BBCode is a special implementation of HTML. Whether you can actually use BBCode in your posts on the forum is determined by the administrator. In addition you can disable BBCode on a per post basis via the posting form. BBCode itself is similar in style to HTML, tags are enclosed in square brackets [ and ] rather than < and > and it offers greater control over what and how something is displayed. Depending on the template you are using you may find adding BBCode to your posts is made much easier through a clickable interface above the message area on the posting form. Even with this you may find the following guide useful.

BBCode includes tags to allow you to quickly change the basic style of your text. This is achieved in the following ways:

• To make a piece of text bold enclose it in [b][/b], e.g.
  
  [b]Hello[/b]
  
  will become Hello
• For underlining use [u][/u], for example:
  
  [u]Good Morning[/u]
  
  becomes Good Morning
• To italicise text use [i][/i], e.g.
  
  This is [i]Great![/i]
  
  would give This is Great!

To alter the colour or size of your text the following tags can be used. Keep in mind that how the output appears will depend on the viewers browser and system:

• Changing the colour of text is achieved by wrapping it in [color=][/color]. You can specify either a recognised colour name (eg. red, blue, yellow, etc.) or the hexadecimal triplet alternative, e.g. #FFFFFF, #000000. For example, to create red text you could use:
  
  [color=red]Hello![/color]
  
  or
  
  [color=#FF0000]Hello![/color]
  
  Both will output Hello!
• Changing the text size is achieved in a similar way using [size=][/size]. This tag is dependent on the template the user has selected but the recommended format is a numerical value representing the text size in percent, starting at 20 (very small) through to 200 (very large) by default. For example:
  
  [size=30]SMALL[/size]
  
  will generally be SMALL
  
  whereas:
  
  [size=200]HUGE![/size]
  
  will be HUGE!

To alter the appearance of your text, you can change the font face. This can be accomplished by wrapping the text in [face=][/face] tags. Keep in mind that in order for another person to see text in the font you choose, they must have that font installed on their system. For that reason, it is a good idea to stick with commonly distributed fonts. A list of several is provided in the Font Face selection box on the posting page.

To use a font, type the full name of the font in the face tags. For example:

[face=Comic Sans MS]This is a common font![/face]

This would output as: This is a common font!

You can raise and lower text using the [sup][/sup] and [sub][/sub] tags. Take this example:

He placed 1[sup]st[/sup] in the [sub]over[/sub]all race.

The result of this example would be:

He placed 1^st in the _overall race.

Yes, of course you can, for example to get someone's attention you may write:

[size=200][color=red][b]LOOK AT ME![/b][/color][/size]

this would output LOOK AT ME!

We don’t recommend you output lots of text that looks like this though! Remember it is up to you, the poster, to ensure tags are closed correctly. For example the following is incorrect:

[b][u]This is wrong[/b][/u]

There are two ways you can quote text, with a reference or without.

• When you utilise the Quote function to reply to a post on the board you should notice that the post text is added to the message window enclosed in a [quote=""][/quote] block. This method allows you to quote with a reference to a person or whatever else you choose to put! For example to quote a piece of text Mr. Blobby wrote you would enter:
  
  [quote="Mr. Blobby"]The text Mr. Blobby wrote would go here[/quote]
  
  The resulting output will automatically add "Mr. Blobby wrote:" before the actual text. Remember you must include the quotation marks "" around the name you are quoting, they are not optional.
• The second method allows you to blindly quote something. To utilise this enclose the text in [quote][/quote] tags. When you view the message it will simply show the text within a quotation block.

If you want to output a piece of code or in fact anything that requires a fixed width, e.g. Courier type font you should enclose the text in [code][/code] tags, e.g.

[code]echo "This is some code";[/code]

All formatting used within [code][/code] tags is retained when you later view it. PHP syntax highlighting can be enabled using [code=php][/code] and is recommended when posting PHP code samples as it improves readability.

BBCode supports two types of lists, unordered and ordered. They are essentially the same as their HTML equivalents. An unordered list outputs each item in your list sequentially one after the other indenting each with a bullet character. To create an unordered list you use [list][/list] and define each item within the list using [*]. For example to list your favourite colours you could use:

[list]
[*]Red
[*]Blue
[*]Yellow
[/list]

This would generate the following list:

• Red
• Blue
• Yellow

The second type of list, an ordered list, gives you control over what is output before each item. To create an ordered list you use [list=1][/list] to create a numbered list or alternatively [list=a][/list] for an alphabetical list. As with the unordered list, items are specified using [*]. For example:

[list=1]
[*]Go to the shops
[*]Buy a new computer
[*]Swear at computer when it crashes
[/list]

will generate the following:

1. Go to the shops
2. Buy a new computer
3. Swear at computer when it crashes

Whereas for an alphabetical list you would use:

[list=a]
[*]The first possible answer
[*]The second possible answer
[*]The third possible answer
[/list]

giving

1. The first possible answer
2. The second possible answer
3. The third possible answer

BBCode supports a number of ways of creating links.

