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Posting to the Forums

Replying to a topic

To reply to a discussion topic just click on "Reply to Topic" at the bottom of any active thread.  This will bring up a form at the bottom of your screen to type your post into.  Formatting is accomplished using a code called "Textile", for more on Textile see below.   After typing your reply, hit submit, and it will be added to the discussion.

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Making a new topic

From within any of the Forums you can make a new topic by clicking "Make Topic" at the bottom of the Forum's topic list.  Give the topic a title, and first post, and you are done.

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Editing or Deleting a post

When browsing a topic, posts you have made will contain a link to "Edit Post."  This link is in the same box as your username to the left of your post.  Clicking on it will bring up your post, in a similar box to the one you created it in the first time, for you to make changes. In the edit screen there is also a link to delete your post.

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Formatting your text

The Sage Forum uses a code called "textile" to allow you to style your text.  You don't need to style your text to use the Forums, but sometimes you may want to make a bold or italic word to call attention or even to link to an outside site.  A complete reference as well as an area to practice "textile" is online here.  But, you don't need to spend time on that if you don't want to.  Below are some basic examples you might want to refer to when posting.

  • To make something Bold you put asterisks (shift + 8) around it. ( *example* = example ) 
  • To make something italic enclose it in underscore marks "_" (shift + the key to the right of zero).  ( _example_ = example )
  • To link to a website online enclose the text you want to link in qutation marks and follow it with the address for the link, seperating the two with a colon (:).  ( "example":http://www.google.com = example )

 

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Quoting another user or website.

Discussions are organic and can go in many directions.  You may often want to quote portions of another user's post in order to clarify what you are responding to in your own post.  Tagging your quote as a "blockquote" gives it a different appearance from the rest of your text.  It is a good idea to add the "blockquote tag" for the sake of clarity whenever you quote someone on the Forum or from another website.  There are two ways to do this.

First, however, you need to get the text.  To do that drag your mouse over the text you wish to quote.  Right-Click the highlighted area with your mouse and select "copy" from the context menu that comes up.  Then, in your post, you want to right-click and select "paste" to insert the text where you want it to go. 

If your quote is only one paragraph long you can use a "textile tag" by beginning your paragraph with "bq.".  ( bq. Example paragraph )

However, if your quote extends beyond a paragraph it is necessary to use an HTML tag to contain it.   This is accomplished by beginning your quote with "<blockquote>" and ending it with "</blockquote>". (Without the quotation marks.) 

<blockquote>example</blockquote>

 

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