HTML tags that work on ROS:
i: italic
b: bold
u: underline
(I’ve yet to figure out which other HTML tags are supported here on ROS, and the lack of a Preview feature makes experimentation risky and difficult.)
John Navas, in a frustrated comment to our May 4, 2007 pitch thread.
Experiment no longer! Here’s a guide to help you boldly, emphatically, and verifiably go wild in the ROS comment threads.
HTML tags help you format the text in your comments to make your words appear bold, italicized, underlined, or linked; or to make long quotes appear in pretty blue boxes. The tags are fairly straightforward. Every tag needs to be opened to signal the place that you want formatting to start and closed to signal the place where you want formatting to end. Closing your tags is especially important — if you don’t, you’ll wreak some minor havoc on the threads, but we’ll get to that later.
All HTML tags look and act the same, so maybe it’s best to teach by example.
To italicize something, just put it between a <i> and a </i>.
So <i>Moby Dick</i> in HTML looks like Moby Dick on the page.
To bold something, put it between <b> and a </b>.
So the HTML code <b>Herman Melville</b> gives you Herman Melville.
Underlining follows the same rules, but with a <u> and a </u>: Everything inside here will be underlined.
For our blue-boxed “blockquotes,” put the word blockquote in those same brackets:
<blockquote>I feel so blue and boxed in.</blockquote> gives you:
I feel so blue and boxed in.
Embedded links are a little trickier, but not by much: <a href=”URL of the page you want to link to”>text that will show up as linked</a>
Got it?
Also, for the record, we agree that a site without a preview function or editable comments is like a night without stars. Editable comments will be one of the first additions to the new site. We’ll make every comment editable until someone has responded to it directly. Perfect, right? I wanted to kiss our developer team — all of them — right on the mouth when I heard that was an option.
Last word: if you remember nothing else, please please remember to close your HTML tags. When you forget, the code spills over, turning the rest of the comment thread into one giant blockquote, or one big bolded mess. If you ever do forget to close a HTML tag, send an email to everyone radioopensource org [turn it into an email address] and we’ll go in and fix it.
Try your hand at HTML below. Please practice here until you get the hang of it — it’s not too hard for us to go in and fix HTML flubs in other comment threads, but we’re is prone to grumble if we have to do it too much.
Thanks Greta- you are very kind. Can we also put images in our posts?
Beware the common practice of putting left and right pointy brackets around quoted material!!!! I mean >
beware the double > > with a space in between them works
That’s a little unsanitary, but I’ll offer a bises on both cheeks in the French style to your development team if they come up with that.
Hi Potter. Pictures are trickier for a couple of reasons, but I’ll look into it. – Greta
any word on adding images to the comments?
Haven’t tried, but I have a sneaking suspicion that one way I know of to post images would work here. ROS staffers may want to look into whether the current software and their bandwidth limits support the use of images.
Thanks, allison. The problem with photos in the comment thread is that our current version of the WordPress CMS doesn’t allow us to restrict the sizes of uploaded photos. If you’ve clicked through enough user profiles on the site, you’ll notice that the photo feature often gets messy, as people upload and post un-resized photos which then take over the full screen. I would be wary of introducing that option in the comment threads if it could derail entire conversations, at least until we have the new CMS up and running. But maybe I’m being over-cautious. What would you like to do with pictures in the comment threads, anyway?
I’m a cartoonist. Commentary for me isn’t limited to simple words alone.
I suppose I could do ascii art, but you guys are supposed to be cutting edge.
experimenting here Hudson River School and so on and so forth…
hm, looks OK here but didn’t linkHudson River School
ah, that did it let me try Thomas Cole next.
and now let me try a blockquote,
or so he said.
hmm, It turned bold on me
stop it right now!
really! you do try a ladies patience…
now!
what happens if I just copy Greta’s example?
to see if that works.
Huh? is it reading the b in
what to do?
I give up… I put bold and unbold around the quote as well and it still stayed bold after the quote.
What happens if I just copy Greta’s example?
to see if that works?
A ha I see what you mean!
Let me try to do
I will leave no spaces before or after blockquoting.
That did not matter but
try closing the bold HTML tag after the blockquote?
That did not matter either. Let me try
before I give up. This time I left a space before and after the blockquote.
I have another idea:
Would it solve the problem?
Yet another idea
stubborn person than I am.
Please note that plnelson above has used the blockquote with no bold within. I don’t understand. I give up.
To
go where no man…
Potter,
(throwing in some italics just to see if that does anything).
No but
and he is not a potter.
You know we should conplain to management about this. Hello Nick Allen? Any ideas?
Hey!
If I start a new paragraph does it work?
Still how do I unbold what’s
and then unbold the rest? By starting new paragraphs for each?
Yup!