TUTORIAL: how to format your question with markup

[INDEX]

• Boldface
• Italic
• Monospaced
• Numbered list
• Bulleted list
• Hyperlinks
• Code

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[MOTIVATION]

Why should we use markups in the body of our questions?

The answer is a question: which of the two versions is more likely to be understood in a glimpse and has more chances to be answered by our readers?

.

< Consider the following question >

I have a vector of weights W=[10,20,30,50,23434,1,2.4,2] and a matrix A=rand(100,8) and I would like to find the row-wise weighted sum of A. I am proceeding in the following way: B=zeros(size(A)); for c=1:numel(W) B(:,c)=A(:,c)*W(c); end B=sum(B,2); Somehow I get huge numbers can you please help?

.

< Now, consider its formatted version >

I have a vector of weights W = [10,20,30,50,23434,1,2.4,2] and a matrix A = rand(100,8) and I would like to find the row-wise weighted sum of A.

I am proceeding in the following way:

B = zeros(size(A));
for c = 1:numel(W)
    B(:,c) = A(:,c)*W(c);
end
B = sum(B,2);

Somehow I get huge numbers can you please help?

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[AKNOWLEDGMENTS]

In alphabetical order by nickname, thanks for their suggestions to:

Walter Roberson

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[LOG]

• 06 Aug 2011, 13:17 BST - created and added boldface.gif
• 06 Aug 2011, 14:59 BST - added italic.gif
• 06 Aug 2011, 18:58 BST - added index section
• 07 Aug 2011, 00:03 BST - added code.gif and tutorial series section
• 07 Aug 2011, 01:50 BST - added monospaced.gif, numlist.gif, bullist.gif and hyperlink.gif
• 13 Aug 2011, 14:27 BST - added motivation section
• 18 Aug 2011, 01:44 BST - added aknowledgments section and link to wish-list

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[TUTORIAL Series]

• How to ask a question (on Answers) and get a fast answer

Do not forget to read the Markup help (located on the top-right corner of the Body pane)

Vote on Wish-list for MATLAB Answer sections my post if you think that a tutorial section on top of Answers could be useful.

[Fangjun Jiang]

Well done, Oleg! How did you do it?

[Oleg Komarov]

I used Camtasia Studio to record the desktop, edit the image and produce the gif which I then uploaded to a repository

[Fangjun Jiang]

I see. My experience on all those types of image files is all static pictures. Apparently GIF file supports animation too.

Please, add the illustration for formatting code. Should be just similar. But you know, that is the most occurred problem.

[Daniel Shub]

Poor Jan, if the Mathworks folks see this, they are never going to deal with the keyboard latency.

[Jan]

Ouch. I thought of posting a realtime animated GIF of the latency effects in my moaning thread. But unfortunately my computer is loaded by 100% during the keystrokes and the screen recorder is blocked. Then I take a movie with a camera - but it looks so slow, that only patient users believe, that it is an animation at all. :-(

I never use the buttons but type the format characters directly - this works in an external editor also...

[Oleg Komarov]

@Walter: I will update the .gifs asap according to your comments.

[Walter Roberson]

With Motivation of course comes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_acting ;-)

[Walter Roberson]

Perhaps a note could be added somewhere that if you want a < and > that is *not* in a Code section, then either there must be whitespace after the < or before the >, or else < and > must be coded.

Also, perhaps a note that none of these formatting commands apply in Comments (distinguished, of course, from comments in the code).

Oh yeah, and I'd warn about the massive bug if you have a quoted line in a Comment or edit an Answer that contains such a line. :( :(

[Walter Roberson]

Oleg, perhaps you could record one of these for inserting an image?

[Oleg Komarov]

Very busy this period, as you may have noticed I almost disappeared from the forum. I am moving to London (looking for accomodation...it's a nightmare here), starting a PhD and I need first to finalize the work in progress pages about my dissertation.

[Jan]

Dear Oleg: Thanks. I really appreciate this thread.

Unfortunately newcomers in this forum do not read the 20 most voted threads before they ask an own question.

[Sean de Wolski]

Me too.

[Ryan]

@Elige: Yes... the first two used tinypic the latter used uploadhouse. I uploaded the first two .gif's to uploadhouse for you.

[Walter Roberson]

That is not relevant to this discussion. You should ask your own Question about it.

Answer 1

[Oleg Komarov]

CODE

[Walter Roberson]

Note: the code formatting mode will last to the first empty line, even if there are no spaces at the beginning of the lines in the block.

[Image Analyst]

Another tip: please, please, please indent your code in MATLAB correctly first, before pasting it in.

