This is part of a series of Tech Tips aimed to assist Orchard users in adjusting to our migration from Invision Board 1.3 to Invision Board 2.0.

One of the most common mistakes we see in user posts is "open tag syndrome".

Invision Power Board is kind of neat, in that a post can easily be "formatted" with "tags" -- which you can either use the handy-dandy Code Buttons panel (available in any New Post or Reply screen, except for "Fast Reply"), or which you can simply type, manually, into your posts.

Either way, very often novices don't know that every "tag" needs to be part of a pair to be implemented. If you have a bold "open" tag:

It needs to be paired with a bold "closed" tag:

Around an entire block of text, it would look something like this:


The same is true for every tag, although sometimes the initial will have more information than the closing tag. For example, a tag pair for a hyperlink, with descriptive text, might look like this:


Many of our users use the "Guided mode" option when using the Code Buttons, which automatically places both starting and ending tags around a block of text for most code buttons (Bolding, Italicization, Underlining, inserting hyperlinks, inserting images, inserting quotes, inserting email addreses), but does not do so for the "font", "size" and "color" pulldowns.

If you use the "font", "size" and "color" pulldowns, whether in guided mode or normal mode, ONLY an opening tag will be produced.

The most reliable way to avoid "open tag syndrome" is probably to simply hand-type a matching "closing" tag for any stray "opening" code boxes left hanging around. Here's an example of what that might look like:

The output of which would look like this:
Whee! Pretty!

Ideally, the codes should be "closed" in the exact reverse order from how they were opened.

The second "method" is a bit faster, but occasionally mismatches tags. There is a macro function called "Close all tags", which will attempt to close any tags left open. However, by default it will assume any opening tag generated is still present (even if you've manually erased it or typed over it, and tends to place the "closing" tags at the bottom of your post regardless of where you place the cursor before clicking on "Close all Tags".