Templot Club Archive 2007-2020                             

topic: 51WYSIWYG posting
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posted: 13 Jun 2007 17:25

from:

Paul Boyd
 
Loughborough - United Kingdom

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Is it just me, or are other people finding that their carefully laid out posts get mangled by the time they appear on the forum?  The post I just sent in reply to Brian's, for instance, did not look like that when it left my computer!

posted: 13 Jun 2007 17:54

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Paul Boyd wrote:
  • === Is it just me, or are other people finding that their carefully laid out posts get mangled by the time they appear on the forum?  The post I just sent in reply to Brian's, for instance, did not look like that when it left my computer!
    ==
    =
Hi Paul,

I've been experimenting today with the reply format. What specific changes upset you?

The problem is to find a nested quoting format which looks good and clear on the forum, and at the same time is properly delimited when received as plain text emails. At the moment it's proving elusive. The normal boxed panel quoting used on web forums appears in plain text emails without any delimiters at all, which is very confusing for the reader. At present I have set three equals signs as the delimiter.

Note that this forum software has THREE different posting editors:

1. Fully WYSIWYG and almost a word processor in IE with spell-check and auto para spacing.

2. A more restricted WYSIWYG editor in Firefox without spell-check and needing blank lines between paras.

3. A basic plain text editor in Opera and other browsers.

Which means you need to say which browser you are using when reporting problems.

I expected a few teething problems ... :(

regards,

Martin.

posted: 13 Jun 2007 19:34

from:

Paul Boyd
 
Loughborough - United Kingdom

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Hi Martin

> The problem is to find a nested quoting format which looks good and clear on the forum, and at the same time is properly delimited when received as plain text emails. At the moment it's proving elusive. The normal boxed panel quoting used on web forums appears in plain text emails without any delimiters at all, which is very confusing for the reader. At present I have set three equals signs as the delimiter.

The post as I wrote it had the two quoted bits of text neatly enclosed in the boxes provided by the " " button. When it appeared on the forum, the first quote ("the purpose being to allow...") does appear in a box, but has superfluous HTML at each end of the text.  The other quote appeared as brown text without the box around it.  Brian's reply quoting my reply does have my bit formatted the way I sent it.  The emailed version got messed up in other ways, and made it impossible to see who which bits were the quotes.

Of course, I didnt realize you were experimenting at the time I made the post!

> 2. A more restricted WYSIWYG editor in Firefox without spell-check and needing blank lines between paras.
> Which means you need to say which browser you are using when reporting problems.


So how do you switch between the modes - by default I see the same WYSIWYG editor in Firefox as I do in IE7.  The Help page does offer commands if your browser doesn't support WYSIWYG, but the editor still allows me to type a post as WYSIWYG, but changes it WYSINWYG when it actually appears on the forum!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

posted: 13 Jun 2007 22:35

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Hi Paul,

 === The post as I wrote it had the two quoted bits of text neatly enclosed in the boxes provided by the " " button. When it appeared on the forum, the first quote ("the purpose being to allow...") does appear in a box, but has superfluous HTML at each end of the text. === 

If you use the quotes (" ") button, it will be enclosed in a box while you are writing, but gets converted to inline brown italic text delimited with === when previewed or posted. The idea is to match the format created by the "Reply with quote" button. I can't explain why superfluous HTML apeared.

I'm not sure yet that I have found a workable setup. The bulleted list format is ideal to clarify nested quotes, but makes it difficult to copy and paste small chunks. The easiest way to do that is to copy and paste from the original message into a blank reply.

If you really want something to appear in a box, use the { } code button instead. It will appear in a fixed width font, which is useful for creating tabulated info.

 === So how do you switch between the modes - by default I see the same WYSIWYG editor in Firefox as I do in IE7. The Help page does offer commands if your browser doesn't support WYSIWYG, but the editor still allows me to type a post as WYSIWYG, but changes it WYSINWYG when it actually appears on the forum! === 

I have to admit the editor is a bit clunky. As far as I can tell the only way to switch modes is to change browser. It's described as WYSIWYG but it isn't really of course, and it can't be using HTML on an unknown user system with unknown user settings. It would be better described as a rich-text editor.

You shouldn't be seeing the same editor in both IE and Firefox -- in IE there should be several extra toolbar buttons for cut and paste, spell-check, etc. The spell check puts the error words in bold dark red, rather than underlined, which is less than ideal. They would be better highlighted on a yellow ground, say.

Just a reminder why we are using this particular forum software -- it was the only one I could find which allows full access via email to all posts. Other deficiencies have to be set against that rather significant advantage. Apart from the emails, it also means you can read all posts in straight chronological order if you prefer -- on the Yahoo web site.

