OK BobH, as an example I'll use an explanation how to use BBCode to make some text a live link. It's really simple as we know, but it can be difficult to show how the code looks, hence escape tags, created by Hans, that works in this Lounge, or something else.
I'll use this example: Sample text. Some text here, some text here.
An URL can be pasted directly into the BBCode, but it can sometimes be easier to paste it somewhere in the editor if one has to trim some part of the URL.
So, in the editor we see:
Sample text. Some text here, some text here.
https://www.eileenslounge.com
I then highlight "some text", click on the URL button (there are explanations for BBCode syntax in the tooltips).
Sample text. Some text here, [url]some text[/url] here.
https://www.eileenslounge.com
I then move the URL into the BBCode, and add "=".
Sample text. Some text here, [url=
https://www.eileenslounge.com]some text[/url] here.
Result:
Sample text. Some text here,
some text here.
Now, it would have been difficult to show the BBCode behind this, since only the result will be posted. In the example above I added Alt-0173 after the first square bracket (and on the second line before the URL), i.e. a soft hyphen that won't be rendered by the browser; you won't see it (unless you copy my reply from the editor to, for example Notepad).
Sample text. Some text here, [-url]some text[/url] here.
-
https://www.eileenslounge.com
Using an URL as an example how to "escape" the BBCode is a bit special, compared to, say, the BBCode for Bold. Today most software can automatically parse URLs, make them live (there is a check box in the editor to disable that). You don't need to highlight
www.eileenslounge.com and click on the URL button to add the
tags for it to become
http://www.eileenslounge.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. And also, if there isn't something that can be parsed as an URL when using the BBCode for URL nothing will happen, no link. In the example above, before adding the URL, there was no need for me to add something that "breaks" the BBCode since it will look like
some text.
As
mentioned above, using soft hyphens, in general (i.e. not to break BBCode
![Grin :grin:](./images/smilies/grin.gif)
), is perhaps questionable.
Another source of confusion is that some programs implemented the Unicode semantics for the soft hyphen, but many widely used text editors and word processors did not. Instead, program-specific methods were used for discretionary hyphen. This resulted in problems in data interchange, making the use of soft hyphens questionable.
So, a little "quick & dirty" trick that I've used (in another context). I linked to an old post above, here is
another older one; and as we know there are some (very) minor errors in some old posts due to some server update. In this case I used a non-printable character at both opening and closing tags. Now rendered as Â.
Byelingual When you speak two languages but start losing vocabulary in both of them.