Okay, I admit that all this techno-stuff still tends to confound the hell out of me. I am new not only to the SDMB (also glad to be here and having a great time!), but to computing in general (it’s a long, boring story, so don’t ask; just shake your heads in disbelief and pity). That being said, I have tried unsuccesfully to figure out how to a) reply with a quote. and b) set up a signature line. I’m smart enough to know when to ask for help, so… HELP!? And thank you, in advance!
To reply with a quote, click on the “Quote” button below the post you want to copy. (If it’s in another thread, you’ll then have to cut and paste to get it to the right answer post window.)
To update your signature, click the “Profile” icon at the top of the page. Then put stuff into the signature slot. You can use ** [b ****] to bold **and [sub][sub[/sub][sub]][/sub] to shrink, and : ) for :), etc.
Most of these are listed at the little blue links on the top of the posting page. For “sub”, search this forum.
If your sig doesn’t appear, you probably forgot to click the “show signature” box under the posting window. **It must be re-clicked after a preview.
For more information, also click on “FAQ” at the top of every SDMB page. It’s not perfect (we’re gonna update it one of these days, I swear), but it will give you more information as to how to navigate around here.
There are a few threads in IMHO and MPSIMS that deal with tips newbies should know, and posting habits that Dopers hate, etc. A search of the term newbie turns up far too many. Try “habits” or “rules” or “tips”, in the subject line.
I go about it this way- {B}Cnote{/b} wrote: {QUOTE}blah -cut and paste here- blah{/QUOTE}.
replace the { } with . Works well and you can control what part of the quote to keep. Quoting the whole damn post with only a tiny reply has always irritated me.
It’s a lot easier to hit the quote button and then edit out the part you don’t want to quote.
That way, you keep the original poster’s name in italics, and won’t forget part of the coding.
Like I can start doing italics with [ i ] but then forget myself and close it off with [ /b ], making a mess. Fortunately, I always preview.
BTW, you don’t have to use curley brackets to show the coding. Just put a space inside the and it won’t be recognized as a code. The space nearly disappears when it’s displayed
The codes around here are just a crippled and somewhat simplified version of HTML. If you understand markup languages (which is what HTML is, as opposed to a programming language) you should do fine here. If you don’t, learning the codes here is easy. Just remember to always follow a function with a negation. For example, [ i ] needs a [ /i ] to work correctly. When in doubt, preview. You can catch spelling errors that way, too. The Preview feature is helpful because you can’t edit your posts around here.
Don’t forget that if you click the link at the bottom of the page that says “vB Code is On” you will be taken to the vB Code page listing all the codes & syntax.