This post is intended to help you get the most out of your Google Developer Program forums experience by using the different formatting options in the toolbar.
How to Use the Toolbar
The toolbar is an editing tool that allows you to change the formatting of your posts in a variety of ways to make it easier to convey information. You can use it to change text alignment, add bulleted or numbered lists, insert tables and code samples, express yourself with emoticons, add images, and much more. Below, you can see the toolbar options available to you.
Expanding the toolbar
By default, you only see part of all the formatting options in the toolbar. In order to see all options, select the + icon on the right. Clicking on the + icon expands the toolbar.
Preview
You can use the Preview feature on the right, in order to see what your post will look like, once you create it.
Text formatting & other features
- Editor Options: Switch between new rich editor text and standard Markdown editor
- Bold: Make font bold
- Italics: Make font italized
- Links: Insert hyperlinks.
- Blockquote: Add content in blockquote format
- Images: You can add images from your device, by copy/pasting, or uploading images to your post.
- Emojis (Emoticons): Select from 10 categories to quickly express your feelings without having to use words
- Quote whole post:
- Preformatted text:
- Bulleted List: Add a bulleted list
- Numbered List: Add a numbered list
- Insert Table: Insert a table. Add contents to the table before clicking Build Table
- Hide Details: Highlight text to hide. Click hide details and text will now appear in as a summary
- Insert date/time: Add a date and time of an event and the recurrence.
- Blur Spoiler: Highlight the text that needs to be blurred. Users will need to click on the text to view it.
- AI: AI can be used to translate to English (US), proofread, generate Markdown tables and Smart dates.
Tables
You can also insert and edit tables, adding additional tables to increase the size as needed. Make sure to add the content to the table before clicking Build Table at the lower left corner
Preformatted Text
You can also include code samples, such as the HTML code sample shown below. You can insert samples of code in HTML/XML, JavaScript, Java, CSS, PHP, Ruby, Python, C, C#, and C++
From the + icon you can select Preformatted text. When this option is selected, you will be able to copy and paste your code.
You can specify the programming language right after the opening three backticks:
Another option is to switch to the rich text editor, click on the + icon and select preformatted text
Choose your code language from the dropdown
Add your code in the box under the language
Bulleted & numbered lists
Click the bulleted or numbered list icons from the + option in the toolbar
A bullet or number will be inserted into the body of the text editor. Add your text, as shown below.
Bulleted item:
Numbered item:
Blockquote
Blockquote enables users to highlight specific text within the body of a topic post or a reply/comment for quoting within a thread.
How to quote text at the beginning of a reply/comment
On a post page, highlight the specific text you want to quote from the original topic post or reply/comment to which you’re replying. In the pop-up box, select the Quote option.Then your highlighted text will appear in the reply/comment field, as shown in the image below.
Finish your message and click the Create topic or Reply button to post.
How to insert a quote between text
On a post page, click the Reply button to start a new comment. Start your reply by adding your text and press enter to go to the next line. Highlight the specific text you want to quote from the original topic post or reply/comment to which you’re replying. From the pop up menu, select Quote, and the quoted text will appear as seen in the red box below.
Finish your message and click the Reply button to publish.
Please note: You need to highlight text within the body of the post for the highlight to quote functionality to work successfully. Additionally, you can highlight text from any post if it’s going to benefit the original post topic.
Mentions
Using @mentions
@mentions enable users to draw attention to other Google Developer Program forums members within a post. This is helpful for responding to a Google Developer Program forums topic when you want to include another Google Developer Program forums member to provide some additional helpful information.
User Mentions
With User Mentions, users can tag specific users in their posts and invite them to join the conversation. You might @mention a user when you know they can answer a question or provide valuable insight into the topic discussed in a thread. It also ensures that the mentioned users see the post, when you want to thank them or give public praise.
Enter the person’s username, preceded by an “at” symbol (@). As you type, a pop-up menu appears with matching names. You can either continue typing the name or select a name from the suggested user list. When users are mentioned in posts, they receive a notification about being mentioned.
Note: This does not work when editing the HTML of a post.