All Questions
Tagged with formatting discussion
33 questions
9
votes
2
answers
151
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Suggested improvements to "Markdown help" and formatting help
On Ask Ubuntu we have a lot of questions and answers that include multiple lines of terminal output which is best handled by using code fences. Without formatting, this information is difficult to ...
- 12.5k
7
votes
2
answers
206
views
How do you handle questions that include Ubuntu pastebin links?
Ubuntu pastebin is a nice online tool for sharing formatted text between users, especially for very large log files for a short period of time, then it expires and is permanently deleted.
Stumbling ...
- 1,496
10
votes
2
answers
240
views
Standards for editing
I've being an active member of AskUbuntu and Unix & Linux for some time now. As such, I often edit Q&As. But I'm lost in some aspects and details of specific editing standards.
This post and ...
- 4,306
2
votes
1
answer
264
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Why does the little help box call them "backticks" when they're graves?
I've noticed that when the little help box appears to the side, it says to show code using "backticks" when they are called graves. For clarification, I am talking about these: `. I don't think that ...
- 153
3
votes
2
answers
130
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Should abbreviations and acronyms be discouraged?
Sometimes, a question is not clear simply because it contains an abbreviation or acronym that a reader doesn't understand. I wonder if the instructions should encourage the definition of these things ...
- 1,965
12
votes
1
answer
179
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Can't format question properly because of character limit
I have a problem with editing this question:
Upgrade to 18.04, now sudo apt-get upgrade produces loads of insserv errors
OP didn't format the terminal output (which as you can see, is really long), ...
- 2,853
2
votes
0
answers
195
views
Preformatted text horizontal scrolling - bug or feature?
AskUbuntu help recommend to style pre-formatted text and console output with
#four spaces
But sometimes it results in scrolling text. See this question as an example. The problematic line (as ...
- 102k
11
votes
2
answers
370
views
Should the keys be written in uppercase?
Could you please explain about the usage of keys in Ask Ubuntu? Should the keys be written in uppercase (CTRL) or only the first letter should be in uppercase(Ctrl)? Is there any difference or both of ...
user833907
-3
votes
2
answers
91
views
Presentation of code should include explanation in a separate comment section
This is just an idea and I would like to see what the feedback is.
The problem
Starting Linux I've found myself many times looking through example code on this site and finding out what it actually ...
- 1,419
10
votes
2
answers
455
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What should I do when a user persistently insists on poor formatting and resists formatting improvements?
Context: https://askubuntu.com/posts/971884/revisions
I edited an answer of a user who got distracted and forgot the Markdown syntax, using 1) instead of 1. for writing an ordered list. Therefore the ...
- 8,126
15
votes
1
answer
327
views
Please don't use underscores for formatting
SE Markdown supports both underscores and asterisks for marking italics and bold:
_foo_ __foo__ *foo* **foo**
foo foo foo foo
However, the SE editor (both in browsers and apps) only recognises (...
- 204k
-3
votes
1
answer
184
views
Can someone elaborate for me the rule on using the back tick for emphasis? [duplicate]
Is there a rule against which markdown codes are allowed in formatting text for easy reading? It's my impressing that a lot of text that is displayed that isn't code is displayed using code tags to ...
- 25.3k
1
vote
2
answers
24
views
7
votes
1
answer
164
views
Make blockquote formatting button not destroy the source layout!
You ever had a post in front of you where the OP did mix up blockquote and code formatting? Not those easy cases where he/she wrote a > character before the paragraph himself, but those cases when ...
- 109k
3
votes
1
answer
99
views
Formatting guideline / convention for program names, commands, strings, values, (...)?
I usually highlight anything that should stick out from regular statements like a program name, a command, a string or a value by enclosing it between backticks, while I usually highlight something ...
- 40.9k
11
votes
3
answers
223
views
Code formatting: backticks or four spaces?
Code segments can be formatted by either starting the line with four spaces or by enclosing the code in backticks.
What is the reason for using one over the other?
The reason I ask is that my ...
- 6,281
-5
votes
3
answers
348
views
Proper use of Bold and Italic text in posts?
I would like to make this post to specify "proper" methods of bolding/italicizing text in questions and answers to keep the site clean and easy-to-read.
