Compose tips

• Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

• Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <blockcode>

  This site allows HTML content. While learning all of HTML may feel intimidating, learning how to use a very small number of the most basic HTML "tags" is very easy. This table provides examples for each tag that is enabled on this site.

  For more information see W3C's HTML Specifications or use your favorite search engine to find other sites that explain HTML.

  Tag Description	You Type	You Get
  Anchors are used to make links to other pages.	<a href="http://echodittolabs.org">EchoDitto Labs</a>	EchoDitto Labs
  Emphasized	<em>Emphasized</em>	Emphasized
  Strong	<strong>Strong</strong>	Strong
  Cited	<cite>Cited</cite>	Cited
  Coded text used to show programming source code	<code>Coded</code>	Coded
  Unordered list - use the <li> to begin each list item	<ul> <li>First item</li> <li>Second item</li> </ul>	First item Second item
  Ordered list - use the <li> to begin each list item	<ol> <li>First item</li> <li>Second item</li> </ol>	First item Second item
  Definition lists are similar to other HTML lists. <dl> begins the definition list, <dt> begins the definition term and <dd> begins the definition description.	<dl> <dt>First term</dt> <dd>First definition</dd> <dt>Second term</dt> <dd>Second definition</dd> </dl>	First term First definition Second term Second definition
  No help provided for tag blockcode.

  Most unusual characters can be directly entered without any problems.

  If you do encounter problems, try using HTML character entities. A common example looks like &amp; for an ampersand & character. For a full list of entities see HTML's entities page. Some of the available characters include:

  Character Description	You Type	You Get
  Ampersand	&	&
  Greater than	>	>
  Less than	&lt;	<
  Quotation mark	&quot;	"

• Lines and paragraphs are automatically recognized. The <br /> line break, <p> paragraph and </p> close paragraph tags are inserted automatically. If paragraphs are not recognized simply add a couple blank lines.

• Syntax highlighting of source code can be enabled with the following tags:

  • Generic syntax highlighting tags: "<blockcode>".
  • Language specific syntax highlighting tags: .
  • PHP source code can also be enclosed in <?php ... ?> or <% ... %>, but additional options like line numbering are not possible here.

  Options and tips:

  • The language for the generic syntax highlighting tags can be specified with one of the attribute(s): type, lang, language. The possible values are: "asp" (for ASP), "css" (for CSS), "html4strict" (for HTML), "java" (for Java), "javascript" (for Javascript), "latex" (for LaTeX), "lisp" (for Lisp), "mysql" (for MySQL), "perl" (for Perl), "php" (for PHP), "php-brief" (for PHP), "python" (for Python), "rails" (for Rails), "sql" (for SQL), "xml" (for XML).
  • Line numbering can be enabled/disabled with the attribute "linenumbers". Possible values are: "off" for no line numbers, "normal" for normal line numbers and "fancy" for fancy line numbers (every n^th line number highlighted). The start line number can be specified with the attribute "start", which implicitly enables normal line numbering. For fancy line numbering the interval for the highlighted line numbers can be specified with the attribute "fancy", which implicitly enables fancy line numbering.
  • If the source code between the tags contains a newline (e.g. immediatly after the opening tag), the highlighted source code will be displayed as a code block. Otherwise it will be displayed inline.
  • Beside the tag style "<foo>" it is also possible to use "[foo]".

  Defaults:

  • Default highlighting mode for generic syntax highlighting tags: when no language attribute is specified, no syntax highlighting will be done.
  • Default line numbering: no line numbers.

  Examples:

  You type	You get
  <blockcode>foo = "bar";</blockcode>	Inline code with the default syntax highlighting mode.
  <blockcode> foo = "bar"; baz = "foz"; </blockcode>	Code block with the default syntax highlighting mode.
  <blockcode lang="java" linenumbers="normal"> foo = "bar"; baz = "foz"; </blockcode>	Code block with syntax highlighting for Java source code and normal line numbers.
  <blockcode language="java" start="23" fancy="7"> foo = "bar"; baz = "foz"; </blockcode>	Code block with syntax highlighting for Java source code, line numbers starting from 23 and highlighted line numbers every 7th line.