond to, the board brings up a box with the post's text in a blockquote (at the bottom of the box). If you bring up the html, you can place your own text after the quote by placing it after the /blockquote instruction.

I sometimes write my posts in Word and then transfer them across. This can result in unwanted formatting effects, so when I do this, I switch to html format and cut out the chaff I don't want.

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  • Another tip: If you want to use our "smilies," the process is described here:


    On the previous version of the board, we had a collection of smilies. Many of those from that board and some we didn't have can be found in the "Smilies Folder," which has a link that may be found on the bottom right corner of any page. Hover your cursor over one you would like to use, and a menu pops up; copy the coding for "Direct Link" and paste it into your message using the "Image" button above the box with your response.

     


  • If you copy a post prepared in Word into the reply box when it's in html mode, you don't get some of those formatting effects I mentioned.
  • Thanks for the smilies tip, Clark.
  • There is no time-limit on altering the post that starts a thread if it's one of your own. You can even change the thread title, e.g. if a word is misspelled.

     

    If you want to delete one of your posts, you can do so anytime using the red button in the post's upper right corner. Of course, it's a bad idea to do this if someone has responded.

     

    I find when I take some time writing a post, and post my response, the board doesn't show me the posts which have been added in the meantime until I refresh the thread.

     

    If you want to correct a long post after the fifteen minute limit you can post a corrected version and delete the defective one. Instead of typing the whole thing out again, I hit the reply button that goes with the post to bring up a box which includes the text as a quote. Then I switch to html mode, cut the blockquote and end blockquote instructions from around the text, make the corrections I want to make, and post the results. I refresh to check no-one responded to the post while I was busy, and delete the original post if no-one has. If someone had, I'd delete the revised version instead.

  • Whether you end up at the start of a thread or the latest comment depends on what you click on. On the main page, if you click on the title of a thread in the Forum list of posts (the one under the videos) you'll be taken to its start, but if you click on "last reply" you'll be taken to the last reply. In the Latest Activity column clicking on "commented" or "replied" takes you to the post.

     

    In the Blog Posts section clicking on the "x comments" line currently takes you to the start of the post's comments. If the latest comment is recent, you might be able to reach it quicker through the Latest Activity column. This includes posts that that the Forum list doesn't, including comments to Blog posts.

  • If you look at my last Micronauts post, you'll see that there is a long narrow picture of Biotron blessing a baby.  (Hah!)

     

    Even though I ticked the little circle in the 'add picture' pop out window, instructing that the text appear to the right of the picture, the text starts BELOW the picture.  What am I doing wrong there?  The post would look much better with the text to the side of the long picture rather than below it.

  • Switch to html mode, and where it says "align-full" change to "align-left".

     

    If you do this to both pictures, and there's not enough text to take up all the space beside the higher picture, the post will place the lower picture beside the higher picture (I think the top one gets priority, so if you set both as "align-left" the second picture will appear to the right of the first, and the text following the latter to the right of it). You can avoid this by doing extra returns after the block of text by the first picture.

  • That worked a treat.  Thanks Luke!

     

    Here's the amended post, as I deleted the post I linked to above.

  • Philip mentioned elsewhere that he wanted to be able to add links to his posts.  So here's a quick run-through.

     

    1) Chose the post that you want to link to.  Just for the hell of it I'm going to pick Philip's first response to the Baron's Seven Soldiers thread, as they are flavour of the month.

     

    2) Once you've chosen the post, click on the red 'chain-link' symbol right beside the poster's pic.  Now there will be a long address for the post up in the address box a the top of the page.  It will look like this:

     

    https://captaincomics.ning.com/forum/topics/the-seven-soldiers-of-vi...

    Highlight and COPY this address.

    3) In the main post you are writing, highlight the phrase that you want to embed the hyperlink in.

     

    eg  "As I mentioned over in the Seven Soldiers thread"

     

    4) With your phrase highlighted, click on the little button that says LINK,just to the top left of the text input 'reply' box.

     

    5) You will then get a box showing the 'Link Text' you've highlighted ("Seven Soldiers thread") and below that space for you to paste the long address you copied earlier at the end of Step 2.  The box will already contain the letters "http://", but just PASTE over this.  Paste your address, press ok, and Bob's your monkey's uncle.

     

    As I mentioned over in the Seven Soldiers thread...


    Voila!
  • When you click on the "reply" button immediately below a post the board quotes the post you're responding to. I often just erase the quote, but an alternative is to use the reply boxes at the top or bottom of a page. They're always open in my computer unless I click to close them, but if they're not on yours click on "Reply to this" at the top of the page or "Reply to Discussion" at the bottom.

     

    The board is set so that no matter which option you take your post will appear at the bottom of the thread. At one point it was briefly set so that replies to particular posts instead appeared under those posts. I'd guess the information as to how each post was posted is still there in the board's memory, and if the settings were changed again many posts would shift around in odd ways.

     

    This post displaced the thread 2012 Cappies Memory Box from the home page. (A clever idea for a thread, that.)

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