IntroductionBBCode is a special implementation of HTML. Whether you can actually use BBCode in your posts on the forum is determined by the administrator. In addition, you can disable BBCode on a per post basis via the posting form. BBCode itself is similar in style to HTML: tags are enclosed in square braces [ and ] rather than < and > and it offers greater control over what and how something is displayed.
Text FormattingHow to create bold, italic and underlined textBBCode includes tags to allow you to quickly change the basic style of your text. This is achieved in the following ways:
* To make a piece of text bold enclose it in [b][/b], eg.
[b]Hello[/b]
will become
Hello * For underlining use [u][/u], for example:
[u]Good Morning[/u]
becomes
Good Morning * To italicise text use [i][/i], eg.
This is [i]Great![/i]
would give This is
Great!How to change the text colour or sizeTo alter the color or size of your text the following tags can be used. Keep in mind that how the output appears will depend on the viewers browser and system:
* Changing the colour of text is achieved by wrapping it in [color=][/color]. You can specify either a recognised colour name (eg. red, blue, yellow, etc.) or the hexadecimal triplet alternative, eg. #FFFFFF, #000000. For example, to create red text you could use:
[color=red]Hello![/color]
or
[color=#FF0000]Hello![/color]
will both output
Hello!* Changing the text size is achieved in a similar way using [size=][/size]. This tag is dependent on the template you are using but the recommended format is a numerical value representing the text size in pixels, starting at 1 (so tiny you will not see it) through to 29 (very large). For example:
[size=9]SMALL[/size]
will generally be
SMALL whereas:
[size=24]HUGE![/size]
will be
HUGE!Can I combine formatting tags?Yes, of course you can; for example to get someones attention you may write:
[size=18][color=red][b]LOOK AT ME![/b][/color][/size]
this would output
LOOK AT ME!We don't recommend you output lots of text that looks like this, though! Remember that it is up to you, the poster, to ensure that tags are closed correctly. For example, the following is incorrect:
[b][u]This is wrong[/b][/u]
Quoting and outputting fixed-width textQuoting text in repliesThere are two ways you can quote text: with a reference or without.
* When you utilise the Quote function to reply to a post on the board you should notice that the post text is added to the message window enclosed in a
[quote=""][/quote]
block. This method allows you to quote with a reference to a person or whatever else you choose to put. For example, to quote a piece of text Mr. Blobby wrote, you would enter:
[quote="Mr. Blobby"]The text Mr. Blobby wrote would go here[/quote]
The resulting output will automatically add: Mr. Blobby wrote: before the actual text. Remember that you must include the quotation marks "" around the name you are quoting -- they are not optional.
* The second method allows you to blindly quote something. To utilise this enclose the text in
[quote][/quote]
tags. When you view the message it will simply show: Quote: before the text itself.
Outputting code or fixed width dataIf you want to output a piece of code or in fact anything that requires a fixed width with a Courier-type font, you should enclose the text in
[code][/code]
tags, eg.
echo "This is some code";
All formatting used within
[code][/code]
tags is retained when you later view it.
Generating lists
Creating an Un-ordered listBBCode supports two types of lists, unordered and ordered. They are essentially the same as their HTML equivalents. An unordered list ouputs each item in your list sequentially one after the other indenting each with a bullet character. To create an unordered list you use
[list][/list]
and define each item within the list using
. For example, to list your favorite colours you could use:
[list]
[*]Red
[*]Blue
[*]Yellow
[/list]
This would generate the following list:
- Red
- Blue
- Yellow
[/list:u]
Creating an Ordered list
The second type of list, an ordered list gives you control over what is output before each item. To create an ordered list you use [list=1][/list]
to create a numbered list or alternatively [list=a][/list]
for an alphabetical list. As with the unordered list items are specified using - . For example:
[list=1]
[*]Go to the shops
[*]Buy a new computer
[*]Swear at computer when it crashes
[/list]
will generate the following:
[list=1]
- Go to the shops
- Buy a new computer
- Swear at computer when it crashes
[/list:o]
Whereas for an alphabetical list you would use:
[list=a]
[*]The first possible answer
[*]The second possible answer
[*]The third possible answer
[/list]
giving
[list=a]
- The first possible answer
- The second possible answer
- The third possible answer
[/list:o]
Creating Links
Linking to another site
phpBB BBCode supports a number of ways of creating URLs.
* The first of these uses the [url=][/url] tag; whatever you type after the = sign will cause the contents of that tag to act as a URL. For example, to link to phpBB.com you could use:
[url=http://www.pinky-street.com/]Visit Pinky-Street.Com![/url]
This would generate the following link, Visit Pinky-Street.Com!! You will notice the link opens in a new window so the user can continue browsing the forums if they wish. This is a good way of "hiding" a very long URL that might widen your post abnormally, making the thread difficult to read.
* If you want the URL itself displayed as the link you can do this by simply using:
[url]http://www.pinky-street.com/[/url]
This would generate the following link: http://www.pinky-street.com/
* Additionally phpBB features something called Magic Linkswhich will turn any syntatically correct URL into a link without you needing to specify any tags or even the leading http://. For example typing www.pinky-street.com
into your message will automatically lead to www.pinky-street.com being output when you view the message.
* The same thing applies equally to email addresses; you can either specify an address explicitly, like:
[email]no.one@domain.adr[/email]
which will output no.one@domain.adr or you can just type no.one@domain.adr
into your message and it will be automatically converted when you view.
As with all the BBCode tags you can wrap URLs around any of the other tags such as [img][/img] (see next entry), [b][/b], etc. As with the formatting tags it is up to you to ensure the correct open and close order is following. For example:
[url=http://www.pinky-street.com/][img]http://www.pinky-street.com/images/bannersmall.gif[/url][/img]
is not correct.
Showing images in posts
Adding an image to a post
phpBB BBCode incorporates a tag for including images in your posts. A very important thing to remember when using this tag is: the image you display must already be available on the Internet (it cannot exist only on your computer, for example, unless you run a webserver!). There is currently no way of storing images locally with phpBB. For places that can host your images, please see the thread here
To display an image, you must surround the URL pointing to the image with [img][/img] tags. For example:
[img]http://www.pinky-street.com/images/bannersmall.gif[/img]
As noted in the URL section above you can wrap an image in a [url][/url] tag if you wish, eg.
[url=http://www.pinky-street.com/][img]http://www.pinky-street.com/images/bannersmall.gif[/img][/url]
would generate:
This is especially useful if you have a banner in your signature and you would like it to link to your own blog or website.
Phew! *wipes sweat off* I hope this helps someone! 
Author
Wow, Inga! What a great tutorial! Thanks so much for writing that! 
This is a great resource for people to refer to! You're awesome, Inga! 
those new comer should be thankful & grateful to u... 
for all these work..... 
), one for my Tae Kwon Do school, and one for work. I built them all from scratch. Good thing I like to do that! 
