Forum Code advice and other Forum FAQ

[Serack]

I've answered similar questions about forum coding a few times now, and I think I'll post one of those here and use it as a reference in the future rather than generating the advice anew each time.

Edit:  I'm adding non coding questions and questions answered by the mods on multiple occasions on these forums.

Questions covered so far in this topic:
Code Advice

• How can I make someone's name in my post a link to their profile?
• How can I multiquote?
• How do I break up someone's quote so that I can reply to each thought seperately?
• How do I add an external link to a quote header?

Other Advice

• Can we treat the DFRPG as WoJ?
• On the bars that appear above a posters avatar, what exactly is the significance of the #/color?
• Is there a list of Mods and other Persons of Knowledge running about??
• How is it that I see so many personalized avatars, but I can't seem to personalize my own?
• How do I make a nifty personalized avatar?

Other FAQ
What's going on with the next Dresden Files Novel?

[Serack]

How can I multiquote?

If you wish to quote individual quotes, the easiest way is if the quotes are recent replies to the topic you are replying in. 

If you look below the text box you are typing your reply in, you will see the most recent replies with links on the left to "Insert Quote" which will automatically generate the quote script at your cursor in the text box.

Another, less powerful technique is to highlight what you are quoting and hit the quote button to the left of the spoiler symbol (which looks like a radiation sign).  This is great for book quotes and such.  You can even edit the code to put a header that says who you are quoting.  (My example will use {} for []

{quote=who you are quoting here}text to quote here{/quote}  Gives you

text to quote here

[side note] this technique also works for spoilers

(click to show/hide)

this is just a demo

[/side note]

Finally, I frequently make quotes that cross topics.  To generate the header with a link from a quote in another topic I open a quote for the reply I want to quote in a new tab, copy that, then paste it in a reply to the topic I want to post in.

Unfortunately this technique does not work for topics that are locked.  It is technically possible to generate a quote header that links to a locked topic, but it involves extracting code from the address bar, and interpolating the exact time (in seconds) that elapsed between some arbitrary zero point in the 1970s or something... and when the post was made.  Hardly worth the trouble.  (Kudo's to AA for showing me how to do that).

Edit:  Since writing the above, I have been granted some moderator privileges.  One allows me to pull quote code from locked topics.  If you truly want your spiffy new topic/reply with quotes from locked topics to have the forum generated quote code with embedded link and such, just drop my name in your topic, and voice the request and I will edit it into your post. ^-Serack

Edit2:  Since writing the above, I learned how to embead any link into a quote header, and I generated a post explaining how here

[Serack]

How do I break up someone's quote so that I can reply to each thought seperately

You have probably seen other forum members respond to a long post by breaking up a quote into smaller bite sized pieces and replying to each piece.

This is how you break up the quote.  (coding []'s will be replaced with {} in examples)

At the place you want to break up the quote insert the following stuff shown in red

{quote fancyboardgeneratedquotecode}
first part of what you are quoting{/quote}

stuff you want to say

{quote}the rest of what you were quoting{/quote}

which gives you:  (horizontal lines added to seperate example from guide)

first part of what you are quoting

stuff you want to say

the rest of what you were quoting

If you want to get fancy, you can copy the {quote fancyboardgeneratedquotecode} and use it instead of {quote} to head the cleaved section of quoted text with the orginal fancy header with the embeaded link to the quoted post.

This gives you: (horizontal lines added to seperate example from guide)

first part of what you are quoting

stuff you want to say

the rest of what you were quoting

To be explicit, the fancyboardgeneratedquotecode for this particular post is... "author=Serack link=topic=31158.msg1325430#msg1325430 date=1329925308" so you know what I mean

[Just Al]

Is there a guide somewhere to what all of the different icons indicate? Some are labeled, some aren't.

[Serack]

Is there a guide somewhere to what all of the different icons indicate? Some are labeled, some aren't.

Hmmm looks like hovering over each code button above the reply field gives a label for that icon... maybe I don't understand what you mean by icon, or you need further explanation?

Or do you mean the message icon?

[Just Al]

I'm not being clear because I don't know the correct terminology for what I'm seeing, so I'll just give some examples of what I'm trying to decipher.

I have 1 yellow square below my member name. I assumed that was a decimal code abbreviation for the number of posts (1 for 1 to 100, 2 for 100 to 1000 etc) but then I noticed that Ms. Duck has over 17,000 posts but only 3 squares. I was also wondering about the colors of squares, and why some folks have a paper icon by their post title, and others have what looks like a phone or radio.

I figured there was some kind of guide to what means what, and I was just too dim to find it.

[Serack]

I'm not being clear because I don't know the correct terminology for what I'm seeing, so I'll just give some examples of what I'm trying to decipher.

I have 1 yellow square below my member name. I assumed that was a decimal code abbreviation for the number of posts (1 for 1 to 100, 2 for 100 to 1000 etc) but then I noticed that Ms. Duck has over 17,000 posts but only 3 squares. I was also wondering about the colors of squares, and why some folks have a paper icon by their post title, and others have what looks like a phone or radio.

I figured there was some kind of guide to what means what, and I was just too dim to find it.

Sorry, I've been worrying about diapers and relatives visiting from Florida to see the new Baby.  I could give you a rough explanation of those, but Prisc has already done it, and I'll find her explanation in a minute

[Serack]

I'm not being clear because I don't know the correct terminology for what I'm seeing, so I'll just give some examples of what I'm trying to decipher.

