Forum Markup

We have a custom string parsing system on our forums designed to take submitted text (with HTML tags and markup) and convert it to properly formed HTML without any 'dangerous' tags. This help document gives some basic details on our string parser, as well as a listing of some of the tags it supports. As most basic HTML tags are supported, you may find a basic HTML tutorial to be more helpful than detailed list below.

If you aren't sure whether or not tags will work, or want to make sure your post looks correct, please use the Preview function in the forums. It will show you exactly how the content of your post will display. There is no need to post test posts, the preview is exactly the same. If you're curious about how someone else made a tag work, try quoting their post to see the code they used.

Also note that although the forums support all these tags, please think before you use them. You can get banned for the formatting of your posts as much as the content, including purposely making your posts garish or attempting to 'break' the forums.

General Guidelines

1. Double linebreaks are automatically converted to paragraph tags, while single linebreaks are converted to break tags. Large blocks of linebreaks are stripped down to a single paragraph break.
2. Angle brackets (HTML-style) and square brackets (markup-style) are interchangeable. [b] and <b> are the same, as are [quote] and <quote>.
3. Any tags that aren't supported or are written improperly will be displayed in 'markup' format.
4. Arguments should be enclosed in either single quotes or double quotes - both need to match. If the argument won't have any spaces in it, you may be able to leave the quotes out.
5. Not all HTML tags are supported. Even the tags that are supported may not allow all arguments that the HTML version normally allows.
6. All tags must nest properly. If tags are mismatched, only the first set will translate correctly.
   • [b][i]text[/i][/b] = text
   • [b][i]text[/b][/i] = [i]text[/i]
7. Tags can be uppercase or lowercase, but a matching pair of tags must use the same case.
   • [b]text[/b] = text
   • [B]text[/B] = text
   • [b]text[/B] = [b]text[/B]
8. Tags must be closed properly, even tags that are commonly written without closing tags. This includes:
   • Paragraph tags, which require both <p> and </p>.
   • List item tags, which require both <li> and </li> around every line.
   Some tags can be standalone and do not need to be closed, like image tags and tags that embed movies. Examples of those tags are below.

Tag Listing

A full tag listing is below. For tags listed in detail, {curly brackets} represent variable content that needs to be filled in, while optional arguments are represented (as italicized lists). Unless otherwise mentioned, all other arguments displayed in the tag are required.

Basic HTML Tags

These tags are basic HTML text formatting and have no arguments. They function just like the normal HTML versions, and all but <hr> need to be closed.

b, blockquote, center, code, em, h1, h2, h3, h4, hr, i, s, strong, sup, u

Links

In addition to the tags below, most URL's in forum posts will also be converted to links automatically.

a
<a href="{url}" (title,target)>{content}</a>

link,url
[link]{url}[/link]
[link="{url}" (title,target)]{content}[/link]
The link and url tags function the same, and can be used either like normal <a> tags, or by wrapping them around a URL.

Images

img
<img src="{src}" (alt,align,width,height)>

image
[image]{src}[/image]
[image (alt,align,width,height)]
The image tag can be used just like the common <img> tag, or it can be wrapped around the URL to an image.

Lists

ol, ul, list, li
List tags function just as they do in HTML, with [list] behaving the same as the <ul> tag. List items must be inclosed in <li></li>.

dl, dt, dd
Definition lists are also supported, using standard tags.

Tables

Table tags are supported with common arguments.

table
[table (cellpadding,cellspacing,border,align,width)]

tr
[tr (height,valign)]

td
[td (width,align,valign,colspan,rowspan)]

tbody, thead
tbody and thead tags are supported, and recommended, but are not required.

Other Tags

font, color
[color="{color}"]{content}[/color]
[font color="{color}"]{content}[/font]
The only font adjustment we allow is color, either through the font tag or a custom color tag. Any standard HTML color can be used, either by name or hex code. Please use this for emphasis only - do not use it to change the color of your entire post.

strike
[strike]{content}[/strike]
Strikethrough, used the same as [s][/s]

quote
[quote={name}]{content}[/quote]
Creates a blockquote tag. If the optional name argument is specified, the name will automatically be added to the beginning of the quote in bold.

spoiler
[spoiler]{content}[/spoiler]
The spoiler tag shows a message asking the user to click to display the content, and can be used when there is content you don't want displayed without confirmation. The content is also encrypted in the HTML code to prevent search engines from crawling and displaying it, and to keep spoilers from appearing in the source.