Here is an FTX reference card suitable for printing. Click on the sample
shown below to download a high-quality version. The intended output size
is 4 x 3½ (10 cm. x 9 cm.) unfolded or 2 x 3½ (5 cm. x 9 cm.) folded.
FTX FAQ: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
FTX is a text-based publishing format for making web pages on LUGNET.
Pages can contain text, lists, images, hyperlinks, and more. For detailed
information, please see the
FTX User Guide1 .
1. Can I store my pictures on LUGNET?
Not currently. The associated costs are relatively high, but falling. Users
are encouraged to investigate image-hosting services on the Internet, most
notably Kevin Lochs
BrickShelf.com51 .
Since your images will still
appear to be on LUGNET as they load into your
member pages, you should always make sure that you have permission to make
direct embedded links to any images that you include.
2. What about copyrights and disclaimers and stuff?
To some extent, these are taken care of for you automatically. LUGNET shows a
general legal disclaimer and copyright notice at the bottom of every page you
create. (This does not necessarily protect you from liability of copyright
infringement, however; you still need to act responsibly.)
If you own an image or a body of text, or if it is in the public domain
(meaning that it is not copyrighted), then of course you may use it. If not,
always obtain permission from the copyright owner prior to using something
which you do not own.
An exception is linking to web pages on LUGNET: You may freely link to
any
web page on LUGNET, including other members pages, even if you do not first
obtain permission. You may also
transclude (include copies of) other
members pages into your own pages using the special FTX
page-transclusion22 feature. When you do this, their name will also appear at
the bottom of your page showing that you have included content owned by
someone else. A viewer is also able to jump directly to any transcluded page,
making it effectively impossible to steal content from others without giving
them credit.
3. Does LUGNET own the stuff I put up?
Unless you specifically transfer copyright ownership: No, it does not.
When you create personal pages on LUGNET, you retain copyright ownership of the
data you input (assuming you own it in the first place). As part of LUGNETs
Terms of Use Agreement52 , you grant LUGNET, among other
things, a non-exclusive license to adapt and publish your content on the World
Wide Web. Thus, LUGNET does not own your content but is a publisher of it.
You are free to use or publish your content (specifically, the data you input)
elsewhere or license it to others at your own discretion. Note, however, that
the license you grant to LUGNET when you input data is perpetual (meaning
forever), irrevocable (meaning that you cant later change your mind and
reverse the grant of license), royalty-free (meaning that LUGNET does not pay
you for your content), worldwide, and applies to any communications medium.
4. Why wont HTML code work on my page?
LUGNET Member pages use a special format called FTX rather than HTML.
5. Why use FTX over HTML?
FTX is more streamlined than HTML. A typical block of HTML may contain a
mixture of text and many markup tags (
<TABLE>,
<UL>,
<BR>, etc.) and
character entities (
® © " ™ etc.), while the
same block as FTX content would likely show your text with any formatting
characters included inline with your copy. That makes FTX more compact and
more legible when editing.
It is important that everyone in the LUGNET community feel comfortable about
creating their own web pages. Many people have no experience in this field.
If methods are kept as simple as possible, it is hoped that everyone will
become publishers.
6. Can FTX and HTML do the same things?
It depends on what you want to do. If you expect only to write paragraphs of
text, include hyperlinks, create simple tables, and show a few images, then
they are much the same.
But FTX wasnt designed to be as general as HTML. FTX is a fast way to write
formatted text or hypertext documents. Pages are quick, clean, and consistent.
FTX cannot do everything that HTML can do. However, it does have a few new
tricks of its own. For example, FTX pages may include copies of whole other
FTX pages through a special kind of hyperlink which does not exist in HTML.
7. Have you considered offering a restricted subset of HTML for those who are
comfortable with HTML?
It may be offered someday. For now though, we wish to give this simpler system
a complete test.
8. What about tables? And colors?
Simple two-dimensional tables are possible in FTX (See the
User Guide page15 for more details). Complex layouts or nested tables are
not available in FTX code, although a future version of FTX may include
stronger table support. Were also thinking about how to handle colors.
9. Are there any size limits?
Currently, for practical reasons relating to HTML forms, a single page is
limited to 65,000 text characters of FTX code. However, you can create larger
overall pages using the
page transclusion22 feature,
which imposes no limits on the sizes of composite pages.
