How to do neat things when using HTML (Hitchcock's) forum
Don't try to memorise all the code, just use a text editor or wordpad type app and copy the stuff you want to keep. When you go to post, just copy and paste text colour, new paragraphs, or just type the simpler stuff!
I will do this in sections...
Basic HTML commands.
whatever you want to do, the code will start with a < and end with a > with stuff in the middle.
Here is a demo to get bold text <b> YAY! Much more fun!
There will come a point when you want to stop the bold text, so you use the same code but with the addition of a / to say end as in... </b> See how that works?
While we are on text, add <br>
to get a new line or <br><br>
to get a new paragraph. <br><br> is useful before and after videos and pictures too, but we come to them later.
Other simple text codes are <i> for italic </i>,also, <u>which gives an underline</u>you can combine these as well...
we start <i> with italic <b> make it bold <u> and then underline it... take away the underline, </u> the italics, </i> and we are left with bold. </b> and then back to normal.
there is also <s> which is strikethrough, which ends with </s>just like that!
Bigger paragraph space... that was three <br> as in... <br><br><br>
Heading, normal text, colour and centring!
pasting this as the first part of your post, will give it colour!
<font color="#336600">
this defines the default colour for all following text, even if you temporarily change it with the following p style command. The six digit number being the actual hex code for the colour you want. End colour with </font> which defaults to black.
I will just get my green text back... <font color="#336600">
This time I will pick another colour just for a section of text using the 'Paragraph' command.
<p style="color:#AA33FF">
This is useful for highlighting a section of text! at the end of the wanted section just add
</p> and we default back to the army green then! (or black if you didn't use the font color command earlier.)
<h1>
Headings...
</h1>
You can also change the colour by using the Paragraph command, just change the 'P' for "h1" (or "h2"), and as expected, the </h1> (</h2>) ends the heading and defaults the text to black. one moment, Let's try the h2 smaller heading and change the colour... <h2 style="color:#bb0033">
Not quite as large as the H1 above!
</h2>
To centre everything in your post from this point on, use <center>
(note the american spelling of centre)
We will "un-centre" at the end of this article, but you guessed it '</center>' the centre command cancels Paragraph colour text, but not Font colour text. (Tip... <center> is useful for photos, so can be the first line in your post, followed by font colour.)
Photos
Firstly, you need to upload your photo to one of the photo sharing sites, tiny pic being the one I tend to use. Resize (make a copy if needed) to 640 width, so that it fits your post ok. When uploaded the site will give you some options of code to copy for different applications. Do not use the one for forums and bulletin boards, as Hitchcock's forum is unusual as it uses HTML, so copy the 'HTML for websites' code. It will look similar to this...
<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=2dui79s" target="_blank"><img src="http://i61.tinypic.com/2dui79s.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>
As long as it starts <a href=... then you have the right type of code
for neatness if using text as well, put a couple of <br><br> just before and after the picture code to make it a 'paragraph' all it's own.
The code allows you to click on the photo and go to your tiny pic account. you can disable that by just keeping the middle of the code in this case
<img src="http://i61.tinypic.com/2dui79s.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">
Non clickable photo!
again, multiple photos are better separated with <br><br> to give a blank line between them.
Youtube type videos
Go and start playing the vid you wish to show in your post. 1) Below it, click on 'share' 2) click on 'Embed', you will see a line of code but... 3) Just below the code, click on 'show more' 4) select video size 640 by (whatever) so it fits your post ok 5) Copy the code which will be similar to...
Again, remembering to put <br><br> before and after, if putting the vid in the middle of some text, you should get the following...
(When you finally send your post, it will upload and then open but you won't see the vid, just a space where it should be. Don't panic, just go to the forum topics list, then return back to your post and the vid is there. It's just the way it is!)
Now back to the centre command. We are still centred, so a quick </center>
And we are back to left justified text.
To find the code for coloured text, go to Colour picker replace the six digits in <font color="#123456"> for normal colour text or <h1 style="color:#123456"> for colour heading text, with the code of the colour you want.
Make your own flash signature if you want !
Something else to help is to download a free html editor. you can type you post there, see it previewed live, and fix the usual errors! I use Tacoedit on a macbook.
stuff to copy and examples
To just use colour text in your post
<font color="#af4500">
to centre your text with colour which is good for posts with pics and vids...
<center><font color="#af4500">
or
<center> <font color="#af4500">
The forum and your browser do not care about layout. more than one space in a row is ignored, as are new lines/line return. The two examples below will show exactly the same when posted.
<center><font color="#af4500">I just got a great new royal enfield, here is a photo...<br><br><img src="http://i61.tinypic.com/2dui79s.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"><br><br>Now dosn't that look great?
<center> <font color="#af4500"> I just got a great new royal enfield, here is a photo...<br><br>
<img src="http://i61.tinypic.com/2dui79s.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">
<br><br>Now dosn't that look great?
When you post either of the above examples, the forum strips out all your line spacing and only goes by the HTML formatting such as <br> and the like! Anyway, you will get the following...
I just got a great new royal enfield, here is a photo...
Now doesn't that look great?
posts with videos
really quite easy. we do an example with centred colour text and a vid.
<center> <font color="#af4500"> I took my army bullet, Tornado, down a byway!<br><br>
So let's just check on what all this does again...
<center> = everything after is centred
<font color="#af4500"> = following text is coloured until a change of colour or a </font> is reached
I took my army... = your text, or even photos or other stuff you might want to put in. FOLLOWED BY <br><br> To give a vertical space before the photo or video and keep it in the centre, if you forget the br's, then your text will push the photo to one side.
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L72lp1BwZ1E?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> = The embed code from youtube
FOLLOWED BY <br><br> To give a verticle space after the photo or video
It was damn good fun! = More text, photos etc.
Let's 'post it' below and see what we get...
I took my army bullet, Tornado, down a byway!
It was damn good fun!
Have fun with your forum posts. Just start with a text colour or picture and experiment from there!
