Administrators of Discus are welcome to change or delete any part of this document to meet the needs of their boards, or to add new sections. If you have a section that you think might be useful to other users of Discus, please feel free to e-mail us at s***s@k***e.edu
Welcome to Beyond Dominia! This document contains instructions on getting started, formatting your messages, and troubleshooting. If you experience any difficulties with the board, contact one of the moderators listed under the Contact link from the Main Menu.
Reading Discussions
Anyone with WWW access can read discussions on this board. To read discussions, navigate to the discussion of interest by single clicking on the links from the list of topics and subtopics. You can navigate backwards using the navigation bars at the top of each page.
To post a message to an existing discussion, fill in the "Add a Message" box at the bottom of the page. You may use formatting codes or basic HTML tags to improve the appearance of your post. A user account is NEVER required to post. Getting user accounts is discouraged, but if you feel the strange desire to have one, take it up with the moderator of the board on which you would like the account.
Where available, you may click on a "Create New Conversation" button to start a new discussion. This will add a subtopic with the subject you specify and start a conversation with the initial message that you specify. After filling in the subject line, post a message as described above.
This discussion board can be searched by matching text (Keyword Search). There is a mechanism for searching by time of post, but it is currently disabled. The Last Day and Last Week options on the Main Menu are equivalent to searching for messages posted within the last day and messages posted within the last seven days, respectively.
To search the board by keywords, click the Keyword Search link from the Main Menu. You can then specify the words that will be used in the search. Additional instructions for using the Keyword Search option are displayed on the search screen itself.
When you have performed the search, click on any of the links to the pages to view the page, or click on a link in the result to go to the post where that text occurs.
Where to get further information
For additional information on using this system, read the Formatting section and the Troubleshooting section, which are included in this document. If you have additional questions or concerns, post them to an appropriate area on the discussion forum, or contact one of the moderators or the board administrator from the Contact page.
Copyright © 1998, DiscusWare, LLC, all rights reservedA powerful formatting language developed specifically for this application allows you to format your posts without knowledge of HTML. This formatting language is easy for both HTML users and non-HTML users to learn quickly. There are examples after each major section.
The code is a keyword to invoke the desired formatting (for example, green to produce green text and b to produce bold text). Formatting tags are case sensitive. Formatting tags may be nested within other tags. A comprehensive list of available formatting tags is available in this document (although the system administrator can turn off certain tags).
To use formatting, enter the appropriate code(s) in the text of your message or subject line. When you preview your post, your formatting will be displayed so you can verify that you have entered your tags properly.
Tag | Description | Example |
\b{Your Text} | Bold Text | Your Text |
\i{Your Text} | Italics Text | Your Text |
\+{Your Text} | Superscript Text | [Reference]Your Text |
\-{Your Text} | Subscript Text | [Reference]Your Text |
\fixed{Your Text} | Fixed Width Text | Your Text |
\u{Your Text} | Underlined Text | Your Text |
\c{Your Text} | Centered Text |
Input: | \b{Show me some bold} and \i{italics text}. | |
Output: | Show me some bold and italics text. | |
Input: | H\-{2}O has a density of 1.000x10\+{-3} kg/mL. | |
Output: | H2O has a density of 1.000x10-3 kg/mL. |
Tag | Description | Example |
\red{Your Text} | Red Text | Your Text |
\orange{Your Text} | Orange Text | Your Text |
\yellow{Your Text} | Yellow Text | Your Text |
\green{Your Text} | Green Text | Your Text |
\cyan{Your Text} | Cyan Text | Your Text |
\blue{Your Text} | Blue Text | Your Text |
\purple{Your Text} | Purple Text | Your Text |
\white{Your Text} | White Text | Your Text |
\gray{Your Text} | Gray Text | Your Text |
\black{Your Text} | Black Text | Your Text |
Input: | \red{Red} and \green{green} are pretty colors. | |
Output: | Red and green are pretty colors. |
Tag | Description | Example |
\2{Your Text} | Largest (size +2 text) | Your Text |
\1{Your Text} | Large (size +1 text) | Your Text |
\0{Your Text} | Average (size +0 text) | Your Text |
\-1{Your Text} | Smaller (size -1 text) | Your Text |
\-2{Your Text} | Smallest (size -2 text) | Your Text |
Input: | \2{You} \1{can} \0{size} \-1{your} \-2{text}. | |
Output: | You can size your text. |
Tag | Description | Example |
\greek{Your Text} | Greek (symbol) text | Your Text |
\strike{Your Text} | Strikethrough | |
\blink{Your Text} | Blinking text | |
\rgb{Hex_code,Your Text} | Color text by hex code | Your Text: aaaa00 color |
\font{Font_face,Your Text}* | Font face | Your Text |
\char{ASCII code} | Character (0-255) | Ê (ASCII code=202) |
\indent{Your text} | Indented (blockquoted) | Your text |
\quote{Your text} | Quoted | Quote: Your text |
Input: | \rgb{5aaa7c,This is a strange color}. | |
Output: | This is a strange color. | |
Input: | \font{Times New Roman,This is in a different font}. | |
Output: | This is in a different font. | |
Input: | \font{Comic Sans MS\,Tahoma,Note the escaped comma here}. | |
Output: | Note the escaped comma here. |
Tag | Result | Tag | Result | |
\ch{->} | ® | \ch{<-} | ¬ | |
\ch{/ |} | | \ch{\ /} | ¯ | |
\ch{t} | † | \ch{tt} | ‡ | |
\ch{dot} | • | \ch{TM} | ™ | |
\ch{c} | © | \ch{<<} | « | |
\ch{R} | ® | \ch{deg} | ° | |
\ch{+-} | ± | \ch{=/=} | ¹ | |
\ch{<>} | ¹ | \ch{int} | ò | |
\ch{:)} | J | \ch{:(} | L | |
\ch{:|} | K | \ch{mu} | µ | |
\ch{1/2} | ½ | \ch{>>} | » | |
\ch{A} | Å | \ch{/} | ÷ | |
\ch{nullset} | Ø | \ch{forall} | " | |
\ch{<=} | £ | \ch{>=} | ³ | |
\ch{<->} | « | \ch{inf} | ¥ | |
\ch{= =} | º | \ch{del} | ¶ | |
\ch{DEL} | Ñ | \ch{=>} | Þ | |
\ch{therefore} | \ | \ch{line} | ||
\ch{br} | <BR> (HTML) | \ch{nbsp} | (HTML) |
The "Symbol" font, supported on Windows platforms, allows the incorporation of Greek characters which is especially useful for mathematical notation in many scientific disciplines. The following table gives available Greek characters in groups of 5.
Tag | Result | Tag | Result | |
\greek{abcde} | abcde | \greek{ABCDE} | ABCDE | |
\greek{fghij} | fghij | \greek{FGHIJ} | FGHIJ | |
\greek{klmno} | klmno | \greek{KLMNO} | KLMNO | |
\greek{pqrst} | pqrst | \greek{PQRST} | PQRST | |
\greek{uvwxyz} | uvwxyz | \greek{UVWXYZ} | UVWXYZ |
Backslashes, and curly braces have special meanings to the interpreter.If you wish to use these characters as text within a tag, youmust "escape" them as with a backslash. Additionally, when you are using a tag that requires 2 or more arguments and you want to include a comma within the arguments (and not have it interpreted as a separator), you must escape it with a backslash. See the examples.
Code | Result |
---|---|
\\ | \ |
\{ | { |
\} | } |
\, | , |
Input: | This program is \ch{c} 1997 | |
Output: | This program is © 1997. | |
Input: | \b{No need, to escape, these commas} in a tag that takes only one argument. | |
Output: | No need, to escape, these commas in a tag that takes only one argument. | |
Input: | \rgb{0000aa,No need, to escape, these commas} in the last field of a tag. | |
Output: | No need, to escape, these commas in the last field of a tag. | |
Input: | \font{Times\,Roman\,Arial,You need to escape the first two commas in this case}. | |
Output: | You need to escape the first two commas in this case. |
Tag | Description | Example Tag | Output |
\sum{lower, upper} | Sum using sigma notation | \sum{i=1,10} i | Si=110 i |
\int{lower, upper} | Definite Integral | \int{0,6} x dx | ò06 x dx |
Input: | \int{0,2\greek{p}} sin(x) dx = 0 | |
Output: | ò02p sin(x) dx = 0 |
Code | Description |
\link{URL, text description} | Link to URL with text description |
\topurl{URL, text description} | Link to URL in top frame with text description |
\newurl{URL, text description} | Link to URL in new window with text description |
\mail{address, text description} | "mailto" link to address with text description |
Input: | To learn more about this \green{FREE} discussion board program, visit the \topurl{http://mulliken.chem.hope.edu/discus,Discus Home Page}. | |
Output: | To learn more about this FREE discussion board program, visit the Discus Home Page. |
Tag | Description |
\image{Text description} | Upon posting, you are prompted for an image file to upload. Images must be either GIF or JPEG format. Images must be saved on your hard disk. Your browser must support form-based file upload (Netscape Navigator 2.0+ and Internet Explorer 4.0+ support this; IE 3.02 will also work provided that you have installed the file upload patch). |
\clipart{Clipart File Name} | Inserts clipart (see index) |
Input: | This is a picture of me: \image{my picture} and I smile like this: \clipart{smile}. | |
Output: | This is a picture of me: ![]() ![]() Note that the "Your Image Here" graphic is replaced by the image file that you upload. |
Tag | Description |
\table{Table Items} | Creates a table of the Table Items (table HAS a border) |
\tablenb{Table Items} | Creates a table of the Table Items (table has NO border) |
\list{List Items} | Creates a bulleted list of the List Items |
The List Items are separated by newline characters (carriage returns). Each List Item is given a bullet.
See the examples for further explanation.
Input: | \table{X,O,X O,X O,,X} | ||||||||||
Output: |
| ||||||||||
Input: | \list{List Item 1 List Item 2 List Item 3} | ||||||||||
Output: |
| ||||||||||
Input: | \table{1,2\ch{br}2.5,3 4,\ch{nbsp},6 7,8,9\,000} | ||||||||||
Output: |
|
The following section contains a list of previously experienced problems and what you can do to solve them.
If you still have a problem, then your browser is pulling the document out of its cache insteadof reloading the document, and it keeps displaying the old version of the document. To avoid this, set your browser to verify documents every time upon loading as follows:
Alternatively, try reloading the frame or refreshing the frame using your browser's command. Note that this is different from reloading the document (see the next problem).
If one specific tag does not work properly, check the Formatting page to be sure that you are using the proper tag.
If images still fail to load properly, contact a board moderator.