From a Cave in the Woods... The Unofficial GoComics Style Guide

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GoComics.com allows visitors and members to post comments on the various strips that are published there.  These comments often become the equivalent of a bulletin board or slow-paced IRC chat.

 

While the comment engine was formerly based on the Markdown language, and some remnants of this are still evident, the recent update of the GoComics site in conjunction with absorbing Comics.Com resulted in a much more user-friendly interface largely based on HTML.  For your gratuitous edification, I present below the unofficial style guide for formatting comments on GoComics.

 

This is a work in progress. Improvements and suggestions welcome - send them to ccdesan[at]gmail[dot]com. Thanks to user x_Tech for valuable tips.

 

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Notes:

 

Font Codes  Escape Characters  Special Characters  Heading Styles Lists Horizontal Rule

Line Spacing  Editing Comments  Pre-formatted Text  URL's  Embedded Links  Images

 

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Font Codes

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Note: Asterisks ( * ) and Underscores ( _ ) perform the same function.

 

Code	Function	Example	Result
None	Body text	Normal Text	Normal Text
_text_ or <i>text</i>	Italic	_This line is italic_ <i>So is this line</i>	This line is italic So is this line
*text* or <b>text</b>	Bold	*This line is bold* <i>So is this line</i>	This line is Bold So is this line
*_text_* or <b><i>text</i></b>	Bold Italic	*_This line is bold and italic_* <b><i>So is this line</i></b>	This line is bold and italic So is this line
-text- or <del>text</del> Note: To display a hyphen, pad it with spaces.	Strikethrough	-This text is struck through- <del>So is this text</del>	This text is struck through So is this text

 

Various formats can be used within the same sentence.

 

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Escape Characters

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Any text between angle brackets (<) and (>) is ignored.  To print angle brackets in your comments, use &lt; and &gt;

 

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Special Characters

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The GoComics forum is UTF-8 compatible.  With some exceptions, such as Unicode codepoints that are way out of the normal range - like certain Chinese ideographs - any character that can be found in Arial Unicode MS can simply be pasted into the comment box and it will display in your comment.

 

One guide to accessing special characters for both PC and MAC is here. On the PC, all Unicode characters can be accessed with the "Character Map" tool (Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Character Map)

 

Examples:

 

斡 - Chinese / Japanese
ㄆ - bopomofo
お - hiragana
ギ - katakana
✈ - Wingdings
∌ - Math / Logic
␆ - TTY "ACK" symbol
돉 - hangul
ﷲ - Arabic
আ - Hindi
അ - Malayalam

 

(Thanks to Boniface Muggli for reminding me to post this here)

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Heading Styles

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<h1>text<h1>:

Style H1

<h2>text<h2>:

Style H2
 

<h3>text<h3>:

STYLE H3
 

<h4>text<h4>:

Style H4
 

<h5>text<h5>:

text
 

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Lists

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At the present time, <ul> and <ol> do not seem to function on the boards. <ol> produces some unexpected results.

 

 

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Horizontal Rule

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<hr> creates a horizontal rule.

 

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Line Spacing

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Use <p> at the end of a line to force a line break.

 

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Pre-Formatted Text

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Note: This option should not be used for large amounts of text. Results can be unpredictable.

 

Any lines embedded with the <pre> and </pre> codes results in pre-formatted text.

Text appears in a fixed-pitch font, and

line breaks are preserved

     as well as spaces.

Be careful, however, because if there is too much text on the line, it will run out of the end of the comment box and not be readable.

A new line or a <p> tag returns to normal text.

 

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Editing your Comments

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At this time, the "Edit" button has been removed. You can only delete a comment and re-submit it.

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URL's

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In the past, GoComics has a difficult time resolving long and complicated URL's.  Even using the escape character [\], arguments and parameters (such as in http://www.myURL.com/myapplet?idClient=1233) were not resolved. The best solution is to use TinyUrl to create a simplified address which the board can handle.

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Embedded Links

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To embed a link, use the <a> tag

 

<a href="URL">Link Text</a>

 

Example:

 

The Old Wolf's <a href="http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Banquet/Banquet.html">Banquet from Hell</a> produces this result:

 

The Old Wolf's Banquet from Hell

 

 

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Images

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Small images can be inserted into your comments - please use these with discretion. Large images disrupt the display on some people's monitors.

 

<img src="URL"></img>

 

Note: Redirected URL's (such as TinyURL links) will not work. You have to include the direct address of the picture.

 

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