Here are the common code tags. With the why* at the bottom of the page (out of the way)
bold code
italic
underline
size (5)
url code (bbc news)
(produces url code (bbc news))
or just
left aligned text
centre aligned text
[right]right aligned text[/right]
font (Verdana)
bulleted list…
[ul]
[li]item 1[/li][li]item 2[/li][li]item 3[/li][/ul]
numbered list…
[ol]
[li]item 1[/li][li]item 2[/li][li]item 3[/li][/ol]
alphabetical list…
[list=a]
[li]item 1[/li][li]item 2[/li][li]item 3[/li][/list]
An example of combining code
The code activated produces the following…
bold code
italic
underline
size (5)
url code (bbc news)
or just
left aligned text
centre aligned text
[right]right aligned text[/right]
font (Verdana)
bulleted list…
[ul]
[li]item 1[/li][li]item 2[/li][li]item 3[/li][/ul]
numbered list…
[ol]
[li]item 1[/li][li]item 2[/li][li]item 3[/li][/ol]
alphabetical list…
[list=a]
[li]item 1[/li][li]item 2[/li][li]item 3[/li][/list]
An example of combining code
[sub]*Whenever I see people asking how to do code I see someone else give an answer along the lines of “do this with [ and ] instead of { and }” or “without the space” or some other modification.
Using html code (replace the [ with it’s html code equivalent - here) it is possible to demonstrate coding without modifying it to ‘disable’ it. So I often reply accordingly.
I am going to link to this thread in my sig. (uncluding a few other links I think are useful)
[/sub]
Dude! I still don’t get how you did it. But if you tell me and it solves the smiley problem I’ll love you forever. Or, if you’d prefer, just be happy?your call. 
Do you mean when the ‘)’ changes the rolleyes smiley into a normal one?
Using this page (the link is not working for me, but I think that’s a problem at my place of work) find the html code for the right parenthesis ‘)’ and use that code instead of the ) in your post.
Remember: If you preview all the html code will be replaced with the relevant characters so be careful.
So you’re saying I can type the & characters for an em dash, so long as I don’t preview? Or are you suggesting I use the alt+#### characters?
after much arsing about with charmap and calculator (to turn hex into decimal) I have discovered that the ascii code for ) is 41, so if you type “& # 41 ;” without the quotes and spaces you will get )
so you can do this (:rolleyes:)
What I am saying is, if you construct a post using the special html code ‘strings’ instead of chars like ‘)’ or ‘[’ and then you preview, the software will replace all your special html strings with the actual chars, thus defeating the object of using them in the first place.
If you were able to see my ‘raw draft’ for the op you’d see lots of strange strings instead of '['s
Damn… my em dash didn’t work!
Ohhhh! Only the numbers work now, not the named code. OK. I can live with this. Does anyone see anything other than an em dash in my last post?
A-HA! figured out how to show html code. So… to fake vbscript
[b]bold[/b] will show in your post as bold
and to stop the ) mollesting the rolleyes smiley
(:rolleyes:) will produce (:rolleyes:)
You realize, Lobsang, that you’ve now set yourself up for an infinite regression. 'Cause now you have to tell us how you typed the first half of the second line of that post. And after you explain that, you’ll have to explain how you explained it. And then,…
Lobsang, why not just link to this page? 
As to coding the & characters, one need only figure out the ASCII value of the ampersand and use that. The space is number 32, so counting up to the ampersand gives 38. So if I type & it should give me an ampersand…
On preview, yes it does. And should you want to preview, just copy your code and paste it back in when the preview window comes up. 
(FTR, I typed & # 38 ; # 38 ; without the spaces, and that produced the ampersand code.)