Fonts, colors and sizes

[Slan]

I like to make things more interesting and look nicer in my AARs by the use of different fonts, font sizes and colors. But I can't memorize all the types, so I thought to myself, why don't I make a reference so I can check each of them without trying them out. I also thought others may be interested. So, here it is.

EDIT: As per Surume's suggestion, I included the HTML tag's used for the effects, and I also added some more stuff you can do with different tags.


Size

HTML tag:

[SIZE="X"]Text to be re-sized[/SIZE]

Where X is an integer from 1 to 7.

Size 1
Size 2 (That's the default.)
Size 3
Size 4
Size 5
Size 6
Size 7
(Using a number larger than 7 with the tag will result in size 7.)



Color

HTML tag:

[COLOR="Color-name"]Text to be re-colored[/COLOR]

Where Color-name is valid color-name string. You can use one of the following names from the drop-down menu:

First row:

black
dieanna
darkolivegreen
darkgreen
darkslateblue
navy
indigo
darkslategray

Second row:

darkred
darkorange
olive
green
teal
blue
slategray
dimgray

Third row:

red
sandybrown
yellowgreen
seagreen
mediumtorquoise
royalblue
purple
gray

Fourth row:

magenta
orange
yellow
lime
cyan
deepskyblue
darkorchid
silver

Fifth row:

pink
wheat
lemonchiffon
palegreen
paleturquoise
lightblue
plum
white

You can also use other colors found on this list. I use gold a lot, but lightsalmon for example looks aweful in my opinion Also note that adult males can only diferentiate between about 16 colors.
For colors, the default depends on which part of the forum you are on at the moment, because it depends on the background color. Links have different colors (which overwrites the set color!).


Fonts

HTML tag:

[FONT="Font-name]Text to be re-sized[/FONT]

Where Font-name is any string from the list below.

Actually, that is the most important one. You actually get an example for size and for the 40 "built-in" colors, but not for the fonts. So here they are:

Arial
Arial Black
Arial Narrow
Book Antiqua
Century Gothic
Comic Sans MS
Courier New
Fixedsys
Franklin Gothic Medium
Garamond
Georgia
Impact
Lucida Console
Lucida Sans Unicode
Microsoft Sans Serif
Palatino Linotype
System
Tahoma
Times New Roman
Trebuchet MS
Verdana (This is the default.)


Word formating

You can also use Italic, Underlined and Bold letters/words. The HTML-tags are as follows:

Italic; Underlined; Bold

Paragraph formating

You can adjust on which side a paragraph is shown:

Left-side

Center

Right-side

Tha HTML-tags are:

Left-side
Center
Right-side

Note here that you can only use these for paragraphs. If you add such a tag in the middle of a paragraph, the forum engine will automatically put a new line at that point, so you can't force one part of the text to the left and the other part to the right!

@Forum Admins/Developers: By the way, if it would be possible, I would highly appreciate a "JUSTIFY" text positioning tag!


Other stuff

There are other tags you can use. Here are the ones I know of.

CODE allows you to put formated text into your writing (although it looks kinda stupid, so not the best method) and none of the forum engine's own formating will mess things up (like deleting every spaces from the beginning of a line). You can see the results above. You can even put CODE blocks inside CODE blocks, so I can't show the HTML tag in a CODE block. The syntax is the same as for every other tag, without parameters. Like the bold letters, except you don't type B within the []-s, but CODE instead.

QUOTE can be used with or without a parameter.

The result will look similar to the CODE block, except it won't be formated. The paramter can be either a string (ie. a sequence of characters, like "Slan"), or a string and a number separated by a semicolon (. This is an example of QUOTE without a parameter.

This is an example of QUOTE with only a string as a parameter. Note that the engine says "Originally posted by ...", so it won't really work for quoting Hitler for example. Or at least not in any serious sense...

This is an example of QUOTE with a string and a number. The string is the name of the quoted, just like above, and the number is the ID of the post you are quoting. Again, this is meant for in-forum quoting, not historical people.

