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How ib Codes Work

ib codes are the commands that dictate how a post gets displayed.  If you are familiar with HTML, then ib codes will seem like an old friend.  If you haven’t yet been exposed to the joys of a hypertext language, don’t worry: ib codes are easy to learn and fairly intuitive once you start using them.

Using ib codes is the computer equivalent of playing the children’s game "Simon Says." You are the leader.  If you use the correct syntax for a command (correct syntax being the equivalent of saying "Simon says .  .  ."), the computer will execute your command.  If you don’t use the right syntax (you don’t say "Simon says .  .  ."), the computer ignores your command.

The ib codes in posts are called "tags." The basic structure of nearly all ib codes consists of an opening tag where you want application of the command to start, and a closing tag where you want application of the command to stop.  To understand the general syntax used by ib codes, consider a sentence that displays some bold text.  To create a post that would appear like this:

you would type the post like this:

Every ib tag begins with "[" and ends with "]".  For every closing tag, the first character after the opening bracket is "/".  The rest of the contents of the tag consist of the ib command that the server is to execute.  So the standard syntax (which applies to most -- but not quite all -- ib codes) is:

The brackets tell the Basin server that the contents are an ib code.  In the example of bold text we just saw, the first tag tells the server "start applying bold here." The second tag tells the server to stop applying that command, using the universal syntax for a closing tag: "[/ibCode]".

Some ib codes permit or require the insertion of a value.  In those cases the value is preceded by the "=" symbol, and the syntax is:

An example of an ib code that requires you to provide a value is the URL command.  It allows you to insert a link to any site that has a Uniform Resource Locator.  The value is the url address that you are linking to, and the text between the opening and closing tags is the text in the post that activates the link.  So to create the following post:

you would type:

An example of an ib code that permits you to provide a value is the QUOTE command.  Here is how you might type a post using the QUOTE command without inserting a value into the command:

That post would display like this:

You could insert a value into the quote command in that same post like this:

Your post would then display: