How to learn my way around?

[pattyp.]

I'm trying to figure how to change font, color,size etc. and add avatar. Any hints for me???

[Gail]

When you are in the reply screen, right above where you type your response there are a series of options.

Clicking the drop-down menu next to side enables you to go from small to large to huge.

Clicking the the drop-down menu next to font gives you the choices of Arial, Times, Courier, or Century.

And there's a similar drop-down menu for about twenty-five colors.

Insofar as the avatars go, I didn't want one, so I'm walking us both through it just to see: scroll upward to the top of the screen to locate and click the button which says "User CP." Click "edit options" and scroll way down to the bottom of the page. Click "Change Avatar" and you'll get a screen which offers the available avatars. Select the avatar you wish and click "Submit Modifications."

I know a lot of people have custom avatars which they've gotten elsewhere. I suspect if you run a search (upper right hand corner of your screen) and type in avatar, requesting to search subject titles only, you'll probably get details on how to do this. I believe there may be other ways to adjust the above options besides the methods listed above, but I figure this is pretty basic and easy to manage. If you're curious, you can always run additional searches.

Good luck!

[sushibones]

There is also a lot of useful information found in the FAQs (see button at the top of the page), though not specifically about what you are asking.

[pattyp.]

I must be dense Gail. When I pull down size and choose large, a box pops up on the left with ok and something else, nothing changes. Do I need to press something else first. What is normal mode, enhanced mode??? The box says "enter the text to be formalated etc.

[sushibones]

If you are in normal mode, then you would type what you want to be large or bold or whatever in the pop-up box, click ok, and it will automatically do the vB coding for you. In enhanced mode, if you use the size box, the beginning of the code [ size=3 ] will appear in the reply box instead of the pop-up box, then you type your text, then click on "close current tag," and the closing vB code [ /size ] will appear after your text.

The advantage to enhanced mode is that you can perform many functions (bold, italic, underline, size, font and color) at the same time because you don't get the pop-up box. For each function you want to perform, click on the appropriate boxes until you have what you want, then add the text you want the functions to apply to, then click the "close all tags box." The closing vB codes will appear for each function.

Here is an example, and you can see all the codes for what I did by clicking on quote below my reply, just to see the codes.

Pattyp This is pretty easy once you know the trick of it. You call also do all of this manually by actually typing the code in, which you have to do if you go back and want to bold a word, for instance, because when you use the buttons, the code always goes to the end of the text, not where your cursor is. The code always goes in square brackets, and the closing code always has a / between the first bracket and the code letter or word, followed by the closing bracket. In the first paragraph I left spaces between the brackets and the code so you could actually see the code, rather than the results of the code. Clear as mud, huh?

Let me know if this doesn't make sense, and I will try again.

[pattyp.]

Susan, yes, clear as mud. I tried all afternoon, have in enhanced mode, do I chose the size, ignore on the text and continue with text and color and then do "close current tags"?? I practiced till I ran out of space and then could not find "cancel" but God is mrerciful, it was gone after I went off. I shall continue to try. I die hard. Thank you for your help. pattyp

[Gail]

The choice is up to you as to how you want to format. I suggested the normal mode, figuring you were just thinking of doing one function at a time-- either changing size, font or color independently. But yes, certainly if you want large red letters, for example-- which means you would be changing both size and color at the same time, you would do the method sushibones details in enhanced mode.

Back to your first question though about the normal mode function. If you selected "large" size, a pop-up box appears on the left and you type whatever it is you want to say in large print in that box, then click okay. What appears on the screen will be surrounded by codes, which, once you've submitted your reply should translate to larger print. Was that any clearer? Or worse?

[sushibones]

Thanks, Gail, for offering some clarifying details about what I was trying to say. I never seem to be able to express anything without huge amounts of verbiage (like just now).

Pattyp

I forgot to say that one of the things that helps me is to go to the Preview Reply box at the bottom of the reply page. It should show your reply with the way it will look when you post it. If there are mistakes in the coding, it is easier to see it and correct it then. For example, if you still see the codes, then you are missing a piece of something, usually the closing code.

The vB codes just show where to start a change in the appearance of the text and when to stop. All those little buttons and pull-downs are just supposed to make it easier for you to make those changes. If you do word processing, and click on the bold button, the text will be bold until you click the bold button again to tell it to stop. The same thing is happening here except you see the codes and where they start and stop.

Here's a suggestion that may make this easier. Pretend you are replying to this thread (click the reply button). Use normal mode. Make one word bold by clicking on the B box, type the word into the pop-up box, click ok. You should have the word plus the beginning and ending codes bracketing the word show up in the reply box. Go to preview reply (scroll down the screen) and see if your word is bold. If so, try other single words with color or size, and check to see if it works by using the Preview Reply box again. Then you can switch to enhanced mode if you would like to try bold and color together, for example. See previous unclear instructions in my other post. The main thing to remember is that basically you are telling it to start at the beginning of a particular word or text, and then you have to tell it to stop.

You can play around this way without actually trying to make a post to see if you can make this work for a single word until you get the hang of it, and also to see what the codes look like in just code form. As long as you don't hit "Submit Reply" nothing will be posted, and you can just back out of the reply page, and ask another question.

Hope the Preview Reply box helps you see what is going on.

[pattyp.]

What can I say, thank you Gail and sushibones, by jove, I think I got it. Thank you both for your patience........................pattyp

[sushibones]

Way to go, pattyp. ;)

Isn't this fun? :D :D

[pattyp.]

Now I want an avatar and I don't know what the URL means?? I thought it was a web page, but that don't work..???pattyp

[sushibones]

You only need a url if you want a custom avatar. There are a number of sites where these can be found. Do a search (button in upper right corner) using the term "avatar*" (without the quotes), and searching titles only. There will be lots of threads with suggestions about where to go to find them.

There are also many avatars that can be found on this board. Go to the user cp button, then to Edit Options, scroll down, and pick change avatar. That will give you a number of options to choose from. Ignore the url box under custom avatars.

[pattyp.]

Look what I got Susan, Cherries........Thank You........pattyp

[sushibones]

So now you're all set to proceed with BB addiction. :D