You can actually teach yourself quite a bit about simple HTML formatting through using the little buttons above the text entry page, even on replys to posts like this one.

In order, the B button inserts:

<strong>BOLD TEXT GOES HERE</strong>

The I button inserts:

<em>ITALIC TEXT GOES HERE</em>

The U button inserts:

<u>UNDERLINED TEXT GOES HERE</u>

The C button inserts:

<div align="center">

</div>

The Q button inserts:

<blockquote>

INDENTED BLOCK QUOTE GOES HERE

</blockquote>

The H, Y, and N buttons apply various text treatments. Here's one of them:

<font face='verdana,arial,geneva,sanserif' size='2' color='#603'>TEXT</font>

The _ (Underline) button inserts a non-breaking space character, which can be used to adjust an indentation or force two or more spaces to appear between sentences or other text:

One     Two

is generated like this:

One&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Two

The two angle bracket keys — < and > — insert “Escape Sequences” that allow one to create pages like this one, which use what looks like HTML tags using those two special characters to be displayed without becoming invisible and taking effect:

<em> is generated like this:

&lt;em&gt;

The two picture buttons that look something like I Ching symbols generate a numbered list and a bulleted (unordered) list respectively:

<ol>
  <li>ITEM GOES HERE</li>
</ol>

1. List Item 1
2. List Item 2

<ul>
  <li>ITEM GOES HERE</li>
</ul>

• List Item
• List Item

You'll have to manually duplicate as many item lines as you'll need, as the I Ching buttons only generate one item line per list.

The picture button that looks like a landscape allows one to generate an inline image:

<img src="/topshelf/system/files/u2392/3skel.jpg" width="262" height="275" alt="Three Skeletons" />

It only allows images that have been uploaded to Big Closet to be chosen, but you can always edit the resulting link to choose another image from anywhere, taking care to edit the width and height attributes so the image is not distorted. Be careful with this tool, as site users on dial-up lines may be severely discommoded if you pt a huge image into your story or a blog entry or comment.

Uploading images to Big Closet is much safer, as it automatically resizes your image to a more-or-less reasonable size to minimise bandwidth for dial-up users.

The picture button that looks like a globe with either an infinity symbol or two links of a chain allows one to generate a link:

<a href="http://www.bigclosetr.us/topshelf/" title="Big Closet">Unfortunately, it doesn't have a blank entry box to insert the needed descriptive text, like this bit.</a>

Without the descriptive text, the link will be invisible.

The picture button that looks like an eye is very handy, as it allows you to quickly “preview” your post and then toggle back to the edit box.

The picture box with the letter A over the letter B with a dotted horizontal line between them generates the famous “break” field that separates the break between the “splash” title and text (with optional picture) that appears in the story list and the body of the story proper. It's really only useful for story authors:

<!--break-->

The question mark (?) button accesses the help function which explains what all the buttons do.

Cheers,

Puddin'