There is currently no system-enforced limit on the number of FTX pages that
you are allowed to create.
10. Can a friend and I work on a page together?
Currently, no. However, it is technically possible. We may enable you to open
some of your pages to editing by other LUGNET Members. You would have control
over which pages and who you would allow editing access.
11. Can I sell stuff through my pages?
If:
- It is legal for you to sell it, and
- It is related to LEGO® toys, and
- You dont do anything which goes against LUGNETs Terms of Use Agreement52 ,
then Yes. Otherwise, No.
However, even if the answer is Yes, you still
mustnt ever spam anyone via
email or post messages about your sales to discussion groups excessively.
That is, a few messages to discussion groups are OK (so long as the groups
permit this in their charters), but an excessive level is not. (Youll
probably find out quickly if you annoy someone.) Sending direct email
solicitations to anyone regarding pages you create is also
a big no-no.
12. Im an associate seller for Foo.com. Can I build a virtual store on
LUGNET?
See previous question and answer. Also bear in mind that LUGNET is an
Amazon.com Associate with links to books, LEGO® sets, and other items using
the Amazon.com Associate ID
lugnet. Thus, if you make links to items for
sale using a different associate ID, you may take potential commissions away
from LUGNET.
Incidentally, if you would like to
help LUGNET, you are more than
welcome to make links to products for sale at Amazon.com using LUGNETs
Amazon.com associate ID. For example, if you wanted to include a link to
The Ultimate LEGO® Book (ISBN 078944691X), you would make a URL like this
one:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/078944691X/lugnet/53
13. Can I display banner ads (like ILE)?
If you can figure out a way to display them, yes, you may. However, LUGNETs
Member pages facility is not intended as general-purpose web hosting. Please
keep your pages tasteful, on-topic, and of interest to the online LEGO®
enthusiast community.
14. Can I register my pages with a search engine?
You could, although doing so would probably have no effect. Since nearly all
webpages on LUGNET are dynamically generated, web crawlers can have a noticable
impact on the server, especially when accessing URLs representing alternative
views of pages. Thus, LUGNET has a
robots.txt file which asks crawlers to
steer clear in many cases.
What wed like (separate from having an integrated search engine for Member
pages right on LUGNET) is to find a way to submit
specific pages to major
search engines and allow them access to these specific pages, while still
turning away problematic crawlers. Solving this problem may be easy for some
search engines and difficult for others.
15. Do the initials FTX stand for anything?
FTX is short for
formatted
te
xt (or, if you prefer,
fancy
te
xt).
(By the way, HTML is short for
hyper
text
markup
language.)
This document's URL:
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/all
Footnotes:
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/all
- https://www.lugnet.com/print.cgi?/publish/ftx/guide/all
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/quickstart/
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/basics
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/name
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/text-features
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/links
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/images
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/sections
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/hrule
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/special-chars
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/line-breaks
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/lists
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/tables
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/code
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/legosets
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/ldrawparts
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/ldrawcolors
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/news
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/polls
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/transclusion
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/revisions
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/future
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/ref
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/faq/
- http://www.lugnet.com/people/members/join/
- http://www.lugnet.com/people/members/sign-in/
- https://www.lugnet.com/people/members/sign-in/
- http://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/
- http://www.lego.com/
- mailto:me@myisp.com
- https://www.lugnet.com/~1/SpiderWalker/.ftx
- https://www.lugnet.com/~1/SpiderWalker/
- https://www.lugnet.com/~1/DinoTron/.ftx
- https://www.lugnet.com/~1/DinoTron/
- https://www.lugnet.com/~1/LittleShip/.ftx
- https://www.lugnet.com/~1/LittleShip/
- https://www.lugnet.com/~1/Boo-Boo/.ftx
- https://www.lugnet.com/~1/Boo-Boo/
- http://guide.lugnet.com/set/
- http://www.ldraw.org/
- http://guide.lugnet.com/partsref/
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/ldrawcolors.ftx
- http://www.legolandca.com/
- http://members.lugnet.com/polls/
- https://www.lugnet.com/publish/ftx/guide/example
- https://www.lugnet.com/~1/DinoTron/all
- http://www.xanadu.com/
- http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/
- http://www.brickshelf.com/
- https://www.lugnet.com/admin/terms/agreement
- http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/078944691X/lugnet/
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