h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This entry is intended as an aid to creating and formatting your entries and/or your user space without having to learn Guide ML, although once you've used it a few times you'll probably get the hang of it anyway

However

If you are simply trying to liven up your user page then you are free to format your text as you wish, add colours, pictures and smileys and even make them move about. However if you are creating an entry with a view to inclusion in the Edited Guide then you should read about "Using Approved Guide ML in Edited Guide Entries" as some of these options are not allowed in such entries.




How to View the Code that Makes an Entry

Start by opening the same page in a second window and arrange them so that you can see both or can switch easily between the two. In the address bar of this page, delete the A (but leave the number and all the rest unchanged) and replace it with the word TEST. It should then appear like this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/TEST986691 space space (Alternatively you could copy and paste 1 this into your address bar)

This will work with entries but to look at or pinch the code from a user page you have to change the U to 'testuserpage'

Now the page will change and you will see, in addition to the text of the entry, the code, or the Guide ML used to make the page appear as it should. If you compare the "code view" with the "normal view" you should be able to see which bits are code and therefore invisible in the normal view of the page because they all appear between angle brackets and are known as "Tags".

You cannot edit the code yet but you can either cut and paste the whole page into a new entry, changing the text and headers etc for your own and deleting the unwanted parts, or just copy the individual bits of code you want to use in your entry. Further on in this entry there are examples of the kinds of things you can do in your entries, complete with code, so that you can cut and paste the ones you want. Each individual piece is separated by a few lines of white space. This has been done for convenience only and will not affect the final appearance of the page.

Begin Using Guide ML

For a new guide entry or to edit your User Page see Converting from Plain Text to GuideML

On the entry editing page you should now have a box with nothing in it except for this:-










which represents the beginning and end of the entry and everything you want to include goes in between.

Type something, anywhere in the space between and Notice the subtle but very important difference between the two and then press "Preview"2, you will see your typing appear above the editing box. This is how the entry will appear if you do no further formatting. But if that was what you wanted, you wouldn't be reading this would you?

Now cut and paste this into the editing box

space space

and type something here, and here, and here.

The first tag makes the text that follows it bold, until it is followed by the second , the closing tag. If you copy any code from one page to another you must include both tags.

Do the same thing again with this

space space

and type something here, and here, and here.

The first tag makes the text that follows it italic, until it is followed by the second which changes it back to normal

You could, if you wish, use both italics and bold type but NOTE The order of the tags is important.

This

bold italic

will work, as will

italic bold

But this

a mixture of both

WILL NOT WORK

Paragraphs and Quotes

You can use and to create paragraphs and will insert a line break, whereas a paragraph inserted between and will appear indented like the opening paragraphs of this entry, which can make quotes stand out as can and

"which will do this to the text in between them"
while and

"will do the same but will also put the quote over to the right"






Formatting Fonts

Digibox users may not be able to use different fonts

Fonts Size
THIS TEXT IS SIZE 2

and this is how it appears in code form

THIS TEXT IS SIZE 2

Cut and paste that into your new entry and try changing the size by substituting the 2 with another number


THIS TEXT IS SIZE 2
THIS TEXT IS SIZE 4
THIS TEXT IS SIZE 6
THIS TEXT IS SIZE 8


In all four versions of the sentence the only difference is the number "2", "4", "6" and "8" in the code.



Changing Fonts
In the same way, you can copy this line


Type some text here


and change the name of the font to get the following

Type some text here


Type some text here


Type some text here


or even

Type some text here



You can combine the two like this

THIS IS COMIC SANS MS SIZE 6

and if you feel a little more adventurous

THIS IS COMIC SANS MS SIZE 6


Which, in code form appears as

THIS IS COMIC SANS MS SIZE 6

Note the American spelling of COLOR

THIS TEXT IS RED
THIS TEXT IS GREEN
THIS TEXT IS BLUE


Instead of writing "RED", "GREEN" or "BLUE" you can if you wish, use the hexadecimal representations of the numbers "#FF0000", "#00FF00", and "#0000FF" respectively. More about colours and hexidecimals can be found here

thief Web-Safe Colours: How They Work More about Colours


You Can Add Pictures (Also Known as Blobs)Too

Dont Panic


This piece, copied into an entry or your user page will give you the "Dont Panic" picture, or "Blob"



and this will put it in the middle



and guess where this one puts it



All you need to do to change the picture is to use a different "B number". The ALT = " ******** " bit is the text that will appear when you hold the cursor over the picture, you can change that too. Find lots of pictures to use here

thief Blobs


And You Can add Smileys


<SMILEY TYPE="smiley"/>

Will give you this

smiley

and

<SMILEY TYPE="ale"/><SMILEY TYPE="ale"/><SMILEY TYPE="ale"/>

Will give you this

ale ale ale

Which can be no bad thing. Find a list of the smileys available here

thief h2g2 Smileys

And You Can Even Make Them Move


<SMILEY TYPE="surfer"/>
surfer


Backwards and Forwards


<SMILEY TYPE="ufo"/>

ufo




Lists

If you want to include a list copy this into a page


List Item 1
List Item 2
List Item 3
List Item 4
List Item 5


and you will get something very much like this

* List Item 1
* List Item 2
* List Item 3
* List Item 4
* List Item 5

creates an Unordered List, and you'll need one of these item in between them for each item on your list.
If you change the and to and you will create the same list but this time each item is numbered, like this

1.

Numbered Item
2.

Numbered Item
3.

Numbered Item
4.

Numbered Item
5.

Numbered Item
6.

Numbered Item
7.

Numbered Item
8.

Numbered Item




Footnotes

Footnotes are easy to add and they are automatically numbered.

Whatever you type here will appear at the bottom of your entry



So will this




Links




Will appear as

h2g2 Smileys

and

H2G2 Smileys

Will look like this

h2g2 Smileys H2G2 Smileys



Some Links to Useful Pages

* Blobs Blobs

* More blobs More Blobs

* h2g2 Picture Library H2G2 Picture Library

* Art Community Art Library

* Using Approved GuideML in the Edited Guide Using Approved Guide ML in Edited Guide Entries

* Guide ML Clinic Guide ML Clinic funnily enough

* h2g2 Smileys H2G2 Smileys, tons of them

* Web-Safe Colours: How They Work Web-Safe Colours

I will have to try some of these. Thank you very much.

A986691

F116917?thread=2929585