How To Enter XML & HTML

Often when posting in a forum, you need to add HTML or XML that you want to render as HTML. Other times you might want to display as code rather than be inherently rendered by the browser.

We've made some recent improvements to how HTML and XML are rendered so that you can use forum posts for either directly rendering HTML vs. displaying HTML/XML for documenting something in a post. Note that instructing the browser to not render the HTML or XML requires the extra step of wrapping your HTML or XML inside <code> and </code> tags. We expect to continue improving this process, but in the meantime, here are some examples and tips.

Entering HTML for rendering

Using CKEditor in "UI" mode (with full UI)

Using the CKEditor UI, style the HTML as you want it to render; in this example, we're using a "Heading 1" paragraph format and setting a color for some text:

After styling, the content displays in the UI editor:

And once the post is submitted, it will display; note that the CSS defined for CKEditor may differ from the CSS styles defined in your forum instance's theme:

Using CKEditor in "UI" mode (with limited UI)

If you don't have the style options available in the CKEditor, you need to enter HTML markup directly:

And once the post is submitted, it will display; note that the CSS defined for CKEditor may differ from the CSS styles defined in your forum instance's theme:

Using CKEditor in "Source" mode (often only available to Administrators)

When entering in the "Source" mode in CKEditor, directly enter the HTML:

It will render as entered:

Using "Quick Reply" box

Directly enter the HTML:

It will render as entered:

Entering HTML as documentation

Using CKEditor in "UI" mode (with full UI)

1. Enter the desired HTML and select the entire snippet
2. Click on the "paragraph format" dropdown
3. Select "Computer Code"

When you look behind the scenes, using the "Source" button, you can see that CKEditor wraps the HTML in <code> tags and encodes the HTML:

When the forum post is displayed, the HTML will display as readable HTML:

Using CKEditor in "Source" mode

When entering in the "Source" mode in CKEditor, enter HTML--but wrap the HTML in <code> tags:

The HTML will display as readable HTML rather than being rendered:

Using CKEditor in "UI" mode (with limited UI)

Directly enter the HTML, but wrap in <code> tags:

When the forum post is displayed, the HTML will display as readable HTML:

Using "Quick Reply" box

1. Click the code icon:

2. This will insert [code] tags:

3. Insert your HTML between the [code] tags:

The resulting post will display as readable HTML:

Entering XML as documentation

Using CKEditor in "UI" mode (with full UI)

1. Enter the desired XML and select the entire snippet
2. Click on the "paragraph format" dropdown
3. Select "Computer Code"

When the forum post is displayed, the XML will display as readable XML:

Using CKEditor in "source" mode

When entering in "Source" mode in CKEditor, enter HTML--but wrap the XML in <code> tags:

When the forum post is displayed, the XML will display as readable XML:

Using CKEditor in "UI" mode (with limited UI)

Enter the desired XML wrapped in <code> tags:

When the forum post is displayed, the XML will display as readable XML:

Using "Quick Reply" box

1. Click the code icon:

2. This will insert [code] tags:

3. Insert your XML between the [code] tags:

The resulting post will display as readable XML: