Board Formatting 101
On your way to write what feels like a book on your next post? I’m here to help you make sure your post is both long and enjoyable to read. It’s a hard balance to strike, and that’s why I made this guide!
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####Last updated: 5/5/15
As you can already see in this post, there are a few things you can do that the toolbar doesn't do for you.
#When to NOT use special characters
Most of the formatting here is done by using special characters or character strings, but naturally there may be times when you simply want to use the character as is. If this is the case use a back slash ("") before any of these characters and the character in question will pop-up normally
#Headers
These are made with a “#” at the beginning of a line. It will give a small increase to the size and automatically bold whatever follows. If you’re like me though they’ll not stand out quite enough to break up sections so I’ve found also including them inside a quote block (“>”) as seen above can really pop it out. (Credit to Stephenizgod for this trick)
There are three 'tiers' of headers available so far:
#As ##shown ######here
gives
#As ##shown ######here
#Horizontal Dividers
My bread and butter, these are a godsend for sectioned and long posts. These are created by placing “---“ (underscores work as well) at the beginning of a line. Use these to break up major sections of a long post.
#Jerry-rigged Columns (Old Tables)
So for CB veterans you may remember when I stumbled onto tables and the fun we had from there. Well I don’t know if you’ve bothered to experiment but the ‘table’ part of the Tables syntax is gone. Well, rather, it’s invisible. But you know what this does mean? You can jerry-rig column alignments! here’s how:
|Champion-------------------------|Icon|
|-
|Aatrox| {{champion:266}"} |
|Ahri| {{champion:103}"} |
gives
|Champion-------------------------|Icon|
|-
|Aatrox|
|
|Ahri|
|
To explain, add a “|-“ after the starting line to end the header, and simply add “|” to divide rest of the rows. You can have as many rows as you like. These boxes and the text inside will automatically arrange themselves so you may have to experiment a bit to make it work. You can spillover if you add too many columns so be careful.
The trick here is that the first line, the header row, defines how wide the columns are, so use “neutral characters” like a dash, equal sign or other to manually adjust the width. This is most likely not an intended use so you’ll most likely have to do some experimenting depending on how you want to use it, have fun!
######Note: This will not work if you have anything directly above or below the table. Make sure those lines are clear.
#Embedding
Simply by copy and pasting the URL of certain media sites will embed the site directly, so no tab or window hopping needed! Confirmed functional for:
- Twitch Channel (video only, no chat)
- Soundcloud songs (includes timed comments and background)
- Imgur Pics/Albums (Example in Troubleshooting below)
- Youtube Videos
- Vimeo
- Spotify
- Vine
- Deviant Art
- Google Drive (Slightly buggy currently)
#Thumbnails
These are the pictures that show up next to your post on the listed pages. The thumbnail image will be the first image that appears within your post. But it doesn't have to be the first image to be visible. You can 'hide' an image by putting the image file inside of a hyperlink with a blank assignment (i.e. [](--image URL--)). When the page renders that specific image will not show up, but if it's at the top of your post it'll be in your thumbnail on the Board's topic list! (Credit to Aereial
#Auto-features
The basic formatting options like bullets and numbering have some automatic adjustments that claim to be 'intuitive'. Don't worry it took me awhile too. Here are some examples for the basics as well as some interesting combos! (Credit to Aerelia for the combo tricks)
Examples:
- one * fish * two * fish * red * fish * blue * fish
gives
- one
- fish
- two
- fish
- red
- fish
- blue
- fish
######Normal numbering works as well, but bullets will continue the numbering operation as long as you don't skip a line. Remember, however, that it's harder to keep track of the numbers code-side if working with a large list.
{no space}* c-c-c-c-c-c-c {one space}* -c-c-c-combo {three space}* breaker!
gives
- c-c-c-c-c-c-c
- -c-c-c-combo
- breaker!
######Note that you do not need to have the previous bullets in order, you can start with the square and end with the normal bullet, but each syntax will keep it's respective indentation.
1.{one space}* Boom 2.{five space}* Headshot 3.{four space}* Or possibly {one space}* just a cupcake
gives
-
- Boom
-
* Headshot -
- Or possibly
- just a cupcake
######Note that using bullets after numbers will mean the bullets will always be locked to that output no matter the syntax.
#http://i.imgur.com/bn5srbv.png Readability
#Emphasize and Emphasize Well
Bolding and italics are great tools to show where you really want a point to hit home, or to really mean something, you know? But there is a time and a place for everything. Overuse of bolding and italics will just confuse readers and stop them halfway through.
As such, here’s my advice: Use bolding to draw attention (i.e. keywords, quotes) and use italics to intensify (i.e. mood words, emotional conveying). But make sure to use both in moderation.
#Break it up!
A wall of text is just that, a wall. A block. One big chunk that when someone first sees they don’t want to read it just because if the size. Our brains work in funny ways, and things as small as
-
Indenting
-
bulletpoints
-
Using large quotes
-
Line separation
-
Using pictures
...can visually break up your post and make the larger posts read by much faster!
Don’t believe me? Go copy and paste a news article or other large chunk of text in notepad/Word and take off all the indents and line separations. Does it read any different? I bet it does!
