|
HTML Help by Hoosier Cougar If you are not familiar with hypertext markup language (or HTML), then following should help you enrich your postings on this board. In the case of CougarBoard, HTML allows posters to enrich their postings through the use of "tags". Tags are basically formatting instructions enclosed in angle brackets like so: <HTML tag> </HTML tag> Typically, there is an opening tag that tells the system where to start the formatting and there is a closing tag (which includes a forward slash) that tells the system where to stop the formatting. Some tags though (like LI and IMG listed below) do not require closing tags. There are many tags within HTML, but on this board you only need concern yourself with the following tags (since these are the only ones allowed): <FONT></FONT> - Font tag* ....<UL></UL> - Unordered List tag ....<OL></OL> - Ordered List tag .........<LI> - List Item tag ......<B></B> - Bold tag ......<I></I> - Italic tag ......<U></U> - Underline tag ......<A></A> - Anchor tag* ........<IMG> - Image tag* .........<HR> - Horizontal Rule tag. ........<PRE> - Pre-formatted tag These tags are described in detail below. Tags annotated with an * include attributes that can be used on this board. I have also included a section on Escapes. All other HTML tags are stripped out by El Jefe's board software. It's not that El Jefe is trying to stifle your creativity. It's just that too many tags can create overhead problems for Cougarboard servers and can potentially expose the board to unwanted problems. Also note that these tags are not case sensitive. That is, they can be typed upper or lower case. Tag Descriptions THE FONT TAG The font tag alters or sets the characteristics of the font the browser uses to display text. You can use this tag to modify the size, the color, or the face of the font. Examples <FONT SIZE=7>This is BIG!</FONT> will give you This is BIG! Size values can range from 1 to 7, one being the smallest, seven being the largest. <FONT COLOR="BLUE">Wear BLUE!</FONT6> will give you Wear BLUE! We could get into a lengthy discussion about color, but suffice it to say, most common color names can be substituted for blue. Stick to the common color names and you should be OK. <FONT FACE="Courier">This is monospaced text.</FONT> will give you This is monospaced text. There are other faces to choose from, but whether the face you choose will display or not is dependent on your browser. Note if you want to make tables You can format tabular data using the <PRE> tag. Any text that you want pre-formatted should be enclosed between <PRE> and </PRE> tags. Example
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
=============================================
1034 1562 9206
351 511 92
16502 9200 10572
THE UNORDERED LIST TAG The unordered list tag contains a bulleted (unordered) list. You can then use the <LI> list item tag to add bulleted items to the list. Example The Cougars are:<UL> <LI>Awesome <LI>The only team worth cheering for <LI>The Lord's Team (tic) </UL> Will give you The Cougars are:
This gives you standard bullets. THE ORDERED LIST TAG The ordered list tag contains a numbered (ordered) list. You can then use the <LI> list item tag to add numbered items to the list. Example Top three reasons to be a Cougar fan:<OL> <LI>Cougar Football <LI>Cougar Basketball <LI>Hot Mollies </OL> Will give you Top three reasons to be a Cougar fan:
This gives you basic numbering. You can also use this for hierarchical numbering but the attributes which would allow for varying ordinal schemes (like letters, numbers, roman numerals, etc.) are stripped, so only numerals (the default) show up. <OL> <LI>Cool Posters <OL> <LI>Hoosier Cougar <LI>El Jefe <LI>Palo Alto Cougar <LI>Goatnapper </OL> <LI>Not Cool Posters <OL> <LI>Trojan Bob <LI>Anyone with "Ute" in their name </OL> </OL> Gives you:
Be sure that you close all your OL tags. THE LIST ITEM TAG Please see the Unordered and Ordered List Tag sections above. THE BOLD, ITALIC, and UNDERLINE TAGS These tags are pretty straight forward as you can see in the example. Example This is <B>Bolded</B>, this is <I>Italicized</I>, and this is <U>Underlined</U>. Renders the following: This is Bolded, this is Italicized, and this is underlined. THE ANCHOR TAG The anchor tag identifies a link or a location. It is commonly used to create a hyperlink, using the HREF= attribute. Allowing this tag may seem superfluous on Cougarboard since one can simply type in a URL like www.cougarboard.com and the board's software will automagically convert it to hyperlinked text. But if you want to elegantly link a word in your text instead of typing "click on this link:" and typing a URL, then you need to use the anchor tag, like in the following examples. Examples This will link to <A HREF="http://www.cougarboard.com/">Cougar Board</A>. Gives you the following: This will link to Cougar Board. THE IMAGE TAG Use this tag to embed an image in your post. Keep in mind that your image must be hosted somewhere out on the internet (NOT ON YOUR COMPUTER!). Also keep in mind that some sites (like Yahoo!'s Geocities) will not permit images hosted on their site to be linked to. Instead of that awesome shot of the Cougar linebacker decapitating a Utah QB, all you will get is a box with a red ×. Example <IMG SRC="http://www.byucougars.com/images/cougarhead.gif> Gives you:  You can get the path to most images on the net by simply right-clicking the image and selecting properties. Highlight the path and copy it by pressing Ctrl+C. You can paste the path in your tag by placing your cursor at the right spot and pressing CTRL+V (keeping in mind the Geocities rule). There are various attributes for the IMG tag, but I am only going to cover HEIGHT and WIDTH which define (you guessed it) the height and width of the image. If your image is taking up too much or too little screen real estate, you can modify it with these attributes as follows: <IMG SRC="http://www.byucougars.com/images/cougarhead.gif" HEIGHT=62 WIDTH=75> Gives you a half size cougar head: I got the original dimensions from the images properties (same place you get the path from). THE HORIZONTAL RULE TAG This tag simply allows you to create a horizontal line break on your page that spans the width of the page (regardless of how wide the screen is set). Simply type in <HR> and you will get a horizontal rule like the ones that seperate each tag section and example. ESCAPES At some point you may have wondered, "How is Hoosier able to include examples in this posting without the browser interpretting the examples as formatting? The secret is escapes. Escapes are also useful for including special characters for those times when you are writing in Portuguese and need to write São Paulo, maça, or jacaré. Whenever you need to use a special character or include an angle bracket without it being interpretted, simply look up the appropriate character in the table from the provided link and type in either one of the escapes listed. Special Characters Note: I did have all these characters neatly formatted in a table so you didn't have to go elsewhere for the characters. Suffice it to say, it didn't come out pretty, and I am not doing it again. I'll defer to the web monkey (not the guy on Utah's board either). |