: The Museum of HP Calculators


Formatting

It's easy to add formatting to posts in the HP forums (except for the classified ads). You simply type codes that look like [code]. Codes come in two types - single and paired. Paired codes have a code that turns them on like [bold] and one that turns them off like [/bold]. These codes are very similar to HTML.

Line Breaks and Program Listings

By default the forum software flows your text to match the boundaries of the browser. When you type two blank lines, you'll get a new paragraph with a blank line in between. To get a single line break without a blank line use [nl] which stands for "new line". To keep a block of text looking just like you entered it, surround it with [pre] and [/pre]

First[nl]Second produces:   First
Second
 
[pre]The first line
second line
third line
fourth line
etc.[/pre] produces:
The first line
second line
third line
fourth line
etc.

Links and Images

You need a full URL/address immediately after the colon. The only difference between [link] and [url] is that [link] allows you to specify the text that the user sees.

Text Formatting

Quoting Someone

[quote]Some text you are quoting[/quote] Your response... produces:

Quote:
Some text you are quoting

Your response...

It's usually not necessary to quote but if you want to reply to just part of a long post, you can cut and paste the appropriate section(s) into your response and surround it(them) with [quote] ... [/quote].

Lists

[ol][li]an item[li]another item[/ol] produces:
  1. an item
  2. another item
 
[ul][li]an item
[li]
another item[/ul] produces:
  • an item
  • another item

Note the the list is started with [ol] (ordered list) or [ul] (unordered list) and ended with the matching end code. Each list item is started with [li] and there is no end code.

Headings

[head]Headings[/head] produces the heading directly above.

Miscellaneous

Leaving [ ]s alone

If I want to explain formatting in a post you can "escape" codes by preceding the brackets with backslashes. For example: \[pre\] will produce [pre]. In cases where you enter something in brackets that isn't a format code, the system will automatically escape the brackets for you. For example you will get the same effect entering \[u\] or just [u]. In both cases [u] will be displayed in your message.

Examples:

Input: Results:
[img:https://www.hpmuseum.org/gto.gif]
[url:https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp65.htm]
https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp65.htm
[link:https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp65.htm]
HP-65 Page[/link]
HP-65 Page
Next is an
[head]Article Heading[/head]
for the next bunch of text
Next is an

Article Heading

for the next bunch of text

Here are some lines separated
by one newline[nl]
line1[nl]
line2[nl]line3[nl]
line4
Here are some lines separated by one newline
line1
line2
line3
line4
Note that
text separated by one line
break, like this, gets merged into a
paragraph.
Note that text separated by one line break, like this, gets merged into a paragraph.
If you want to do a code listing:[pre]
preformatted text
line    2
line    3
line    4
line    5[/pre]
If you want to do a code listing:
preformatted text
line    2
line    3
line    4
line    5
Here's an ordered (numbered) list[ol]
[li]First element
[li]Second element
[/ol]
Here's an ordered (numbered) list
  1. First element
  2. Second element
Here's an unordered (unnumbered) list[ul]
[li]First element
[li]Second element
[/ul]
Here's an unordered (unnumbered) list
  • First element
  • Second element
Here's a [super]superscript[/super] and
a [sub]subscript[/sub] and
a [bold]bold [super]superscript[/super]
and [sub]subscript[/sub][/bold]
Here's a superscript and a subscript and a bold superscript and subscript

      

You'll be able to see the results by pressing the preview button rather than the post button. If the results don't look right (for example if you see something like: [bold]bold text[/bald] in the preview screen, go back and correct the error and then preview again.

More Details

Always use a full URL such as https://www.hpmuseum.org/enter.jpg. Note that URLs can not contain any of the characters <, >, ], ", ' and spaces.

If you enter a code incorrectly and post it, you can fix it by pressing the edit button on your post. You may need to remove backslashes when you edit. For example if you enter [bold]test[bold] and then edit, it will come back as \[bold\]test\[\bold\]. This is because the software can't tell whether you made a mistake entering [bold]text[/bold] or whether you really meant it to display like that to show someone how NOT to enter codes. In this case, delete the escapes and enter the slash on the bold end code so you have: [bold]test[/bold] and then press save. If you enter something like a[i] = b[k], it will look the same when you edit it because there are no codes [i] or [k] so there is no need to escape them.

If you don't have a place to host your images, then please log in and request a guest directory. Once the directory is created, you will be able to upload your files. (This is actually preferred since I won't have to worry about the images moving or disappearing in the future and leaving broken links.)

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