#Flatten Subtle Images
Square images are funny with text, the reason being is that they don’t have the same visual geometry of a paragraph (a wide rectangle) and so stick out like a sore thumb. In certain situations this can actually be a good thing, for when you want to draw attention to the image. But if you don’t want to draw attention to the image (like what I’m doing with these sections) it’s better to lower the image’s profile by cropping and cutting it down to size. I suggest dimensions of around 450x115 but feel free to experiment.
Sites like Imgur and default programs like paint can help you with this. More advanced software like GIMP can also help you if you’re thinking of flat out creating your own images.
(Note that images will always scale down to a width of 500 when embedding on the Boards)
#Clutter
Now with all of this new stuff I bet you want to put as many of these fancy mechanics in a post that you can. But be careful. If your post is supposed to be read make sure it's easy to do so! Pictures and color are great, but too much and they will distract. Always read through your own post once everything is rendered to make sure it's not too visually 'busy'. Try skimming your post. If you can do that easily it should be good.
#Spelling
Please, please, please do your best to spell everything right in your post. Double checking is encouraged! The occasional typo is fine, we’re only human (at least I hope), but if your post is riddled with spelling errors it just cheapens the whole thing, and in some cases may even make your post confusing to read. Remember, your in-browser spellcheck won't get everything!
Psssst, protip:
- Your = Your post there
- You’re = You are reading a post now
- Their = Their posts there
- They’re = They are reading a post
- There = That post there
- It's = It is
- Its = Its post is there
I love these things, really I do. Really cleans up a post by taking out the long and unwieldy URL links. But with great convenience comes great responsibility!
There are a few things you can do to make these better....
Check them! It's very easy to link the wrong URL. I cannot count the number of times I've accidently copy-pasted the wrong URL into a hyperlink. I've done it, Rioters have done it, and you can very easily do it if you're not careful. But it's easy to fix!
Be relevant. A linked phrase could make perfect sense, or I could shamelessly advertise another one of my posts by tricking you. Don't be that guy, make sure your readers have a good guess contextually where a link will lead them and they'll thank you by going there!
Embeds won't work. If you’re using a service I listed above in Embedding, don’t try to use those for hyperlinks. They will ‘eat’ your linked word and embed directly automatically. Fixed!
Hyperlinks are not a font color You shouldn't have to link an an entire sentence, link one or two words inside the sentence, ones that makes sense. The link is there for our browsing convenience and we will click it if we are interested, not because it's taking up a lot of real estate.
#Don't speak in Icons!
I know it’s tempting, but don't replace words with icons. It screws with the alignment of the text and makes the whole thing look messy. Give icons their own lines and use them as attention drawing examples. They are * great* for bullets.
#http://i.imgur.com/aVrw6hM.png Troubleshooting
So I just threw a lot at you, and naturally there will be some problems that crop up, here are some of the more common issues:
#My input is right, but the post won’t do it!
Make sure there is a {space} after your input! Especially if you used the ‘highlight-->toolbar button’ strategy. For the more advanced formatting (like the table) you may also need white space above and below too.
#The columns isn't working!
Like I mentioned this bugger is going to be tricky. Make sure you…..
- Have a blank line both above and below your input
- Make sure you have at least two "|" per row, you need two sides to make a column.
- Make sure you have a header (black boxes), you have to have a header to start a table.
- haven't gone too far, too many columns and the table will disappear behind the right side of the page.
#My entire post is in a quote block now! Help!
Make sure there is a line break (an entire blank line) where you want the quote block to end, separating 'inside-quoteblock' and 'outside quote-block'.
#Editing my post is really slow and sluggish
Ah the old game of waiting for your post to catch up to your typing. If this is happening to you, chances are your post is suuuuuuper long, or have a lot of embeds, or both! Either way you are using a lot of bandwidth and the Boards platform is starting to get a bit under strain. To help out you can close the preview if you have it open and wait until the end of your editing to add embeds.
Do note though that if you get to this point it will also mean people will load your post slower, and for some may not even be able to access it! I suggest if you hit this point to try and see if you can outsource some material to another post. A "Part 2" where applicable.
#My embed isn’t working!
Make sure your are using a compatible file type. Essentially make sure your image URL ends with ".jpg", “.gif”, or other relevant file type or URL ending.
#I can't get my pictures to fit well.....
As I mentioned before putting square pictures in this format can be very annoying, and having accompanying text just usually doesn't end well for a very 'tall' picture. Try adjusting your picture with your snipping tool (that's for windows at least, don't know what it is for others). If you don't want to put that much work into it though, I have an album of all banners I've ever used and more below. For easier navigation and access click the cog and go to "view album".
http://imgur.com/a/JkDtZ.
#My post won’t submit!
Make sure you have:
- A Board selected
- A Title
#My post isn’t showing on the front page!
Did you post in Help & Support? If yes, that won’t be front page stuff, no one (except support Rioters) wants to hear about you lagging, sorry. :(
If no, make sure your ordering is set to ‘Recent’. Keep in mind it could take up to 2 minutes or so for a post to show up in extreme cases. Be patient young padawon.
#Addendum
There are more tips and tricks out there, and I’m not privy to them all. If you have a fancy formatting or visual trick you;d like to share show it in a comment and I might throw it up here on the OP!
If you have any questions I'll be happy to help the best I can, feel free to ask below.
Get out and astound me with discussions, ideas, rants and stories! Gl hf!
