If you're like me and sometimes compose monster posts somewhere other than your browser (to get a bigger text field, word processing tools, avoid data loss due to browser crashes, etc.,) then I suggest grabbing Notetab Pro. It's easily the best text editor I've used. It's intuitive and feature-rich, there's a free trial version, and you can make customized "clips" to make writing HTML much easier.

I've written up a series of "clips" for vBulletin and I figured I'd post them here for anyone who has or might try Notetab.

If you just want to drop my vBulletin clipbook into Notetab, here's how:

Download this file and put it in the "Libraries" folder (found in your Notetab folder in Program Files). Open Notetab and select Clipbook>Open Library from the Tools menu. In the dialog, select the "vBulletin" file from the "Libraries" folder and click "Open." Save and you're done!

Here's a quick primer on clips and how to import my clips the hard way:

Open Notetab. On the left is a window with a drop-down box at the top (if it isn't there hit F4). This is the "Clipbook Window." Make sure "HTML" is selected in the drop-down box.

Right-click in the Clipbook Window at the location you want to create your clip, and select "Add New Clip," type a name for your clip, and hit Enter. The header (the name of your clip) will appear in the list, and a new blank window labeled "[Clips]" will open.

(If you give a clip a name identical to that of an existing clip, you'll get a pop-up dialog that will ask if you want to replace the old one with your new clip. I suggest you don't)

Now, in the new blank window you'll enter the content of the clip. To use one of my clips, just select its code (the blue text only), copy and paste it into the blank window. (Note that the content of the [Clips] window changes depending on which clip you have highlighted in the window at the left; make sure you have the right one highlighted) Here we're just entering a description so it's in English, not in code. My description is "Tags for use with Jelsoft's vBulletin message board software;" enter whatever you want, then save. To use the clips I've written below, just create a new clip, name it, copy the code into the window, save, and you're ready to go.

To create a new category (i.e., in red text) in the Clipbook Window, create a clip normally, but precede the clip name with a semicolon (e.g., mine is ";vBulletin").

I got started writing clips by playing around with the existing clips to see how they worked, then I copy-pasted clips that worked closest to what I wanted and edited them until they worked for me. A search of the Help document fleshed things out when I got stuck. I've only put a few hours into this stuff so I'm sure folks here will outgrow my methods.

Note: much of this code is a mystery to me, I just know the clips do what I want them to do. There are two ways I use these clips. For some (Link, Email) I just double-click them in the Clipbook Window and then enter any required values. For others (Simple Quote, Red, Bold, etc.,) I highlight a section of text first, then double-click the clip I want to use (note that some of these also require value entry).

Key

Clip name in bold black text (explanation if any in parentheses)

Clip code in indented blue text

Clips

Quote - Basic

^!SetPasteIndent Off ^!InsertHtml [QUOTE]^&[/QUOTE]

Quote - Named (with a dialog box to identify whomever you're quoting)

^!InsertHtml [QUOTE="^?[Name of Poster]"]^&[/QUOTE]

Text Color (with all the colors available at SF; note that the colors are all separated by the "|" symbol, not spaces.)

^!InsertHtml [COLOR=^?[(T=C)Text Color==_Black|Sienna|Dark Green|Dark Slate Blue|Navy|Indigo|Dark Slate Gray|Dark Red|Dark Orange|Olive|Green|Teal|Blue|Slate Gray|Dim Gray|Red|Sandy Brown|Yellow Green|Sea Green|Medium Turquoise|Royal Blue|Purple|Gray|Magenta|Orange|Yellow|Lime|Cyan|Deep Sky Blue|Dark Orchid|Silver|Pink|Wheat|Lemon Chiffon|Pale Green|Pale Turquoise|Light Blue|White]]^&[/COLOR]

Text Color - Basic (with just a handful of easily-read colors)

^!InsertHtml [COLOR=^?[(T=C)Text Color==_Red|Blue|Plum|Dark Orange]]^&[/COLOR]

Red (sets text color to red; I made this because I almost always just use red)

^!SetPasteIndent Off ^!InsertHtml [COLOR=RED]^&[/COLOR]

Font

^!InsertHtml [FONT=^?[(T=C)Font==_Arial|Arial Black|Book Antiqua|Century Gothic|Comic Sans MS|Courier New|Fixedsys|Franklin Gothic Medium|Garamond|Georgia|Impact|Lucida Console|Lucida Sans Unicode|Microsoft Sans Serif|Palatino|Linotype|System|Tahoma|Times New Roman|Trebuchet MS|Verdaba]]^&[/FONT]

Text Size

^!InsertHtml [SIZE=^?[(T=C)Text SIZE==_1|2|3|4|5|6|7]]^&[/SIZE]

Image

^!SetPasteIndent Off ^!InsertHtml [IMG]^&[/IMG]

Italic

^!SetPasteIndent Off ^!InsertHtml [I]^&[/I]

Bold

^!SetPasteIndent Off ^!InsertHtml [B]^&[/B]

Underline

^!SetPasteIndent Off ^!InsertHtml [U]^&[/U]

Link (with dialog box for URL and displayed text)

^!SetWizardLabel "Link" ^!InsertWizardHtml [LINK URL=^?{&Link URL}]^?{Link &description=^&}[/URL]

Align (text alignment via dialog box)

^!InsertHtml [^?[(T=C)Text Alignment==_LEFT|CENTER|RIGHT]]^&[/^?[Text Alignment]]

Indent

^!SetPasteIndent Off ^!InsertHtml [INDENT]^&[/INDENT]

Email (with dialog for email address and text to display)

^!SetWizardLabel "Enter email address and text to display" ^!InsertWizardHtml [EMAIL=^?{Email Address}]^?{Text to Display=^&}[/EMAIL]

Code

^!SetPasteIndent Off ^!InsertHtml [CODE]^&[/CODE]

PHP

^!SetPasteIndent Off ^!InsertHtml [PHP]^&[/PHP]