I know I have been on these boards for a year or two, and I think I have learned alot by trial and error (best teacher I know;) ). But there are a couple of things I don’t quite yet know about posting on these boards.
One of the things is at the bottom of the Post New Thread page I am on right now. It says “Automatically parse URLs”. What does that mean? Does that mean if I put a web address here, it will automatically make it into a hyperlink? Here, lets do a test: http://www.csicop.org
Another thing. How do you place another board member’s quote in your post that automatically uses this format:
Up until now, I have simply been doing it all myself, which is okay. I think I am a good enough typist that a little extra typing won’t make that big of a difference to me. But how do you get the “]Originally posted by Jim B.” etc. inserted automatically?
I’ve noticed most posters follow a certain protocol. For example, when they refer to another poster, the usually put it in bold. Is that what these people are doing? Just following a protocol? Or is there a way to do this automatically?
I think you’ve figured out the parse URL thing. For quoting, instead of picking “post reply”, pick “quote”, found in the lower-righthand corner of every post. There is, as far as I know, no way to automatically embolden usernames; I’ve been doing it manually all these years.
The bolding of a fellow poster’s name is simply a convention which many messageboards use - it makes it much easier to follow the “conversation” without confusion about which of the very many messageboard members is being referred to.
The quote function is inbuilt. Just hit the “quote” button on the post you wish to quote and delete the parts of that post you don’t wish to quote. The only caveat on using this function is that it’s against board rules to edit the post you are quoting in such a way as to change its meaning.
And yes, the “parse url” function will turn any www address into a link.
Depending on how you have your preferences set - ie, whether you are using the simple reply box or the “click and paste” one - you can almost automatically bold or italicise anything. I do it manually by using the {b}{/b} (replace with square brackets) commands because I actually find that much faster than using the dialogue box in the reply screen to bold.
Just for the record, it’s my usual practice, because I may want to quote more than one other person in a post or explain where the heck I got the post from, to type in the “Originally posted by Joe Poster” in italics, with the name bolded, and whatever note I may want to make (e.g., “in this Pit thread,” “on another board,” “two years ago in response to a question on hamster diseases,” or whatever) after the name.
The name-in-bold thing has been covered here, I guess. I’m also pretty sure I remember some conversations about it from a while back here in ATMB. In case anyone’s interested in looking it up. I think it was discussed in the “unwritten rules of the SDMB” (approximate name) thread from however long ago.
FTR I do it manually too. I’ve always thought of it as sort of a respect thing.
I also agree with reprise about the crazy vb interface they added with the last upgrade – I’ve only ever used it for font size changes, since I can never seem to remember that command’s syntax correctly. I prefer doing the typing myself.
If you’re quoting more than one post, you can right-click on the quote button and select “open link in new window”. Then copy into the post you’re composing
Hoooly moly. I never thought of that. All this time I’ve been thinking I had to type out all the codes manually to quote more than one post, this is gonna be a huge time-saver. Thanks rowrrbazzle.
For example, this is what it looks like if you just use the quote button:
Now done manually:
And now cut and pasted.
quote:
Originally posted by White Lightning
The name-in-bold thing has been covered here, I guess. I’m also pretty sure I remember some conversations about it from a while back here in ATMB. In case anyone’s interested in looking it up. I think it was discussed in the “unwritten rules of the SDMB” (approximate name) thread from however long ago.
FTR I do it manually too. I’ve always thought of it as sort of a respect thing.
Now I have stage fright.
(preview)
Well hot-diggity-damn!
I hate that quote within the quote bug. It can really screw you up in GD.
