Spicing Up Your Posts

[Wildcard]

When words just aren't enough, you can take advantage of some of the multimedia options The Pig Pen has to spice up your posts with links, images, videos and even audio.

The first step is getting to know the 'New Reply' page:


When you start a new thread on click 'New Reply' or 'Reply' in any existing thread, the New Reply window above is shown. With this enhanced text editor, you can perform many basic word processor functions as well as some nice multimedia additions.

Here is a list of the basic functions and what they do:

1. These are the basic text formatting options: Bold, Italic and Underline. You can select any text and click these buttons to toggle formatting or you can click one of them (Bold for example) and start typing. When you no longer want the text emphasized just click the control button again. The editor will insert the proper BB code so that you don't have to.
   
   Note: There is actually another formatting option: Strike which is covered at the end of this document.
    
   
   
2. These are the basic alignment options. From left to right: Left, Center, Right and Justify. Justify spaces your sentences so that they fill the entire line- the others I think are obvious.
    
   
   
3. These are the list buttons. Use these to create lists with either bullets (unordered) or numbers (ordered). Click the button and type the first list item and press ENTER, then keeping adding as many items as you like. When you enter a blank line you signify the end of the list.
   
   Note: There is also the option for 'lettered' lists too. See the end of this document.
    
   
   
4. Images. Clicking this button allows you to specify the URL of an image to be presented within your post. If you are unsure about how to find the URL of an image or don't know where to find images, see the section in this document titled 'About URLs' in this document.
    
   
   
5. Links. This button allows you to insert hyper-links into your posts. Useful when listing sources, linking to helpful sites and even referencing threads within this site.
    
   
   
6. Email. Click this button and type in a valid email address to present it as a link in your post.
    
   
   
7. Quoted text. If you want to quote what another member said in your post, you can always reply directly to their post. Do this by click the 'Reply' button attached to the post in question. Sometimes you just want to quote a source outside of The Pig Pen or for some other reason you'd like to isolate some text. Click this button and type/paste the text into the field to have it quoted neatly in your post.
    
   
   
8. Code. Largely unused on this forum, the Code Quote feature is for passing along technical code to other members. It's useful when describing BB code to other members without having it parsed.
    
   
   
9. PHP Code. Like the Code button, this feature is rarely used. It provides a way to quote PHP code and have it accented by color according to syntax.
    
   
   
10. Video! Now we're getting somewhere.
    
    To insert a video, click this button and select the video source from the drop-down list. Then type or paste the URL into the field to have the video embedded into your post. If you're unsure how to locate the URL, see the section titled 'About URLs' in this document.
     
    
    
11. Smilies are emoticons that are stored on the server and inserted as text code into you post. When you insert them in the 'New Reply' page, you only see a BB code that represents them, but when previewing or posting the image associated with the code will be displayed.
    

 

So with these features, it's easy to present a wide variety of media in your posts. The next section explains a little more about finding that media and the URL associated with it.

 

About URLs

Links, Images and Videos all require URLs, but how do you find these URLs and what do they do?

URLs are just the technical term for web addresses. The URL of this site is pigpenpoetry.com (or more accurately http://pigpenpoetry.com/) for example. Each site, image, video and in fact every file on the internet has it's own unique URL that links to it from anywhere it is referenced. Here's how to find the URLs for various types of media.

No matter which browser you use there is always a navigation bar. This is where you type in web addresses to pull them up. If your like me, you bookmark a lot of sites and rarely type anything into it at all, but even when you use bookmarks, Google or even watch videos on YouTube, the navigation bar always reports the current URL.

Web Sites
To link to this particular page of pigpenpoetry.com you could right-click in the navigation bar and select 'Copy' and then paste it into the link field in the 'New Reply' screen, but to link back to the home page you would need to copy the link when viewing that page.

Or when you see a link on another site, you can right-click the link and select your browser's version of 'Copy Link Location' for the popup menu. Most browser report the URL of a link before you click it in the status bar (normally located at the bottom of the screen) so you can make sure it's what you want to link to.

Note: When searching for links, the main page that lists search results should not be used to grab links. These links include reference options from search engines and are not direct links.

