Posting To Newsgroups with MSNTV2 using Html

©Joe Keith 2007


OK! By now you have probably visited the newsgroups and observed the long-standing tradition of users using fancy pictures, backgrounds, colors, sounds etc. in their posts, or perhaps you haven't! Seems the rules have changed for the MSNTV2 unit. What you most often see is a mess of little red x's and no discernible images and the like. I will attempt here to show how you, too, can join in the fun and games...

First, why do we only see those little red x's? MSNTV/WebTv users put their code in a sig (signature) box and insert a lot of <html> tags this unit doesn't support (I won't go into that here. Go to Discuss on your homepage and click help for more info).We must put our <html> in the body of our post, which is not as hard as it might sound. Enough small talk, let's get down to the "nitty gritty."

The <div> Tag



(First we'll start with the <div> tag, my personal favorite, and I believe the most versatile.)
Here is the code we must type or copy and paste (more on this later) into our blank post box.

Step 1.Here we are looking at a blank text area, so what do we do? The very first thing you must type is <html> there can't be any space or anything else above this.(This tells the server codes on the way).

Step 2. Next we create the main (Study this very carefully) <div> tag, we type in <div style=background-color:white;width:100%;font:14;color:black;> (note the space between <div and style also mind your :'s and ;'s and they are different and important.)

<div style=background-color:white;width:100%;font:14;color:black;>

Step 3.Next we will go back to the <div style=background-color:white;width:100%;font:14;color:black;> tag and add </div> and we get this the following [note: height reduced to save space.]


WHOOPEE! what's The Big Deal ? Well we now have a space that we can do a whole bunch of things in.

Step 4.Let's add some color. Go to where it says background-color:white; and change the white to, let's say, yellow. The results;


Aha! Begining to get the idea?

Step 5. Now let's add some content text. Between the <div style=background-color:yellow;width:100%;font:14;color:black;>and the </div> add your text.

e.g.,<div style=background-color:yellow;width:100%;font:14;color:black;>{Text goes here!}</div>

<div style=background-color:yellow;width:100%;font:14;color:black;>Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow and everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go. "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country"</div> Results;

Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow and everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go. "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country"

Now that's how your basic post would look in a newsgroup, but wait there is more to come, some other commands, changing font colors, tips and tricks, and much more. Stay tuned for more. Here is a tease;

Mary sez;
"I've got a little lamb"
How about that I've got a little dog!



Joe Keith


And another for you background image folks.

Long Ago



For you "starwars" fans.
Stay tuned backgrounds coming soon.




A post from Joe




In A Galaxy Far Away


NOTE! Updated, After further research, I discovered the text area in a post varies slightly between the MSNTV2 unit and the older MSNTV/WebTv units. So in order to prevent overlap I have changed the recommended fixed width size of 400 to 100% to insure compatibility.

But as I say below;

---This is a work in progress---Y'all come back!---

Created by Joe Keith on ... July 31, 2007

1