Formatting tools for posts and replies

[Patioboater]

With the move to the new boards (which I do like overall) we seem to have lost a piece of functionality that I really liked. The "Post Reply" form on the old board had a batch of buttons that would help you to insert the correct HTML tagging for italics, bold, underlining, embedding links, displaying unformatted text (which many of us used to post tables), and a few other things.

Now we just seem to have an assortment of smilies.

Is it that those tools are still there and I'm just not looking in the right place? Or are they indeed gone, and if so is there any chance of getting a few of those formatting tools back in the "Post New Thread" and "Reply" forms?

Thanks for any help on this front!

[Tom_T]

Not only are they still here, they're far easier to use. Under "User CP", select "Options". At the bottom of the Options page, select something other than "Basic editor." From then on, your Reply box will have the same type of formatting buttons that you see in Word and Excel (e.g. highlight a word, then click 'B' to bold it.)

[Patioboater]

Thanks, Tom, that's very helpful indeed!

• I had a feeling
• It had to be
• Something simple like that.

And yes indeed, they are much better than the old formatting tools.

[GoldenEagle]

Patioboater, another thing I noticed is that when you edit your own posts, you sometimes lose a lot of the editing icons and such (you get the basics like bold, italic, and underline). So what I do is to click on the Go Advanced button and the whole group pops up again. The other nice thing is that you can always use Ctl-B for Bold, Ctl-I for Italics, and Ctl-U for underline, which is sometimes faster than hunting for the buttons.

[circle360]

Thanks GE. I usually spend time hunting for the buttons.

[Patioboater]

Patioboater, another thing I noticed is that when you edit your own posts, you sometimes lose a lot of the editing icons and such (you get the basics like bold, italic, and underline). So what I do is to click on the Go Advanced button and the whole group pops up again. The other nice thing is that you can always use Ctl-B for Bold, Ctl-I for Italics, and Ctl-U for underline, which is sometimes faster than hunting for the buttons.

Thanks, GE! I'm so used to posting on the old boards that I've still been doing all my highlighting by typing tags like [ B ] and [ / B ].

[GoldenEagle]

I've been using PC's for 25 years now, and it's amazing how much you miss. Shortcuts and tips are primarily time-savers. On another board just this month, I learned that Ctl-F opens the Find dialog box in Explorer, Word, and Excel. I always used to go to the menu and click on Edit, then Find, and I never thought the function was available in Explorer.

I'm a big advocate of sharing knowledge like this. Drives productivity from a macroeconomic standpoint, and it's good to help your fellow man.

[Patioboater]

Yup, love those keyboard shortcuts. We do a lot of continuous development on a couple of editorial systems for the publishing company I work for, and I'm always nagging the developers about stuff like where the focus is when a screen comes up and the tab order. It seems like trivial stuff, but when you have 200 people doing an action 200 times a day, the added effort of a few keystrokes starts to add up.

Alas, since I'm accessing these reply screens through Internet Explorer, when I just tried the ones you mentioned above on my reply screen, Ctrl+ i got me the "history" list on my browser and Ctrl + b brought back my "Organize favorites" screen. Oh well, clicking a button is still a nice step forward from bracketing by hand.

[Ron V]

Thanks GE. I usually spend time hunting for the buttons.

I hope Lisa doesn't say that about you

[circle360]

I hope Lisa doesn't say that about you

HAHAHA that was a good one ron.

To answer your question No she doesnt say that lol.