Compose tips

• Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

• Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <img> <br> <h2> <h3><p>

  This site allows HTML content. While learning all of HTML may feel intimidating, learning how to use a very small number of the most basic HTML "tags" is very easy. This table provides examples for each tag that is enabled on this site.

  For more information see W3C's HTML Specifications or use your favorite search engine to find other sites that explain HTML.

  Tag Description	You Type	You Get
  Anchors are used to make links to other pages.	<a href="http://chrisshattuck.com">Chris Shattuck</a>	Chris Shattuck
  Emphasized	<em>Emphasized</em>	Emphasized
  Strong	<strong>Strong</strong>	Strong
  Cited	<cite>Cited</cite>	Cited
  Coded text used to show programming source code	<code>Coded</code>	Coded
  Unordered list - use the <li> to begin each list item	<ul> <li>First item</li> <li>Second item</li> </ul>	First item Second item
  Ordered list - use the <li> to begin each list item	<ol> <li>First item</li> <li>Second item</li> </ol>	First item Second item
  Definition lists are similar to other HTML lists. <dl> begins the definition list, <dt> begins the definition term and <dd> begins the definition description.	<dl> <dt>First term</dt> <dd>First definition</dd> <dt>Second term</dt> <dd>Second definition</dd> </dl>	First term First definition Second term Second definition
  No help provided for tag img.
  By default line break tags are automatically added, so use this tag to add additional ones. Use of this tag is different because it is not used with an open/close pair like all the others. Use the extra " /" inside the tag to maintain XHTML 1.0 compatibility	Text with <br />line break	Text with line break
  Header	<h2>Subtitle</h2>	Subtitle
  Header	<h3>Subtitle three</h3>	Subtitle three
  By default paragraph tags are automatically added, so use this tag to add additional ones.	<p>Paragraph one.</p> <p>Paragraph two.</p>	Paragraph one. Paragraph two.

  Most unusual characters can be directly entered without any problems.

  If you do encounter problems, try using HTML character entities. A common example looks like &amp; for an ampersand & character. For a full list of entities see HTML's entities page. Some of the available characters include:

  Character Description	You Type	You Get
  Ampersand	&	&
  Greater than	>	>
  Less than	&lt;	<
  Quotation mark	&quot;	"

• Lines and paragraphs are automatically recognized. The <br /> line break, <p> paragraph and </p> close paragraph tags are inserted automatically. If paragraphs are not recognized simply add a couple blank lines.
• To post pieces of code, surround them with <code>...</code> tags. For PHP code, you can use <?php ... ?>, which will also colour it based on syntax.