The software this site uses supports the use of BBC (Bulletin Board Code) in forum posts. BBC is a simplified markup language that is processed as text formatting similar to the way HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is used to format web pages.
The Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough, Superscript, and Subscript formatting options at the top left of the text entry box insert BBC into your post. The tags are visible when source view is selected by clicking the rightmost button at the top of the form, and the results are shown when source view is turned off.
Each BBC consists of a matching pair of tags surrounding the text to be formatted. The opening tag is the tag identifier (like 'b' for bold) enclosed in square brackets, and the closing tag is the same but with a forward slash before the tag identifier. So to make the word 'text' appear in bold, you would enter '[ b]text[/b ]', but without the spaces.
It's important to understand that BBC tags MUST be processed as a pair, meaning that while you can create bold and italic text by combining BBC tags, they must be properly nested, meaning one pair has to be inside another pair. Using curly braces to represent square brackets, {b}{i}bold italic text{/i}{/b} will work, but {b}{i}tags not nested{/b}{/i} will not.
The attached image shows which BBC tags can be used. The highlight tag is provided by an external modification, so the effect doesn't appear until the post is saved (you can always go back and edit a post). It supports multiple colors using the syntax [ highlight=color]test[/highlight ], again without the spaces.[/b]
SMF-BBC.jpg