To do this highlight your code in the MATLAB editor (for example type "Ctrl a" to select all the text in the editor), then type "Ctrl i". This "fixes/standardizes" your indentations. Then , paste your code in, and then click the "{} Code" icon. DO NOT CLICK "{} Code" before you paste in your code. That will not work.

[Trude Mashburn]

I updated my question and content based on your instructions. However, the code is not showing in this application as I had it formatted.

[Stephen23]

@Trude Mashburn: I just checked your question, and none of the code text has been indented.

1. Select the code text
2. Click the {} Code button
3. Ensure that there is a trailing empty line
4. Check the formatting in the preview pane, make changes as required.
5. Click Submit to save the new formatting.

An alternative to using the {} Code button is to simply put two space characters at the start of each code line.

Answer 2

[Oleg Komarov]

BOLDFACE

[Walter Roberson]

Note: the bold mode only works between pairs of * in the same paragraph. If you highlight several paragraphs (with empty lines between them) and click on the Bold button, although an * will be put on the first line and last line of the selection, the bold will "break" because of the empty lines.

Answer 3

[Oleg Komarov]

ITALIC

[Walter Roberson]

Note: the italic mode only works between pairs of underscores in the same paragraph. If you highlight several paragraphs (with empty lines between them) and click on the Italic button, although an underscore will be put on the first line and last line of the selection, the italics will "break" because of the empty lines.

Answer 4

[Oleg Komarov]

MONOSPACED

[Walter Roberson]

Note: the monospaced mode only works between pairs of bars in the same paragraph. If you highlight several paragraphs (with empty lines between them) and click on the monospace button, although an bar will be put on the first line and last line of the selection, the monospace will "break" because of the empty lines.

Answer 5

[Oleg Komarov]

NUMBERED LIST

[Walter Roberson]

Note: here must be a blank line before and after the # list

[Walter Roberson]

Note: there must be a space after the #

[Walter Roberson]

Note: the numbering sequence restarts at each empty line, so do _not_ put blank lines between the portions.

Note: the # must be after a "real" line break, where carriage return was typed at the end of the previous line; it is not sufficient to put it at what looks like the beginning of a line, if the line has been automatically wrapped down from the previous line.

Answer 6

[Oleg Komarov]

BULLETED LIST

[Walter Roberson]

Note: there must be a blank line before and after the * list.

[Walter Roberson]

Note: there must be a space after the *

[Walter Roberson]

Note: the * must be after a "real" line break, where carriage return was typed at the end of the previous line; it is not sufficient to put it at what looks like the beginning of a line, if the line has been automatically wrapped down from the previous line.

Answer 7

[Oleg Komarov]

HYPERLINK

[Walter Roberson]

Simple hyperlinks are not converted automatically by the site: that is being done by browsers.

Note: ensure that there is no whitespace space immediately after the < or immediately before the > or else the link will not be created.

Note: there must be whitespace (or beginning of line) immediately before the < or else the link will not be created. In particular, some people like to put links in brackets such as (<some link or other>) and that will not work because there must be a space before the < .

Answer 8

[Image Analyst]

To insert an image into the body of your post, click this icon:

and either browse to a file on your computer, or specify a URL of an image on the web.

You might find it easy to use http://snag.gy. You can just type alt-PrintScreen (in Windows) to capture the active window into the clipboard. Then go to this web site and type control-v to paste it in. You can then crop if it you want. It gives you a URL that you can then paste into the URL field you see when you click the green and brown frame icon:

You can also use the paper clip icon to attach an image file to your post, but it will not be displayed. It will appear as a filename beneath your text. We would then have to right click that filename and save it to our computer, and then open the image in MATLAB or some other image file viewer. This is less convenient for readers because they can't see your picture immediately.

[chocho]

thanks Image Analyst bro , next time i will follow

[madhan ravi]

@sir Image Analyst how to attach an image without being an attachment instead it can be an image so that the reader doesn't have to click the attachment to view the content?

[Image Analyst]

Click the green and brown frame icon to insert the image into the body of the message. The image will be displayed.

Click the paper clip icon to attach the image as a file. If you do this only the filename will show up and the image will not be displayed.

[madhan ravi]

Click the green and brown frame icon to insert the image into the body of the message.

I did it but still it displays as a file , does it have to do anything with the image format because it's a screenshot?

[Image Analyst]

After you click Insert Image, try putting a blank line before the < < and a blank line after the > >.

[madhan ravi]

Thank you sir Image Analyst it turned out only jpg format can be viewed directly