I have 1 yellow square below my member name. I assumed that was a decimal code abbreviation for the number of posts (1 for 1 to 100, 2 for 100 to 1000 etc) but then I noticed that Ms. Duck has over 17,000 posts but only 3 squares. I was also wondering about the colors of squares, and why some folks have a paper icon by their post title, and others have what looks like a phone or radio.

I figured there was some kind of guide to what means what, and I was just too dim to find it.

Ah here we go.  Good question.  IMO it applies to this topic nicely

I believe when Priscellie made this response, the forum was formatted differently and there were stars there rather than bars, but it could be that she is responding to someone else using the wrong term (that would be me), and keeping that same wrong term for continuity.

It has to do with post count and member status. 

1 star, Mortal - Member with <10 posts
1 star, Apprentice - Member with <100 posts
2 stars, Wizard - Member with 100+ posts
3 stars, Posty McPosterpants - Member with a ridiculous number of posts
4 stars (Yellow) - Bartender
4 stars (Green) - Local Moderator
4 stars (Red) - Person about to be invaded by the Canim
5 stars, White Council - Global Moderator (Mickey, Ashton, and Blaze)
6 stars - Administrator (Me = Gatekeeper, Fred = The Merlin)

As for "why some folks have a paper icon by their post title, and others have what looks like a phone or radio"  I'm not sure what you mean by that sorry.

Take a look at the bars next to my name here, then take another look at the bars next to my name on a post in the WoJ section, and you will get a good example of how Prisc's above explanation works.

[shades of grey]

As for "why some folks have a paper icon by their post title, and others have what looks like a phone or radio"  I'm not sure what you mean by that sorry.

I think that one is when you have your email address registered, messenger or any other webpages you have.  You can access it in your profile info.

[cenwolfgirl]

it is shades if you go to the members list you can see all the difrent simbals in there respective columes
if that helps

[Ms Duck]

you get a phone if you post by smartphone... its a different version fot he site.

[Serack]

you get a phone if you post by smartphone... its a different version fot he site.

Ah, yes I think this is the answer you were looking for.

[Serack]

How is it that I see so many personalized avatars, but I can't seem to personalize my own?

Members need to have made 100 posts before they can use a custom avatar.

P.S. 
Here are the rules for individualized Avatars:

Avatars:
--Personalized avatars must avoid touchy topics. 
--Please keep avatars to a size  not to exceed 150 x 150 pixels.

See this post for an in depth guide on how to go about getting your own avatar displayed.

[Serack]

Variations of this question come up rather regularly enough that I wanted to archive my standard answer

"Can we treat the DFRPG as WoJ?"

Not exactly, but here is some rather definitive info we have from the Publisher, and from Priscellie on what kind of input Jim had on its creation

It is not Word of Jim, but it's close.  The blacked out stuff that folks can discover in the PDFs are 4th wall breaking stuff, mainly an in joke for people who figure out how to read it. Beyond that there are elements of the text that are at least slightly inaccurate or more often incomplete because the rpg as presented is being filtered through Billy -- a version of Billy who was more clued in prior to Turn Coat, so the rpg itself is at least a little alternate universe in its conceit.  But regardless we made it as close to the spruce material as we could manage, because we wanted the setting parts of it to work as a legitimate fan guide too.

emphasis mine

Jim didn't write the DFRPG, he just read over it and told them things like, "You can't use that, I won't be revealing it until much later in the series."  However, seeing their writeup might have motivated him to flesh out the points for your #2.

While it's true that Jim didn't "write" the DFRPG, he answered a LOT of questions for the team, clarifying points that were unclear or thusfar undefined.  A LOT.  STAGGERING amounts of text.  He also provided a lot of answers to questions they didn't ask, providing huge, wonderful insights into the Dresdenverse.  (Good lord, how I wish I could see all that correspondence!  And all the future developments Chad figured out from text alone that Jim made him remove from the published version!  Covet!)  I think the DFRPG provided an excellent catalyst for him to solidify concepts in his mind he may not have taken the time to complete worked out.

Still, Jim is pretty good at keeping his books lean and relevant.  If something isn't necessary for a book, why put it there?  The Doylist argument of "He just figured this out and wanted to show it off" doesn't hold up to me.  I don't think he'd contrive to include a "this is how time travel works" treatise in PG if time travel wasn't crucial to the events of that novel.

Also, while I know the DFRPG was in progress at the time Jim was writing Proven Guilty, I don't know how actively Jim was contributing at the time.  I didn't become a beta until just after White Night was published, so my Behind The Scenes-foo was weaker.

And from Jim himself at the 2012 Reddit AMA Q&A

How much influence did you have on the writing of the Dresden Files FATE RPG? How canonical can we assume the information in those books to be? There's a lot of information in there which, while it would be useful for a DM to know, I don't think Harry would be very eager to tell Billy about.

They're pretty darned close, I think. But canon is for religions, formal schools of thought, and steampunk airships that need something to shoot at other steampunk airships. My stories aren't those things. They're stories. They're supposed to be fun, and to make you think, and casting them in stasis for the sake of having stasis is sort of the opposite of that.

[Sir Huron Stone]

What did priscellie mean by red means they're about to get invaded by the canim?