Bulletin Board Code is the essential tool for formatting and changing the appearance of your post. While it affects the plain text in much the same way as the formatting tools in any word processor, the main Message field does not behave in a WYSIWYG manner, so you should preview your message if you need to see what it will look like when posted.
Smileys
While smileys can be viewed as purely whimsical in nature, they can also play a valuable role in clarifying the written word in much the same way as vocal inflections and/or facial expressions clarify the spoken word. Like most forum software, SMF provides a standard range of smiley images which can be added to posts by clicking the relevant icons or typing the relevant codes. A don't use smileys option is also provided for those occasions when you don't want typed character combinations that would normally be displayed as smileys to be converted to the expected images!
Standard Bulletin Board Codes
Tag Name
Button
Code
Output
Comments
Bold
[b]bold[/b]
bold
*
Italicized
[i]italicized[/i]
italicized
*
Underline
[u]underline[/u]
underline
*
Strikethrough
[s]strikethrough[/s]
strikethrough
*
Shadow
[shadow=red,left] shadow [/shadow]
shadow
The two attributes (eg red, left) in the 'shadow' tag are color and direction respectively.
Marquee
[move]move[/move]
Not valid XHTML, but can also be used for images!
Preformatted Text
[pre]Simple
Machines
Forum[/pre]
Simple
Machines
Forum
Preserves critical text formatting, rendered in a monospace font.
Left Align
[left]left align[/left]
left align
*
Centered
[center]centered[/center]
centered
*
Right Align
[right]right align[/right]
right align
*
Right-to-Left
*
[rtl]right to left![/rtl]
right to left!
Typical usage would be to post Arabic or Hebrew in an English document.
Left-to-Right
*
[ltr]left to right![/ltr]
left to right!
Typical usage would be to post English in an Arabic or Hebrew document.
Horizontal Rule
[hr]
*
Font Size
[size=10pt]font size[/size]
font size
*
Font Face
[font=Verdana]font face[/font]
font face
Only fonts installed on the user's computer will be displayed, so use with caution!
Font Color
[color=Red]red[/color]
red
Select the color from the drop-down.
Insert Flash
Note: This option is deprecated in most modern browsers
Please note that, if embedded Flash has been disabled by the forum administrator(s), the Flash file will appear as a straight hyperlink as shown here. The two attributes in the 'flash' tag (where relevant) are width and height respectively.
Insert Image
[img] http://somesite/image.gif [/img]
Type the width and height attributes to resize the image.
Always use to preserve formatting of code and avoid parsing as BBC and/or smileys!
Insert Quote
[quote]quote[/quote]
Quote
quote
Note the optional 'author' attribute.
[quote author=author]quote[/quote]
Quote from: author
quote
Insert List
[list] [li]SMF[/li] [li]YaBB SE[/li] [/list]
SMF
YaBB SE
While you can add as many items as you wish, each item must be contained by the correct opening and closing tags. You can also style your list item bullets with special opening tags and no closing tags, but this option doesn't currently output valid XHTML.