Compose tips

• Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <pre> <code> <img> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <blockquote> <form> <input> <span> <object> <embed> <br>

  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://onebiglibrary.net">One Big Library.</a>	One Big Library.
  Emphasized	<em>Emphasized</em>	Emphasized
  Strong	<strong>Strong</strong>	Strong
  Cited	<cite>Cited</cite>	Cited
  Preformatted	<pre>Preformatted</pre>	Preformatted
  Coded text used to show programming source code	<code>Coded</code>	Coded
  No help provided for tag img.
  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
  Block quoted	<blockquote>Block quoted</blockquote>	Block quoted
  No help provided for tag form.
  No help provided for tag input.
  No help provided for tag span.
  No help provided for tag object.
  No help provided for tag embed.
  By default line break tags are automatically added, so use this tag to add additional ones. Use of this tag is different because it is not used with an open/close pair like all the others. Use the extra " /" inside the tag to maintain XHTML 1.0 compatibility	Text with <br />line break	Text with line break

  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: "<code>", "<blockcode>".
  • Language specific syntax highlighting tags: "<apache>" for Apache Log source code, "<bash>" for Bash source code, "<css>" for CSS source code, "<diff>" for Diff source code, "<dot>" for dot source code, "<java>" for Java source code, "<javascript>" for Javascript source code, "<mysql>" for MySQL source code, "<perl>" for Perl source code, "<php>" for PHP source code, "<python>" for Python source code, "<rails>" for Rails source code, "<ruby>" for Ruby source code, "<sql>" for SQL source code, "<xml>" for XML source code.

  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: "apache" (for Apache Log), "applescript" (for AppleScript), "asp" (for ASP), "bash" (for Bash), "bnf" (for bnf), "c" (for C), "c_mac" (for C (Mac)), "csharp" (for C#), "css" (for CSS), "diff" (for Diff), "dot" (for dot), "groovy" (for Groovy), "haskell" (for Haskell), "html4strict" (for HTML), "ini" (for INI), "inno" (for Inno), "java" (for Java), "java5" (for Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0), "javascript" (for Javascript), "latex" (for LaTeX), "lisp" (for Lisp), "mysql" (for MySQL), "objc" (for Objective C), "oobas" (for OpenOffice.org Basic), "perl" (for Perl), "php" (for PHP), "php-brief" (for PHP), "plsql" (for PL/SQL), "python" (for Python), "rails" (for Rails), "robots" (for robots.txt), "ruby" (for Ruby), "scheme" (for Scheme), "smalltalk" (for Smalltalk), "sql" (for SQL), "text" (for Text), "vb" (for Visual Basic), "vhdl" (for VHDL), "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
  <code>foo = "bar";</code>	Inline code with the default syntax highlighting mode.
  <code> foo = "bar"; baz = "foz"; </code>	Code block with the default syntax highlighting mode.
  <code lang="asp" linenumbers="normal"> foo = "bar"; baz = "foz"; </code>	Code block with syntax highlighting for ASP source code and normal line numbers.
  <code language="asp" start="23" fancy="7"> foo = "bar"; baz = "foz"; </code>	Code block with syntax highlighting for ASP source code, line numbers starting from 23 and highlighted line numbers every 7th line.
  <apache> foo = "bar"; baz = "foz"; </apache>	Code block with syntax highlighting for Apache Log source code.
  <apache start="23" fancy="7"> foo = "bar"; baz = "foz"; <apache>	Code block with syntax highlighting for Apache Log source code, line numbers starting from 23 and highlighted line numbers every 7th line.