When you post in the forums (or indeed write articles) there is a definite format to what you can type and expect to be understood by the system. This syntax is part of all FOST.3™ systems that use the content management module and it is based on Mediawiki's syntax (as used on Wikipedia and countless other sites on the Internet).

Right now the system doesn't support the full range of Mediawiki syntax, but it does support those that you're most likely to use and it also has a few extensions.

The basics

Paragraphs

If you don't need anything fancy then the basic format is simplicity itself. Just type away remembering to press the enter key twice at the end of each paragraph (i.e. leave a blank line between them).

Links

If you want to link to another page somewhere then just enclose the link within square brackets, for example, to link to Google use this:

[http://www.example.com]

This will display like this:

[http://www.example.com](http://www.example.com)

You can also change the text that is displayed for the link by putting it before the closing bracket after a space. For example:

[http://www.example.com See the example site]

Will display like this:

[See the example site](http://www.example.com)

Bold and italics

To get text to be bold put three apostraphes around it and for italics use two. For example:

'''Bold text''' and ''italic text'' and even '''''bold italic text'''''

Will give this:

**Bold text** and _italic text_ and even <b>_bold italic text_</b>

You can also do more complex transitions:

'''Bold then into ''italics'' and bold again''' ''going to italics '''then bold'''''

Will give:

<b>Bold then into _italics_ and bold again</b> <i>going to italics **then bold**</i>

Headings

To get the most important level of heading use a single '=' sign at either end.

=Level 1 heading=

This will give the following:

Level 1 heading

To get less important levels use ever increasing numbers of equals signs. So the heading level two below the last example is done like this:

===Level 3 heading===

And will appear like this:

Level 3 heading

Up to six levels of headings are supported.