Most common emoticons are automatically replaced by a corresponding graphic in whatever text they appear. You can also specify a specific emoticon by picking it from the emoticons box, or entering it directly.

To enter an emoticon directly, simply type its name surrounded by colons, for example :biggrin: produces and :furious: will give you .

BB tags are special strings you can include in the body of your message to customize the layout or appearance. They allow you to do things like adding images, links, and lists to the body of a message.

BB Tags consists of a special keyword surrounded by square brackets, that is placed before and after the text that will be affected. When you post your message, these tags will be automatically processed to create the effect you want. To check your work, just hit the preview button.

The table below shows many common BB tags and their use:

Usage	Example	Result
[b] text [/b]	[b]bold[/b]	bold
[i] text [/i]	[i]italics[/i]	italics
[u] text [/u]	[u]underline[/u]	underline
[big] text [/big]	[big]big[/big]	big
[sm] text [/sm]	[sm]small[/sm]	small
[url] url [/url]	[url]//www.activeboard.com[/url]	//www.activeboard.com
[url= url ] text [/url]	[url=//www.activeboard.com]ActiveBoard[/url]	ActiveBoard
[list]   [*] item 1   [*] item 2   ... [/list]	[list][*]Do[*]Re[*]Mi[/list]	Do Ra Mi
[img] url [/img]	[img]//www.sparkimg.com/.../lib_avtr_120.gif[/img]

You can use many standard html tags in the body of your message. Certain tags, such as <script> and <table> are automatically stripped from any message posted to prevent abuse of the system, but most formatting tags, anchor tags, and image tags are permitted.

If the advanced editor is available for your browser (a row of buttons appears above the comment box when posting) click on the <> button to access the html of your message.