Partially based off of my other question on ...
- 34.4k
5
votes
1
answer
88
views
How to do code formatting within numbering or bullets?
When doing editing, in certain places I find difficulties to format codes those are within Numbering and Bullets.
Example is this. What I did was cut and paste the line which needs code formatting to ...
user224082
16
votes
1
answer
179
views
Formatting, backticks and editing
This was a concern raised in UL some time ago, but recently I've seen several cases where I've changed the use of backticks, I will ripoff strugee post from UL:
I've noticed that a lot of new users ...
- 68.5k
1
vote
1
answer
102
views
BBcode on Ask Ubuntu
Can somebody please explain how to post CODE in here?
I followed this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1189729 but it doesn't work for me. I copy and paste a code from Terminal and ...
user211076
10
votes
1
answer
210
views
Using <pre> tags vs 4 space indentation
Which should be used to format a block of text in code (monospace font). I personally believe that manually indenting each line of long console output or a log file can be very slow and repetitive, so ...
- 28.7k
7
votes
1
answer
118
views
What is the correct way to format search terms, button names, etc.?
What is the correct way to format terms which should be searched for or button names?
Example:
Search for "Settings"
Click on the "System Settings" button
Should an inline code span be used, "...
- 28.7k
6
votes
1
answer
88
views
How to guide readers to specific sections to a lengthy answer?
Have basically copied a wiki article as an answer to a question on main site but would like to add some form of Table of Contents at the beginning of the answer to guide readers to the part which the ...
- 1,590
2
votes
2
answers
58
views
How do I format my code that it will be wrapped in a box with horizontal scrolling?
Usually when I need to post an error output or any code I use blockquotes and place the entire thing there. On two occasions my code has been edited and formatted in a way that it can be seen in a box ...
- 1,110
8
votes
1
answer
123
views
When citing another user, how should her/his username be formatted?
E.g., I sometimes use bold-italics (***text here***) because it looks alright, and provide a link to what I'm quoting/citing.
Alternatively, I could imagine to additionally linkify the username to ...
- 6,908
1
vote
3
answers
72
views
Where to put bounty information?
Sparked by a chat discussion about this question, I think we should think of a way to put some order to bounty information.
What information is interesting?
Sometimes, one would like to include ...
- 1,613
4
votes
3
answers
2k
views
How do I escape backticks in a backticks command?
I found: "How do I escape backticks in a comment?", but I want to escape backticks, if I use backticks to format code in an answer.
The following doesn't work:
`sudo update-initramfs -v -u -k \`...
- 14.4k
1
vote
1
answer
62
views
Is Ask Ubuntu using reStructuredText?
It might be an obvious question for those who know, but I can't find an answer to it.
Recently, I started working with sphinx which uses reStructuredText. It somehow looked familiar to Ask Ubuntu's ...
- 29.1k
3
votes
1
answer
167
views
Why are people using Quotes instead of Code?
We use the dollar sign link for code and the " for quotes right, Why am I seeing code formated as quotes? One example is this answer https://askubuntu.com/posts/146792/revisions
I have heard that ...
- 8,132
7
votes
1
answer
449
views
A request for all Ask Ubuntu users [duplicate]
About a week ago the Indian Government has Blocked(read Banned) a few sites,one of them is pastebin.com. I have seen a few people linking their errors to pastebin so I sincerely request them to choose ...
- 9,602
7
votes
1
answer
116
views
how to add keys symbol & and software center package link in askUbuntu answer?
I know this very dumb question in Ask Ubuntu.
I want to know how in this link the key symbols are attached in question
and in this link (in answer section 2 question) how Ubuntu software center open ...
- 5,924
2
votes
1
answer
120
views
HTML in questions but not comments?
Why is it that we can use HTML markup and entities in questions but not in comments? Shouldn't they be the same?
Testing markdown here, italic, bold... well, that seems to work.
- 6,527
5
votes
2
answers
144
views
How should sequential clicks/menu items be formatted?
What should the separator be?
System > Preferences > Keyboard > Layouts > Apply System-Wide
System → Preferences → Keyboard → Layouts → Apply System-Wide
System --> Preferences --> Keyboard --> ...
- 77.8k