Forum Tips and Tricks (AKA "How the heck do I do this?")

Signatures
Adding a basic signature
To add a signature, click the Profile button in the top menu bar, and then click the Edit Profile button on your profile page. Next, on the Edit Profile & Settings page, click the Personal tab. From there you'll find the Signature option toward the bottom of the page, and can add or modify your signature using the text box below. You can enter a maximum of 500 characters into this area.

Adding an advanced signature
The signature box accepts limited BBCode, enabling you to add images and links to your signature, as well as some basic formatting. I recognise that this can be confusing, so have laid out below some simple 'copy and paste' signature templates. To use, paste the full code into the signature box and edit the links so they link to your image file and website.

Basic banner
[img]https://YourImageLinkHere[/img]


Centred banner
[center][img]https://YourImageLinkHere[/img][/center]


Linked banner
[url=https://YourWebsiteOrStoryLinkHere][img]https://YourImageLinkHere[/img][/url]


Resized banner (50%)
[img style="max-width:50%;" src="https://YourImageLinkHere"]


Linked and centred banner
[center][url=https://YourWebsiteOrStoryLinkHere][img]https://YourImageLinkHere[/img][/url][/center]


Linked, centred and resized banner (50%)
[center][url=https://YourWebsiteOrStoryLinkHere][img style="max-width:50%;" src="https://YourImageLinkHere"][/url][/center]

Adding and removing bookmarks (favourites)
Forum bookmarks are similar to the favourites function of your internet web browser, and provide quick access to interesting message board content for future viewing. The forum bookmarks system allows you to add interesting threads to a bookmark collection and can be accessed with the Bookmarks button displayed in the menu at the top of the forum.

Bookmarking threads allows you to receive notifications or emails (depending on your profile settings) when threads you have bookmarked have been updated.

To bookmark a thread, go to thread you'd like to bookmark, select the 'actions' dropdown at the top and select 'add bookmark'. A little book symbol will appear in the top left corner of the thread.

Once you have a thread bookmarked, you can access the bookmarked thread via your bookmark list at any time using the Bookmarks button found in the menu bar at the top of the forum. This button will only appear if you have threads bookmarked.

To remove a thread from your bookmarks list, hover over the name of the thread in your bookmark list. You should see a checkbox appear to the left of the threads name; click on this box to check it. Once the box is checked, click on the Actions menu found at the top of the bookmarks listing, and then choose the Remove Bookmark option. You can remove multiple threads from your bookmarks list by clicking the checkboxes found to the left of each listed topic that you would like to remove from your bookmarks prior to clicking the Remove Bookmarks option of the Actions menu. You can also mark them as read this way to clear any notifications.

Replying to threads

Types of reply
There are two ways to reply to a thread: quick reply and full reply.
Quick reply is great when you want a text only or simple way to respond to a thread, such as commenting on another's chapter. Full reply is better when you are posting lengthy replies such as chapters as it has the full range of tools, an option to preview your post and will also autosave your post in case of computer, forum or bladder failure.

Quick Reply
Located at the bottom of any thread that allows reply. A simplified version of the Full Reply, it lets you type quick responses with some basic formatting. Type your response directly into the box and hit the 'post quick reply' button. Done.

Full Reply
Press the yellow 'Reply' button located at the top and bottom of each thread page. This will take you to the post editor. At the bottom of the text window there are two tabs, 'preview' and 'BBCode'. Preview allows you type in and edit as you would a normal document but is unable to use some advanced functionality, like being able to spoiler tag images. BBCode allows you full options and all sorts of customisation, but requires a little know-how (see: Advanced Editing Options).
Both tabs have editing buttons enabled. More on that below.

Edit your post how you see fit and save it using the 'save changes' button.

Note: if you exit the page without hitting 'save changes' don't panic! It will automatically save a draft of your post. To resume the draft, select 'reply' again and it'll give you the option to continue the draft, or to discard it.

Text editing tools
Under the subject or quick reply line there are a series of very attractive buttons that came right out of 2001. The first ones are for text editing and look like this:

These will enable you to edit your text however you like. If you want to post only in size 7 pink comic sans you go right ahead but we'll all hate you. Hovering over each button will tell you what it does.
To use these, highlight the text you want to apply the formatting to and click the relevant button.

Formatting tools
The second lot of buttons are the formatting tools. They look like this:


Tables
Tables can be handy to divide your post into columns, useful if say you want a picture on one side and text on the other. To add a table, click the 'table' button, surprisingly. You'll get a box pop up asking how many rows and columns you'd like and some formatting options you can just ignore if you want to. It'll then either give you a neat table to edit (preview view) or a load of BBCode (BBCode view) to edit as you see fit.

The below table has one row and two columns with no border.



You can also add tables within tables if you really like tables. Which you probably don't. Moving on.

Bullet or number list
Select the 'list' button to add either a bulleted or numbered list. It'll ask you how many things you want on your list and what kind of style you'd like. Then it'll add a neat list (preview view) or lines of BBCode (BBCode view) to edit as you see fit.

• List item 1
• List item 2
• List item 3

If you don't know how many you'll need, just say 3. You can keep adding them in either view by pressing enter at the end of the list in preview view, or by copying and pasting the code in BBCode view.

Horizontal Rule
Adds a horizontal line, like this:

---

Useful for breaking up chunks of text, signifying scene changes etc.

Action tools
The final set of buttons are the action buttons:


Add Link
Highlight the text you want to add a link to and click the link button. This'll give you a box where you can add your link or edit the text it appears in. Click 'create link' and it'll add it to your post like this.

Insert Image
Press this and you'll get a pop up box asking for a link. Paste in the link to your image. Your image needs to be hosted somewhere for this to work, it won't work if you try to upload it from your desktop or whatever. You can add alt text here if you so wish.
Once you've added your image, you can select it and then use the alignment buttons to position it on the page. I've gone for centre here.



Tag user
Click the button and start typing a username to tag someone in your post. Alternatively, you can type @ and then their username to tag them manually. It'll appear like this: SnuffyBucket and if they have notifications enabled, they'll get notified that you want their attention

Insert Code
Use this button if you're trying to type some BBCode and you don't want it automatically changing when you hit post. Useful if you're trying to show someone else what code they need to enter to make an advanced function work.



Quote
Selecting this button will add a quote box in preview view and quote tags in BBCode view for you to edit as desired, as so:



To quote another user's post, see Interacting with a Post.

Insert Smiley
Click this button to add a retro smiley. Alternatively, if you're on windows press the windows key and '.' and add your own smileys.

Insert Spoiler
To add a spoiler in preview view, highlight the text you want to spoiler and select the spoiler button. Note that this currently doesn't work in preview view for multiple paragraphs of text or for hiding images; for help with that see Advanced Editing Options.

In BBCode view you can put anything under a spoiler. Either highlight the stuff you want to spoiler and select the spoiler button, or press it first then enter your codes and text in-between.

All being well, you'll get something like this: