HTML Guide Posting Question

[lavendertook]

If I want to post a guide to using certain html tags, and present those tags as example text, what characters do I need to post to keep those examples from performing those action

In other words, say I want to demonstrate how you would type the html to link to my previous post. How do I show that instruction on my entry so that it doesn't just become that link instead?

I've had no luck googling up an answer to this, so now I'm bugging ya'll for help. Help, anyone?

Comments

[ancalime8301]

Maybe try using the codey-thing for the brackets so it doesn't interpret/execute it as html--see http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_entities.asp --from that list you can use the names, so the lt and gt bits. If that makes sense. :-p

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

That last part makes no sense to me at all--I'm not much beyond the beginning audience I'm writing for. (-; See, I don't want to use that more complicated code because it just makes it harder for beginners, my intended audience.

If that site is meant for beginners, it's terribly written--they don't explain their terms at all. I looked through codes on that site yesterday. Perhaps there is no code that will make the script nonactive for posting on this platform--there is one that makes it work on the FAQs for LJ and DW though--I may need to try to ask in a DW development community.

[ancalime8301]

If I understand correctly, you want to be able to write things like <lj user=ancalime8301> without having LJ render it as ancalime8301. Yes? If that's the case, then you have to use the special codes for the < > characters so it's not interpreted as html/LJ-codes. The special codes are called "entity names" on that page I linked to before, and that enables them to display as < and > rather than being treated as code.

Is that a better explanation? ;-)

(I think they don't explain their terms on that site because it's in the "advanced" section so they assume you would've had to read the earlier stuff before you get to that point? I don't know. You'd think they'd at least link the special terminology to a place that defines it. Why bother with a webpage if you aren't going to take advantage of links?)

(Edited for tag!fail, haha.)

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is totally what I'm looking for--you were right! Thank you! You solved it!

That page doesn't explain well at all what entity names are, so it lost me. I can see what they're trying to explain now that you explained it to me in clearer language. And that's the language I'm trying to use in my beginner's guide, which is what the 3schools site could use there, and most especially on its introductory pages--I was looking at those and they start out really badly.

[ancalime8301]

Yay!

That site probably a case of people who have known how to do that sort of thing for far too long not realizing that they're still being all jargony even when they think they're explaining it very simply. It's really easy to do, especially for the techie types, as I first learned back at the help desk--which is also where I learned about "translating" geek into normal-person speak. ;-)

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

:-D Yup, though they may not have been skilled at translating into plainer language even in earlier stages. Which is what tech writers are for, though so much of tech writing is not rendered much more intelligibly. Which is why I should be hired, dammit!!! (-; I'm writing up a guide to basic posting on DW to pad my writing portfolio for tech writing jobs. I'm thinking of it as my mother's guide to DW. And I want to submit it to DW development where I think it might be useful among the DW FAQ's--they don't have one that is quite this clear for a newbie.

You are a most excellent renderer of geekish unto the masses! (-:

[ancalime8301]

Haha, yes. You should definitely be hired. ;-D Ah, that's a good idea! I remember floundering around with basic tags and html when I first started.

Thank you! Let's hope these folks I'll be seeing for the interview agree with you. ;-)