For Those Who Need Help, using the forums features

kk its purdy simple...

the buttons to add replys are under and over each topic... just click on links to were you want to go. your controls are were you control your icons/avies signitures and other account "items"

Info on Tags:

The Maelstrom has decided to type up information on dealing with tags, which allow for interesting types of text to be used.

Tags work somewhat differently than an ordinary word processor. With a word processor, you merely have to click a button that makes text bold, and it becomes bold. If you click it again, it stops making text bold. Tags are similar--in order for them to work, you must both OPEN the tag and CLOSE the tag.

You may be wondering, "What on earth are these tags?" Allow the Maelstrom to explain. Tags are little bits of text enclosed in [square brackets]. If you click on one of the buttons above the text box, a tag will appear. For example, if you click the bold "B" button, the following will appear:

(Note: The box that says "CODE" will not appear, only what is inside it. The Maelstrom will be using "CODE" boxes quite a bit throughout this discussion; whenever you see a "CODE" box, simply look at what is inside it.)

This is an OPEN tag. It tells the computer, "Start making bold text here."

However--and this is the part that most people do not understand at first--the computer will IGNORE a tag if it is not CLOSED later on. Now, you may be wondering, "How do tags get CLOSED?" This is how.

Say that you've already hit the bold "B" button once, and typed something. If you hit the bold "B" button again, it does not make the same text as before. Instead, it makes the following text:

This is called a CLOSING tag. It tells the computer, "Stop making bold text here."

In general, whenever you have an OPEN tag like

The CLOSING tag looks like

i.e., the same thing as in the OPEN tag, but with a slash (/) in front. The only things that differ are the FONT, SIZE, and COLOR tags. Instead of becoming [/FONT=Geneva], [/SIZE=3], or [/COLOR=Blue] (or whatever), they just become [/FONT], [/SIZE], or [/COLOR].

Note that tags are NOT case-sensitive. If you like lowercase letters more than capital letters, you can put lowercase letters between the brackets.

If you don't like all this nonsense business with CLOSING tags, then there is a nice button next to the FONT, SIZE, and COLOR drop-down menus that says "Close all Tags." If you press this at the end of your post, it will close any of the tags you OPENED, AS LONG AS YOU OPENED THEM BY CLICKING ON A BUTTON! If you OPENED them by typing out the OPEN tag, then you must also CLOSE them by typing the CLOSING tag.

And that, my fellow Chroniclers, is how Tags work.