If you want to quote historical people, I would either suggest using the parameterless version and adding in the quoted person's name after the quote, separated with a '-', or simply leaving out the entire QUOTE tag, and using Italics instead.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. - Abraham Lincoln

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

LIST is used to (guess what) list different items. There are two versions that I know of: with "1" as the parameter and with no parameter (or anything else as a parameter I guess...). The HTML-tag is:
But this is only the frame of the list. You will need to separate the items by a[*] tag.
Here's an example with no parameter:

• First item.
• Second item.
• Third item.

Another example, with "1" as parameter:

1. First item.
2. Second item.
3. Third item.

INDENT is used to push text to the right a bit. (Sorry, I can't really explain it any better ) This, again, is a text-formating tag, so it will effect the entire paragraph. I never really found any good use for it, but that's probably just me. Here's an example:

This text is a bit to the right compared to the rest.

This is even more to the right.

And this is even more.

As you can see above, this will also increase the space between lines, which is exactly why I don't find it usefull. I would use it to put the first line of a paragraph a bit to the right, to make paragraphs more recognisable (we use it for books around here, and it makes wonders!), but it doesn't work like that.

To illustrate the above statement, here's some longer text, which will overflow to the next line, so you will see that the entire paragraph is pushed to the right. I guess the only proper use for this "INDENT" tag is for quotes. For example, Wikipedia uses this to that effect.

There's a 'Decrease Indent' button on the interface, but it does nothing as far as I understand...

[Alexspeed]

Thanks Slan, thats a handy reference!

I wasnt aware i could use other colors that are not in the default list, thanks for that link

[Surume]

Maybe you also want to include the HTML tags which you use with these. and how to put them in. For example, with the size to modify it you would type the following.

[SIZE="2"] [/SIZE.] (period added to make the tags visible.)

I know that the forum allows for those to be automatically put into place with a preselected text, but I know that when I'm writing that I make sure to write these in by hand, as I find it faster. Also, this would allow for people who don't know proper tags to correct them more easily when they make errors.

Other wise this looks classy. Maybe you should display italics, underlines, strikethroughs, and whatever else you can do with forum writings

[Fiftypence]

There are also some other fonts you can use that are not in the list, such as papyrus, calibri, rockwell and perpetua, plus several others

[Mr. Capiatlist]

You can also use hex triplets for more precise color control!

Input:
color="#CFB53B"

[Leviathan07]

Whatever you do, keep in mind that people use different color schemes for the forum. I use the "vb4 Blue" scheme where the background of the text is light grey. Only the colors of the first, second and third row are entirely legible for me. Row 4 has a bunch of colors that are too bright to read well, and in row 5 all the colors are too bright. The green highlights that you use for your headings look awkward on the grey background of "vb4 Blue", but they're readable.

On the other hand, when I change to "DeepOceanEdited", the background becomes dark blue, and the colors of rows 1 and 2 become a pain in the ass to read.

So please, stick to row three for your color selection!! If you wish all users to be able to read your texts well.

The BEST thing would actually be, if you don't use any color at all, because the forum will change the color of non-highlighted text so that it is perfectly readable. It's white on blue with the "DeepOceanEdited" scheme, and black on light grey with the "vb4 Blue" scheme. Highlighted is not adjusted so you may end up with blue on blue or gold on grey which are awful combinations.

I see many AARs where authors use gold, yellow or other bright colors for text highlights, and it's a pain to read those colors!!! Please consider all users before picking your colors.

[Leviathan07]

Just to show how different the colors look:

Left one: "vb4 Blue". Right one: "DeepOcean Edited" (which I suspect you are using)

Note how the regular text ("First Row") adapts, but none of the color highlights do...

Row #3 is clearly the best for both color schemes.

[Director]

Please also be advised that the forum has restrictions on what you can use in your signature - default font and font size only, ten lines or less, no extreme use of colors, etc. Check the FAQ if you have any questions.

In general I find less is more. Lots of colors can be distracting, for example.

[Leviathan07]

Please also be advised that the forum has restrictions on what you can use in your signature - default font and font size only, ten lines or less, no extreme use of colors, etc. Check the FAQ if you have any questions.

In general I find less is more. Lots of colors can be distracting, for example.

Post does not compute. Your own signature has blue text.

[Slan]

Post does not compute. Your own signature has blue text.

That's not that extreme

[Woody Man]

This is a great thread!