Images
Adding images to your posts can be fun, but where to find them? And how to find the URL?

One simple way to find images is by using the Image qualifier in your search engine. I use and recommend Google. To the left side of your screen is a tab labeled 'Images', click this tab and then enter your search terms and Google will return any image results that match your query. Click the image that you like and it will appear by itself in a new Window or Tab. Then right-click the image and select your browsers version of 'Copy Image Location'. Now just paste the URL into the image field and the image will be embedded into your post.

Note: Similar to the advice I gave about links, copying image locations from the thumbnails screen doesn't give you a direct link to the image, but rather a link to the thumbnail of the image. Images linked this way will not be the original size image and will generally be very poor quality along with having the search engines syntax associated with them.

Videos
So you find a video on YouTube that you want to share: just right click in the navigation bar when viewing the video and copy the URL. Then paste it into the Video field and it will be embedded into your post.

Note: Same old story - Obtaining the address from a search engine link will not work. You must have a direct link.

Secrets

Okay they're not really secrets, but these are some little known additions to the formatting and multimedia options available in this forum:

Strikethrough

There isn't a code button for it but you can use the following BB code to cross out words in a post- either to correct yourself, show revisions or just to be funny:

Code:

[s]These words are struck out[/s] These words are not.

Which will produce:

These words are struck out These words are not.

'Lettered' Lists

If you like your list to use the alphabet instead of numbers you can just use the following BB code:

Code:

[list=a]
[*]List Item1
[*]List Item2
[*]List Item3
[*]List Item4
[*]List Item5
[/list]

Which will produce:

1. List Item1
   
2. List Item2
   
3. List Item3
   
4. List Item4
   
5. List Item5
   

You can still use the automated system if you like and then replace the '1' in the code for an 'a' (or an 'A' if you prefer capitals).

Code:

Example old:  [list=1]
Example new: [list=a]
Example new: [list=A]

Audio

The MP3 tag allows users to link to MP3s stored anywhere on the web. Just use the following code:

Code:

[mp3]URL[/mp3]

Where 'URL' is replaced by the URL of the MP3 file.


Good posting

Well that should just about rap it up. If you have any questions you should always feel free to PM a mod or admin.

Have fun!

[abu nuwas]

Well done, Mark!

[Todd]

This is cool Mark. Hmmm with video could we do video critiques?

[srijantje]

yes,very good,even i get it

[Wildcard]

This is cool Mark. Hmmm with video could we do video critiques?

Certainly. Unless you're being sarcastic in which case- I knew that

yes,very good,even i get it

Thanks, SJ.

[billy]

great job

[kevinawh@gmail.com]

is there a way to format text. say you simply wanted to indent a line for example. <&nbsp> doesn't presumably cause it's not treated as html.

[billy]

text space and indent tag

PHP Code:

here [=1] here [=2] here [=4] here [=8] here 


gives you this;
here   here     here         here                 here

or this;
  here
    here
        here
                here

---

Line spacing for the top of a post

PHP Code:

[/] gives this. [/] [/] gives this. [/] [/] [/] gives this, [/] [/] [/] [/] and so on. 


gives this.


gives this.



gives this




gives this and so on.

[newsclippings]

I was whipping through the forum and I thought this read "Spicing Up Your Pants"

That is all.
Toodles.

[billy]

it would have got mark a lot more views

[Wildcard]

it would have got mark a lot more views

He loves the attention

[Merrikay]

How do you put something in a spoiler? Sorry if I'm missing it somewhere.

[Leanne]

like this: (spoiler) text (/spoiler) -- just change the round brackets for square ones

although I see you worked it out

[Tiger the Lion]

How do you post an image from your own computer that has no web url? What am I missing?
Thx

[ellajam]

What i do is upload it to tinypic or you can use any other free site. If you make a free account it lets you resize and gives you the links to copy and paste into our image button but you don't even have to make an account. I always choose "direct link".

[Tiger the Lion]

What i do is upload it to tinypic or you can use any other free site. If you make a free account it lets you resize and gives you the links to copy and paste into our image button but you don't even have to make an account. I always choose "direct link".

Thanks Ella, I'm working on something for your Haiga thread.