Welcome to Gaia! ::

Welcome to the guide to the forums. In this thread, I tried to explain all the basics I could think of, as well as some of the fancy stuff. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the thread or PM them to me.

Contents:
Layout
Posting
Quotes & Quoting
Post Actions
Polls
BBCode Basics
Navigating the Guild

Now that you've read some posts in the forum, it's time to submit one of your own. Simply click the "Post Reply" button at the top or bottom of the page and type what you want to say. You can then hit the "Preview" button to see what your post will look like or hit "Submit". This will submit your post to the forum for everyone to read.

The "Preview" button is used when you use BBCode or emotes in your post and want to see what the finished product will look like. This is especially useful when you are changing the colour or alignment of text or posting an image or link.

Post actions make things more interesting, and they are sometimes required in various threads, especially contests. Make sure you know what post actions you want ahead of time, though, because you cannot add/change them if you go back and edit your post.

Here is a list of everything you can do with post actions:
Change your post style
Display items from your inventory
Display people on your friends list
Roll dice
Generate a random number

Change Your Post Style
Tired of your posts all being speech bubbles? Want to differentiate between thought and speech in a roleplay or make something look like a document? Post styles have got you covered. Simply open the "Post Style" dropdown and select the style you want. The little purple box next to the dropdown menu will show you a preview of the post style.

Display Items from Your Inventory
If you are selling or giving away an item or items, or if you are hosting a contest and wish to display the various prizes, you can do that with the "Display Inventory" option in the "Post Style" menu. Clicking this option will show you a list of your inventory. Simply click on each item and then click "Add to Display". When you are done, just click in the text box to type your post like normal, if you haven't already.

Display People on Your Friends List
"Display Friends" is also located in the "Post Style" menu and is similar to the "Display Inventory" option. You can display up to 6 friends, which you simply select from each dropdown. You can also change the background of the display box.

Roll Dice
The "Roll Dice" option under the "Post Action" dropdown allows you to display a dice roll above your post. You can roll one kind of dice at a time and up to 20 of that kind at once. If you've ever played D&D or any other tabletop game, you probably recognise the various dice types. If not, they're pretty self-explanatory.

Generate a Random Number
This is in the same menu as the "Roll Dice" option. Simply select it then type the lowest possible number and the highest possible number. Your random number will show up above your post in the forum.

Gaia makes BBCode easy. When you make a new post, there is a multitude of buttons across the top. All of those are pre-done BBCode. Personally, I like to put in the code myself. BBCode is very simple. It consists of opening tags and end tags. The opening tag goes at the beginning of whatever you're adding/formatting, and the end tag goes at the end. Simple, right? Here are the basic tags.

Text

Changing Text

Underlined Text
Bold Text
Italicised Text
Strike-out Text

Changing Text Size

Normal Sized Text
Small Text
Large Text

It's common sense. The smaller the size number, the smaller the text. The larger the number, the larger the text. Gaia has a maximum text size, I think, but you can mess around and find out for yourself.

Coloured Text

Steel Blue Text
Green Text

These are my two favourite text colours. To find more colour tags, go HERE.

Aligning Text





You probably won't ever need the first one, but the point is, you put the direction into the opening tag for where you want your text.

Adding a URL

http://www.gaiaonline.com
A link to Gaia.

See, you can just type a URL link, or you can make it pretty by using BBCode tags, as above. Also, notice that the opening tag does not have a end bracket until after the actual URL, unlike all the other BBCode tags. Also, make sure you add the "http://" in there or it won't work.

Images

Adding Images



Images are very VERY simple. You type the opening tag, paste in the URL of the image, then add the end tag. An image opening tag has a closed bracket before the image URL, unlike a regular URL.

Images as Links



If you click this image, it will take you to the Gaia homepage. Basically, instead of putting text between the URL tags like I did earlier, I put image tags and an image URL in there.

Aligning Images












These images are on the same level as each other because, while it doesn't show in the code box because the whole coding is too long, there is no space between the end tag of the first image and the opening tag of the second. You can also put text between them like so:







You can also align images using the same tags as you do for text, but the text will not wrap around it. It will either go above or below the image, depending on where you put the text. Basically, if you align to the center, make sure everything you want aligned that way is within the tags.

Reserved

(This reserves a post so that I can go back and edit it later if I want to add more stuff.)

Reserved