A Writer's Guide to Formatting

macodelo · Jun 7, 2014

nababoo said: ↑
Okay, you've gotten your story written up, all nice and polished (perhaps even with pictures ), and you're ready to post. But then you're struck by a serious obstacle -- what is the default font and formatting of the Starbound forum, and how the heck do I get there?

Well, that's why this is here, as a guide.

First off: General Tips and Info.

The default font is Tahoma

View attachment 16698

The default color of the text is grey

View attachment 16699

The default font size is between 3 and 4, interestingly enough. A workaround to this is pasting the desired text in a program that supports no text size changes (such as Notepad) and copy-paste that text into the story.

View attachment 73626

Paragraphing
The XenForo software doesn't support indents. As much as it is of an irritating issue, we forum members have found an alternative -- adding a line in between paragraphs.

What does this accomplish? It streamlines your ideas, and makes it easier on the reader's eyes -- you never want a Wall of Text. Those can put off most readers, unless you stick in a bunch of pretty pictures and the like.

However, recently, another solution has come up, created by Chokladakan of the Unofficial Starbound Forums. Essentially, it makes for inserting a transparent picture/text of an indent whenever you need it. This is easily facilitated by use of the program AutoHotKey, and setting the shortcut to insert an indent whatever you need -- qq, zy being some unique examples.

Spacing
When you have indents in your text (probably hangovers from documents that support indents), pressing enter produces no response. This is occasionally a visual issue -- when you publish the text, the line you put in may be there. However, Shift + Enter seems to force this change into effect.
Technical Spoiler Issues
Spoilers have a nasty reputation of forming into double, triple, or multi-spoilers. The technical issues rising from these spoiler issues is the misplacement of BBCode. The forum software sometimes is unable to place them correctly, especially when there's other links, boldings, italics, and/or other stuff, and as a result, you have that nasty spoiler issue.
Code:
[spoiler][b]TextGoesHere[/spoiler][/b]
This above issue is something most HTML programmers will notice. The most reliable remedy to this is going to the "BBCode Editor" up in the top right of your edit/comment/thread post box.

EDIT: This issue appears to have been fixed in the 1.2 XenForo update. However, the rest shall be kept in the event that this kind of error may appear if particularly nasty formatting causes some problems.

View attachment 16939

Go in there, and change the BBCode. A solution, found by Mercenary Lord, is to just replace the BBCode of whatever you're fixing with exactly what you want. An example is shown below.
Code:
[spoiler][b][Font=Tahoma]Aliens[/b][/Font][/spoiler]
Replace all that mixed-up gunk with:
Code:
[spoiler][b]ALIENS[/b][/spoiler]
It's important to note that you must place them so that the corresponding codes (marked by [stuff][/stuff]) match -- if one thing is on the most outside, it must remain that way. Like layers of an onion.
Well, I hope that covers most of the problems/issues. I added in a few tips as well, and if you have any to share, feel free to give them. I'll credit you and add it to the OP.

Happy writing, my friends. Hope this helps

1-12-14 Edit: Things changed with the XenForo update. Most notably, the bolding issue with Google Docs and Microsoft Word 2008 seems to have disappeared. Did some minor cleaning up of certain sentences as well.
Click to expand...
I only wished I read this sooner. Otherwise, I am so dedicated as a forum goer, I even edited every freaking post on my fanfic thread with spoilers. I have to admit though I fondled with the spoiler code for a while because somehow my font suddenly became 8 or 10. I eventually found out I could just change the font directly rather than typing font size in code.

Always read the rules.!

nababoo · Jun 7, 2014

macodelo said: ↑

I only wished I read this sooner. Otherwise, I am so dedicated as a forum goer, I even edited every freaking post on my fanfic thread with spoilers. I have to admit though I fondled with the spoiler code for a while because somehow my font suddenly became 8 or 10. I eventually found out I could just change the font directly rather than typing font size in code.

Always read the rules.!
Click to expand...

Only guidelines, and rather outdated ones at that. The Xenforo update really cleaned a lot of things up and may have made this guide obsolete

macodelo · Jun 8, 2014

nababoo said: ↑

Only guidelines, and rather outdated ones at that. The Xenforo update really cleaned a lot of things up and may have made this guide obsolete
Click to expand...

That too is in the fanfic section? I am in a rush when I just got this notification on my phone, otherwise I would find it myself.

nababoo · Jun 10, 2014

macodelo said: ↑

That too is in the fanfic section? I am in a rush when I just got this notification on my phone, otherwise I would find it myself.
Click to expand...

The Xenforo update is automatically the thing that you see before us. *gesticulates broadly*

It's a software update that fixed a lot of these little things and made life on all of us a little easier.

Log in or Sign up

A Writer's Guide to Formatting

macodelo Scruffy Nerf-Herder

nababoo Supernova

macodelo Scruffy Nerf-Herder

nababoo Supernova

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Useful Searches

A Writer's Guide to Formatting

macodelo Scruffy Nerf-Herder

nababoo Supernova

macodelo Scruffy Nerf-Herder

nababoo Supernova

Share This Page