Vital Pixel

Learning Php and Why its Important

Most professionals in the webmastering buisness know 2 types of code Html/Css and PHP. I know most of yall have heard of php but looked at a snippet and thought it was too hard. Well you mastered english didnt you? So php is no problem since it is english!

The main function (in my opinion) of php is to get data from a database and display it. Of course there are conditions to it like if the user is logged on or not, but the main function is to display some sort of content.

Why do you need to learn php? Well it is used almost on every prospering website! Wikipedia.com is my favorite example because it uses the fundamentals of php and makes it powerful. Also the new world of Web 2.0 is emerging, meaning you better start making you site interactive!
I can prove that php is both simple and understandable!

<?php

echo “hello world!”;

?>

the output above would be “hello world!” without the quotes. This is my first article and i hoped you enjoyed it.

Writing bbcode (a forum’s html)

With all of my posts about advertising in forums, and getting backlinks from forum signatures, I figured I’d enlighten you all with some of a forum’s basic coding language! Some forums allow html, but if they don’t then bbcode is what is used… and sometimes even that isn’t allowed (usually it is). Bbcode, just like html is great for creating text effects and links in a forum, which can be great for advertising, or just proving a point. Luckily bbcode is really simple, even more simple than html, so you should be able to understand it with out any prior coding knowledge (which is one of the reasons it’s the first type of coding I’m teaching you).

Ok, so I guess I’ll just list out some of bbcode tags and tell you what they do!

How to create bold, italic and underlined text

1. To make a piece of text bold enclose it in [b][/b], eg.[b]Hello[/b]will become Hello
2. For underlining use [u][/u], for example:[u]Good Morning[/u]becomes Good Morning
3. To italicise text use [i][/i], eg.This is [i]Great![/i]would give: This is Great!

How to change the text colour or size

To alter the colour or size of your text the following tags can be used. Keep in mind that how the output appears will depend on the viewers browser and system:

1. Changing the colour of text is achieved by wrapping it in [color=][/color]. You can specify either a recognised colour name (eg. red, blue, yellow, etc.) or the hexadecimal triplet alternative, eg. #FFFFFF, #000000. For example, to create red text you could use:[color=red]Hello![/color]or

   [color=#FF0000]Hello![/color]

   will both output Hello!

2. Changing the text size is achieved in a similar way using [size=][/size]. This tag is dependent on the template the user has selected but the recommended format is a numerical value representing the text size in percent, starting at 20 through to 200 (very large) by default. For example:[size=30]SMALL[/size]will generally be SMALL

   whereas:

   [size=200]HUGE![/size]

   will be HUGE!

You can also combine tags

[size=150][color=red][b]LOOK AT ME![/b][/color][/size]

this would output LOOK AT ME!

We don’t recommend you output lots of text that looks like this though! Remember it is up to you, the poster to ensure tags are closed correctly. For example the following is incorrect:

[b][u]This is incorrect[/b][/u]

Outputting code or fixed width data

If you want to output a piece of code or in fact anything that requires a fixed width, eg. Courier type font you should enclose the text in [code][/code] tags, eg.

[code]echo “This is some code”;[/code]

All formatting used within [code][/code] tags is retained when you later view it.

 

Creating an Un-ordered list

BBCode supports two types of lists, unordered and ordered. They are essentially the same as their HTML equivalents. An unordered list outputs each item in your list sequentially one after the other indenting each with a bullet character. To create an unordered list you use [list][/list] and define each item within the list using [*]. For example to list your favourite colours you could use:

[list]
[*]Red
[*]Blue
[*]Yellow
[/list]

This would generate the following list:

• Red
• Blue
• Yellow

 

Creating an Ordered list

The second type of list, an ordered list gives you control over what is output before each item. To create an ordered list you use [list=1][/list] to create a numbered list or alternatively [list=a][/list] for an alphabetical list. As with the unordered list items are specified using [*]. For example:

[list=1]
[*]Go to the shops
[*]Buy a new computer
[*]Swear at computer when it crashes
[/list]

will generate the following:

1. Go to the shops
2. Buy a new computer
3. Swear at computer when it crashes

Whereas for an alphabetical list you would use:

[list=a]
[*]The first possible answer
[*]The second possible answer
[*]The third possible answer
[/list]

giving

1. The first possible answer
2. The second possible answer
3. The third possible answer

 

Linking to another site

phpBB BBCode supports a number of ways of creating URIs, Uniform Resource Indicators better known as URLs.

• The first of these uses the [url=][/url] tag, whatever you type after the = sign will cause the contents of that tag to act as a URL. For example to link to phpBB.com you could use:

  [url=http://www.phpbb.com/]Visit phpBB![/url]

  This would generate the following link, Visit phpBB! Please notice that the link opens in the same window or a new window depending on the users browser preferences.

• If you want the URL itself displayed as the link you can do this by simply using:

  [url]http://www.phpbb.com/[/url]

  This would generate the following link, http://www.phpbb.com/

• Additionally phpBB features something called Magic Links, this will turn any syntactically correct URL into a link without you needing to specify any tags or even the leading http://. For example typing www.phpbb.com into your message will automatically lead to www.phpbb.com being output when you view the message.
• The same thing applies equally to e-mail addresses, you can either specify an address explicitly for example:

  [email]no.one@domain.adr[/email]

  which will output no.one@domain.adr or you can just type no.one@domain.adr into your message and it will be automatically converted when you view.

As with all the BBCode tags you can wrap URLs around any of the other tags such as [img][/img] (see next entry), [b][/b], etc. As with the formatting tags it is up to you to ensure the correct open and close order is following, for example:

[url=http://www.google.com/][img]http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif[/url][/img]

is not correct which may lead to your post being deleted so take care.

 

 

Adding an image to a post

phpBB BBCode incorporates a tag for including images in your posts. Two very important things to remember when using this tag are; many users do not appreciate lots of images being shown in posts and secondly the image you display must already be available on the internet (it cannot exist only on your computer for example, unless you run a webserver!). To display an image you must surround the URL pointing to the image with [img][/img] tags. For example:

[img]http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif[/img]

As noted in the URL section above you can wrap an image in a [url][/url] tag if you wish, eg.

[url=http://www.google.com/][img]http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif[/img][/url]

would generate:

 

Adding attachments into a post

Attachments can now be placed in any part of a post by using the new [attachment=][/attachment] BBCode, if the attachments functionality has been enabled by a board administrator & if you are given the appropriate permissions to create attachments. Within the posting screen is a drop-down box for placing attachments inline.

 

 

Sometimes, as an administrator to a forum you could even add your own bb tags

Happy foruming