• The first of these uses the [url=][/url] tag, whatever you type after the = sign will cause the contents of that tag to act as a URL. For example to link to psalgo.com you could use:
  
  [url=http://www.psalgo.com/]Visit Fringes of Algo![/url]
  
  This would generate the following link, Visit Fringes of Algo! Please notice that the link opens in the same window or a new window depending on the users browser preferences.
• If you want the URL itself displayed as the link you can do this by simply using:
  
  [url]http://www.psalgo.com/[/url]
  
  This would generate the following link, http://www.psalgo.com/
• Additionally, phpBB features something called Magic Links, this will turn any syntactically correct URL into a link without you needing to specify any tags or even the leading http://. For example typing www.psalgo.com into your message will automatically lead to www.psalgo.com being output when you view the message.
• The same thing applies equally to e-mail addresses, you can either specify an address explicitly for example:
  
  [email]no.one@domain.adr[/email]
  
  which will output no.one@domain.adr or you can just type no.one@domain.adr into your message and it will be automatically converted when you view.

As with all the BBCode tags you can wrap URLs around any of the other tags such as [img][/img] (see next entry), [b][/b], etc. As with the formatting tags it is up to you to ensure the correct open and close order is following, for example:

[url=http://www.google.com/][img]http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif[/url][/img]

is not correct which may lead to your post being deleted so take care.

Spoilers are bits of information that should not be revealed in plain text for some reason. For example, imaging you are playing a new game and looking forward to experiencing the story for yourself. Instead, you go online and see someone has posted critical plot details, ruining the story for you! If they had used the [spoiler][/spoiler] tags, you would have had the choice to view the story spoilers or skip them.

The spoiler tags obscure text by covering it with a black bar. Using a inline tag allows you to cover part of a sentence. For example:

When you get to [spoiler]Esper Mansion[/spoiler], you will learn a secret.

That would output:

When you get to Esper Mansion, you will learn a secret.

To see the blacked out section, simply click on it.

When you have a lot of spoilers to post, it is better to use the box form of the spoiler tags, [spoiler=][/spoiler] tags. The box form also allows you to specify a title. Here is an example:

[spoiler=This is my Title]Important plot details here![/spoiler]

The output of this is:



Again, simply click the black area to reveal what is hidden inside. You can also hide the text again by clicking again. This form also has a handy Reveal/Obscure switch.

BBCode incorporates a tag for including images in your posts. Two very important things to remember when using this tag are: many users do not appreciate lots of images being shown in posts and secondly the image you display must already be available on the internet (it cannot exist only on your computer for example, unless you run a webserver!). To display an image you must surround the URL pointing to the image with [img][/img] tags. For example:

[img]http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif[/img]

As noted in the URL section above you can wrap an image in a [url][/url] tag if you wish, e.g.

[url=http://www.google.com/][img]http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif[/img][/url]

would generate:

Another way to add images to your posts is to use the alignment tags. These tags work just like the [img][/img] tags, but will cause an image to be aligned to the left or right of any surrounding text. These tags are [right][/right] for right aligned images and [left][/left] for left aligned images.

As you can see in the example here, you can even have right and left aligned images on both sides of a single block of text. The text will flow around the images, filling the space near them. One tip for using these codes is to type your text after them, on the same line as the codes. That will ensure that the text starts even with the top of the images.

The tags for the above images look like this:

[right]http://www.psalgo.com/boards/images/avatars/gallery/Phantasy%20Star%20IV/bigmusk1.gif[/right]

[left]http://www.psalgo.com/boards/images/avatars/gallery/Phantasy%20Star%20IV/bigmusk1.gif[/left]

Attachments can be placed in any part of a post by using the new [attachment=][/attachment] BBCode, if the attachments functionality has been enabled by a board administrator and if you are given the appropriate permissions to create attachments. Within the posting screen is a drop-down box (respectively a button) for placing attachments inline.

When you find a great video on Youtube you would like to share, you can embed it with the [youtube][/youtube] tags. This is a little tricky, so pay close attention! First, find the URL address to your video. These are usually shown in an "Embed" box when a video has finished playing. Here is a good example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPj0E7EDt4k

Now, you need to use only part of that in the tags. See the ?v= in the URL above? Place everything after that, but before any & character, in the Youtube tags.

This is correct: [youtube]rPj0E7EDt4k[/youtube]

These are wrong:

• [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPj0E7EDt4k[/youtube]
• [youtube]rPj0E7EDt4k&some=1[/youtube]

A correct usage will show your video inline:

A great set of tags for combining with other tags is the [center][/center] tags. These allow you to place things in a centered alignment. Look at this example:

[center][img]http://www.psalgo.com/boards/images/avatars/gallery/Phantasy%20Star%20IV/bigmusk1.gif[/img][/center]

The output will look like this:



This is a great code to combine with images or Youtube videos.