How to use HTML in messages

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Apparently you can use any HTML code in your messages and they will be interpreted as such when the message is displayed.

So you can compose your enhanced replies in FrontPage or some other WYSIWYG HTML editor, then copy and paste the HTML code into the message composition text box for this forum. Of course, you gearheads out there can compose natively in HTML.

So you can create messages like this that use special fonts, or tables, or whatever. You can include divisions such as horizontal lines.


But the most useful thing is that you can insert hotlinks to other sites, such as this one: Gary North. Many prefer that you copy and paste the content of  a site instead of linking to it, but I imagine the sysops might prefer the link approach since it doesn't use up space on the TB2000 server. If you want the a copied web site to look like it's original form when you paste it, paste the HTML instead.

Anyway, this should liven up the appearance of messages, but it doesn't add a thing to the content, so perhaps it's all a waste of time.

What about Y2K? It's not over yet!

CeeBee



-- Cee Bee (ceebee@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000

Answers

y2k may not be over, but Gary North sure is !!!

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 17, 2000.

show offs

-- Mabel Dodge (cynical@me.now), January 17, 2000.

It does look like showing off, but people are just experimenting with what they can do. You wouldn't expect web pages to be plain text, so why do messages need to be so plain?

But it is quick and easy, so lazy folks like me will use plain text most of the time. Some people have asked how they can embed links, and my post made it clear that you can do anything you can with HTML, as long as it fits between and .

-- Cee Bee (ceebee@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000.


well, being a non-"gearhead" i'm still lost as to how i can compose in html. care to spell it out for us knuckle draggers a little more, or perhaps a link??

-- thekid (frorider76@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000.

To create my post above, I used FrontPage (could also use FrontPage Express). I created a table with a single cell and formatted it to remove the border. I entered the text, colored it, changed the font, etc.

Then I switched to the View HTML mode and copied the HTML that was between the "" and "<\BODY>" tags and pasted it into the Answer text box that this forum uses to accept messages.

One more thing: this forum automatically turns text starting with "http://" into hyperlinks, so you don't have to use this method just to insert a link.

This is a clickable link: http://www.msnbc.com This is not a clickable link: www.msnbc.com

I didn't check to see if any of the HTML gets filtered out, for example, does the following display a picture?

"Heidi Klum

"

Heidi Klum

If so, this could be a problem. Don't have to read things that I don't like, but I don't have much choice if I'm shown a picture of something I don't like. (I do like swimsuit girls, though.)

Hope this isn't wasting too much time and bandwidth. We need to get back to the issue of covering Y2K and its consequences.

-- Cee Bee (ceebee@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000.



Because some of the HTML is filtered out, it's hard to explain some of the HTML tags. I was trying to say that you can copy whatever is between the BODY and END-BODY tags, not including those tags. My example with the picture showed two pictures since the HTML in quotes was interpreted literally. I guess I should have put it in a comment. (You can always View Source in the web browser to see what the HTML tags are, or to copy HTML from another site.)

You might think that posting pictures will eat up storage space and slow things down, and I hope people don't get carried away. The picture can't be stored in the message, so you have to link to a picture stored on another site. So it won't realy use up storage space on this server, and I guess it won't slow down the server either, since the server hosting the picture is the one that has to spend time serving it up, not this forum.

-CB

-- Cee Bee (ceebee@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000.


One last thing. I don't know why my example didn't work. Let's try this:

http://www.msnbc.com/default.asp or http://www.msnbc.com/

Maybe it needs to see a slash before it believes you've typed an URL.

Anyway, you can always use the HTTP HREF or copy/paste from the View HTML of a web editor.

'Nuff said for now. Let's not abuse the HTML trick.

-- Cee Bee (ceebee@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000.


There is a forum on this server where you can practice your HTML. Peter used to clear it every day, but I notice that it hasn't been cleared in a while.

It's a nice place to make your mistakes, where few people will see them.

HTML Workplace

-- semper paratus (still_here_with@my.pals), January 17, 2000.


A little-known fact is that you can compose an HTML page, save it on your own computer, adn then open it with your browser (Netscape or Explorer) and it will look and act like a real web page. That's about the fastest and easiest way to practice.

-- walt (walt@lcs.k12.ne.us), January 17, 2000.

The point of this message is not to use the forum as a way to practice HTML, but that you can use HTML coding in your messages and they will be sent literally to the web browser of whomever is reading the message. This lets you enhance your plain-text messages.

Like I said, it doesn't add anything to the content of a message, but it can make it more interesting, and lets you do things like insert graphics, charts, and tables into your e-mail messages. Better formatting. Superior sarcasm.

CeeBee



-- Cee Bee (you'redumb@metoo.com), January 17, 2000.



Just a minor point. It's a good idea to copy/paste the text of a link here because the link often expires. This is especially true for news stories. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), January 17, 2000.

This is my favorite HTML trick! :-)



-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), January 17, 2000.

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