Diaspora/Website

Place either asterisks or underscores either side of a word or words to make them italic, bold or bold italic.

You must of course match the number of asterisks/underscores either side of words for the formatting to work. Typing “I want to display this as a **bold* word” won’t display the word in bold.

Inline links

To create an %{inline_link}, use the following code:

[displayed text here](http://link.address.here "alt text")

The “alt text” is optional, and is displayed as a tool-tip when the cursor is moved over the link.

inline link

To add external images to your post, comment or private message, use the same code as for a link, but with an exclamation point at the front:

For this to work, you must provide a direct link to a valid image file, <em>not</em> to a web page with an image or images on it.

The alternative text in the square brackets is displayed if the image cannot be loaded, and the optional title is displayed as a tool-tip when the cursor is moved over the image; both are useful but not essential.

If you want your message to include a character which is also used in Markdown coding, you can prevent it from being read by Markdown as a formatting code by “escaping” it. To do this, place a backslash ( \ ) in front of the character. For example, typing

prevents Markdown from reading the underscore as a Markdown code and allows diaspora* to display the underscore rather than creating italic text.

You can, however, type “diaspora*” or “D*” without the asterisk being interpreted as a formatting code!

There’s a lot more that you can do with diaspora*. Here’s a small selection of tips you might like.

A simple way to make your profile more appealing is by adding more “profile fields” using text formatting in the Bio section. Use **bold** to create titles, and optionally use *italic* for the items. This way you can add any profile field you can possibly think of, such as music, books, relationship, and so on.

You can even use diaspora* as a notebook, to jot down things you’ll need to remember later, perhaps even notes for a presentation you’re giving. To do this, all you need to do is to create an aspect and <strong>add no one to it</strong>! That’s right, an empty aspect. What’s the point of this? Well, it means you can share things with this aspect, and no one will be able to see them. That means that this aspect can act as your private notebook. It can be a useful way of moving text or photos between one computer and another, and of keeping your notes and photos safe for whenever you log in to diaspora*.

We’ve tried to cover all the essentials of using diaspora* in these tutorials in as clear a manner as possible. However, there may be something you’re still not clear about or something that hasn’t been covered here that you want to know. There are also more technical matters such as setting up your own pod, which aren’t covered here.

On this page you will find links to other useful sites offering tutorials and more information.

Of course, there’s plenty of information about diaspora* right here on our project site

%{wiki_link} – all you need to know about using, developing and installing diaspora*