The following information is on how to use the quote feature and some neat tricks to using it. Just because you know how to make a quote, don't disregard this post just yet. You may very likely find information in here you didn't know, that might be useful to you.
How do you make a quote? Simple.
You can type [quote]The message in the quote goes here.[/quote] and you have successfully made a quote.
The box I just made above was not a quote, that was code. That allows you to put in different types of code without any of them being executed. I put how to use a quote in code so the quote would not be executed and appear as a quote so I could present you with the proper example.
When you make a quote you have the ability to put in a message or whatever else you like in the "headline" (that's just what we'll call it) of the quote. It automatically does this when you use the reply button to a specific post. (Not when "adding reply" to the topic, but a specific post.) You may also have the multiquote addition feature (located at the bottom of that post next to the reply button) turned on when replying to posts. However, when you make your own quote, you just put in an = and then whatever you want the headline to say following it. For example:
Yeah, with enough soap we can blow up just about anything.
Notice I had added "Quote from: Tyler Durden in Fight Club" as the headline. So I put in:
[QUOTE=Tyler Durden in Fight Club]Yeah, with enough soap we can blow up just about anything.[/QUOTE]
However, when you reply directly to someone's post (the quote of that person's post will appear in the place where you type your message with the quote code and post already inserted for you.) it automatically fills in information for you in that headline, such as the poster of the quote, and the date & time of the quote. It also adds a some other code which will basically turn the headline into a link that links to the post it was quoted from. But it looks something like this when it's used:
Quote Message Here.
That link in the headline will just lead you to this topic, as I am using my own post here as the information for that quote. (except the actual text)
To actually make it a link is a little more complicated, without clicking "quote" on someone's post. You also have to use "author=" to define the author if you make the headline into a title. You can use "date=" to define the date. For defining the link, simply use "link=" To link a specific post use "topic=" directly following "link=" with no space. To retrieve the link to a post, find the post and click the little paper icon next to the post title. It will refresh send you to that post in that topic (seemingly refreshing your page), but the link in the address bar will display the direct link to the post. Simply copy all the information after "topic," The address for this post should look like "2781.msg35814.html#msg35814" As an example, the above quote headline looks like this in the editor:
[quote author=Soul Sojourner link=topic=2781.msg35814#msg35814 date=1181352239]Quote Message Here.[/quote]
When you quote someone, everything in that quote is a part of your post. So basically whatever it adds into your post is just like the rest of your post, which is something you typed in there, even though you didn't actually type it in. When it adds the time of the post, it adds the time the post was posted by the time the board is set to believe is your own time (going by your settings). Since it's part of your message it won't appear as the correct time to anyone viewing your post unless they are in the same timezone as you. Assuming you have it set to correspond with your time.
For instance, you can post a message like: "Right now it is 3:46 PM." That time is not going to change for each viewer even though it may be a different time where they are, obviously. So in your post it still shows 3:46 to them, even if it was really 4:46 PM for them. It works the same way with quotes. So if you ever want to know the time a message from a post was quoted by someone in a different timezone, you either have to know what timezone they are in to figure out the time of the quote or find the post the quote was from and check yourself when the post was made. If the quotes headline is a link, it should lead you to the post being quoted for you. The time above each post goes by your own time settings. The settings can be found under "Board Settings" in your control panel. You may want to do that if you haven't done so already. Also, make sure the daylight savings time box is correctly checked or unchecked. If it's an hour off, that could be the reason.
As for multi-quote, I don't believe SMF supports it.
This information is really simple stuff that many board users will know. But for new users or users who may not understand quotes very well, that can be a useful bit of info.
I updated this topic, as it was about using quotes in IPB when this board was IPB. Now it's for SMF. Hopefully I covered most everything, as the differences in advanced quoting were large.