How to save your topics from being reformatted to HTML
People have been losing important threads a lot because of a forum bug. This bug will happen when editing a topic, and will reformat the topic's original post content to HTML.
I have had this happen to a few of my topics as well, but I found ways to fix them, shown here!
This thread of mine has been re-formatted to HTML.
parse:
verb - Computers. to analyze (a string of characters) in order to associate groups of characters with the syntactic units of the underlying grammar.
Example:
[b]text[/b]
will parse into
text
back-up (or backup):
verb - Computers. to duplicate (a file or a program) as a precaution against failure.
noun - a copy or duplicate version, especially of a file, program, or entire computer system, retained for use in the event that the original is in some way rendered unusable.
STEP 1: Play it safe, and keep a backup before posting.
Before posting your thread, you should back-up the content in case it is reformatted.
How to do this:
If you already have the thread typed in the forum's Editor, you can still back up the content while keeping BBCode's features like bolding, underlining, sizing, ect.
Just click the "Toggle editing mode" button found in the top-left corner of the editor, so it dims the top area and disables use of the top bar (The area with the Bold button, Underline button, Color changer, ect.).
Now that Editing Mode is disabled, you can copy all of the topic's content, and it will keep the BBCode formatting along with it, but in plain text.
You can place it in a few different text editors. I use Wordpad (Windows) to paste my thread content. You can also use Notepad, Microsoft Word, Notepad++, and Mac text editors.
You can also just type the thread in one of the text editing software itself before even going to Minecraft Forums. If you type it in a software without using the forum editor first, you will have to format the text yourself.
This is how to format with BBCode in plain text:
[b]bold text[/b]
[u]underlined text[/u]
[i]italicised text[/i]
[center]centered text[/center]
[url]a link[/url]
[url=www.minecraftforum.net]A link that goes to Minecraft Forum but displays your own text.[/url]
[size=x-large]Size 24 text[/size]
[url="/members/2160025-crafterguy3x3"]Crafterguy3x3[/url]links to a member's profile
[color=#ff0000]Red-colored text[/color]
[img]insert an image's URL here for it to display the image[/img]
[code]displays text without parsing BBCode tags[/cod*e]
[quote]quote someone, or you can use the Quote button to get all of the information such as who posted it and when[/quote]
(DON'T include that asterisk (*) when using the CODE tag, I had to put it there because of parsing issues.)
There are more BBCode formatting tags, but these are the ones you will use.
STEP 2: Insert your text
If you typed and formatted your thread's content in a text editor, press CTRL + A, or just highlight all of the text manually, then Copy it (CTRL + C).
Then go to Minecraft Forums and go to the correct section where your thread will be, and click "Start New Topic". Then click the "Toggle editing mode" button found in the top-left corner of the editor.
Next you will paste (CTRL + V) your text into the editor.
Then click the "Toggle editing mode" button again, and the editor will parse all of your BBCode format tags!
If my text I typed in Notepad looked like this:
[b]Example Thread![/b]
Enabling editing mode will parse the text into this:
Example Thread!
STEP 3: Post your topic
Once you have pasted the text into the editor, make sure you save the back-up you typed in the text editor. Then click the green "Post New Topic" button under the editor.
YOU'RE DONE!
IF YOUR THREAD HAS BEEN REFORMATTED TO HTML
If your thread has already been reformatted to HTML, and you want it back, you can just re-open the original copy/backup you typed, and Edit your thread and replace the re-formatted text with the original.
If you didn't make a back-up of your thread, you can find and use an HTML to BBCode converter.
If you do use a converter, click the Edit button on your thread, and highlight all of the text and copy it. Then go to the converter and paste the text in.
Then click "Submit HTML" and it will give you the text of your topic in un-parssed BBCode. Then copy that text and replace it with the HTML text in your thread.
Here is the converter I use, thanks to Koumus: http://www.garyshood.com/htmltobb/
Note: With this converter, you lose all line breaks in your thread. So you will have to go through the text and add line breaks in it, unfortunately. (I think this might happen with all converters, because when threads are re-formatted, they seem to already lose the line breaks.)
People have been losing important threads a lot because of a forum bug. This bug will happen when editing a topic, and will reformat the topic's original post content to HTML.
I have had this happen to a few of my topics as well, but I found ways to fix them, shown here!
This thread of mine has been re-formatted to HTML.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Words you should know: (Definitions from Dictionary.com)
(Click the word to learn more about it (at en.wikipedia.org))
parse:
verb - Computers. to analyze (a string of characters) in order to associate groups of characters with the syntactic units of the underlying grammar.
Example: will parse into
back-up (or backup):
verb - Computers. to duplicate (a file or a program) as a precaution against failure.
noun - a copy or duplicate version, especially of a file, program, or entire computer system, retained for use in the event that the original is in some way rendered unusable.
re-format (or reformat):
verb - to set the format of (input or output)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
How to do this:
If you already have the thread typed in the forum's Editor, you can still back up the content while keeping BBCode's features like bolding, underlining, sizing, ect.
Just click the "Toggle editing mode" button found in the top-left corner of the editor, so it dims the top area and disables use of the top bar (The area with the Bold button, Underline button, Color changer, ect.).
Now that Editing Mode is disabled, you can copy all of the topic's content, and it will keep the BBCode formatting along with it, but in plain text.
You can place it in a few different text editors. I use Wordpad (Windows) to paste my thread content. You can also use Notepad, Microsoft Word, Notepad++, and Mac text editors.
You can also just type the thread in one of the text editing software itself before even going to Minecraft Forums. If you type it in a software without using the forum editor first, you will have to format the text yourself.
This is how to format with BBCode in plain text:
(DON'T include that asterisk (*) when using the CODE tag, I had to put it there because of parsing issues.)
There are more BBCode formatting tags, but these are the ones you will use.
If you typed and formatted your thread's content in a text editor, press CTRL + A, or just highlight all of the text manually, then Copy it (CTRL + C).
Then go to Minecraft Forums and go to the correct section where your thread will be, and click "Start New Topic". Then click the "Toggle editing mode" button found in the top-left corner of the editor.
Next you will paste (CTRL + V) your text into the editor.
Then click the "Toggle editing mode" button again, and the editor will parse all of your BBCode format tags!
If my text I typed in Notepad looked like this:
Enabling editing mode will parse the text into this:
YOU'RE DONE!
If your thread has already been reformatted to HTML, and you want it back, you can just re-open the original copy/backup you typed, and Edit your thread and replace the re-formatted text with the original.
If you didn't make a back-up of your thread, you can find and use an HTML to BBCode converter.
If you do use a converter, click the Edit button on your thread, and highlight all of the text and copy it. Then go to the converter and paste the text in.
Then click "Submit HTML" and it will give you the text of your topic in un-parssed BBCode. Then copy that text and replace it with the HTML text in your thread.
Here is the converter I use, thanks to Koumus:
http://www.garyshood.com/htmltobb/
Note: With this converter, you lose all line breaks in your thread. So you will have to go through the text and add line breaks in it, unfortunately. (I think this might happen with all converters, because when threads are re-formatted, they seem to already lose the line breaks.)
Hope this helps!
Thanks!
I've seen a bunch of threads in FD&I about this problem, and this has happened to me a lot as well, so I decided to post a solution!