I will have another think about the quoting format.

regards,

Martin.


posted: 14 Jun 2007 13:59

from:

Paul Boyd
 
Loughborough - United Kingdom

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Hi Martin
You shouldn't be seeing the same editor in both IE and Firefox -- in IE there should be several extra toolbar buttons for cut and paste, spell-check, etc.
These are two screenshots taken using both IE7 and Firefox 2.0

http://www.pbhome.plus.com/templot_ie7.png
http://www.pbhome.plus.com/templot_firefox.png

I did eventually spot the very subtle differences!
Just a reminder why we are using this particular forum software -- it was the only one I could find which allows full access via email to all posts. Other deficiencies have to be set against that rather significant advantage. Apart from the emails, it also means you can read all posts in straight chronological order if you prefer -- on the Yahoo web site.
My posts have been more about trying to understand it - apologies if they came across as complaining!  The ability to receive posts by email is very important to me, otherwise I would never see them - I'm not one of those that frequently logs into forums just to see what's there.  The other feature that ties in with this is the link in the email that takes you straight into the forum at the right place.  So long as that is all kept, I'll be happy, and even the ability to post to the forum by email can take a back seat now I've seen how things work as they are.

Cheers



posted: 14 Jun 2007 14:55

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Hi Paul,

     > My posts have been more about trying to understand it -
     > apologies if they came across as complaining!

No, I didn't think that. But I could see you were a bit confused -- you're not the only one! I have just cancelled the quoting changes I made yesterday and restored the original code. :(

The changes were effective in propagating to emails only if the message was previewed before sending. It took me a while to twig that! We can't rely on everyone always previewing their messages.

So now we have a significant problem. At present there is no way to get quoted text (using the built-in quote functions) delimited in the emails. Which makes reading them very confusing at best, and utterly incomprehensible if several quotes get nested.

The best solution is to do what I have done above, revert to email practice and manually format copied text with chevrons. But I fear that will be a task too far for many users.

I'm going to have to do what I was hoping to avoid -- get seriously into the php code and make some changes. So much for the forum saving my time! :(

Some feedback please -- is the message editor area too big, too small, or about right? I know it depends on your monitor size, but then only if you have your browser full screen. Ideally the posting area would be re-sizable, but at present it's fixed in the css. Too small and you need to scroll the editor to read what you've written, too big and you need to scroll the browser to get at the buttons. Thoughts anyone?

   > The ability to receive posts by email is very important to me,
   > otherwise I would never see them - I'm not one of those that
   > frequently logs into forums just to see what's there.

Yes, you are not the only one. I'm very glad now that there were some insisting on this when I first floated the idea of a web forum -- I hadn't appreciated the importance. It's especially handy that it allows everything to appear in an alternative chronological format on Yahoo and be searched there in combination with the existing messages (over 8000 of them). However, Yahoo are threatening a new YahooGroups format and tightening up on blocked IPs and spam, so  I'm a bit apprehensive whether this integration with the forum will survive.

    > The other feature that ties in with this is the link in the email that
    > takes you straight into the forum at the right place.

Yes, I had to tweak that a little. One niggling problem is that when you get there, if it's in the middle of a long topic, you can't see the topic title or which forum you are in (other than in the browser's top window title). That needs a fix, but it's proving tricky.

Another thing to fix is the topic review below the editor. It would be much better in reverse order with the most recent post at the top, since that's the one you are most likely to be replying to. Also it needs to be in a different colour, so that having scrolled down it you don't confuse it with the normal topic display and wonder where the buttons have gone.

   > even the ability to post to the forum by email can take a back seat
   > now I've seen how things work as they are.

There's still a lot of work in automating that, but I'm happy to go on forwarding messages manually if folks don't mind the delay.

Thanks again for your feedback.

regards,

Martin.


posted: 15 Jun 2007 12:44

from:

Alan Turner
 
Dudley - United Kingdom

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Martin,

if it's a toss-up between curved crossings and the forum, go for the curved crossings (please!)

Alan

posted: 15 Jun 2007 16:38

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Alan Turner wrote:
Martin,

if it's a toss-up between curved crossings and the forum, go for the curved crossings (please!)

Alan

Hi Alan,

Don't worry.:) I'm not going to get bogged down in perfecting the forum pages. We can live with a few rough edges. But we do need to make sure the actual information gets transmitted clearly.

I have now got the quotes delimited in the emails with {== and ==} pairs, as I hope is visible above if you are reading this as an email. So back to Templot....

regards,

Martin.


posted: 15 Jun 2007 16:47

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Martin Wynne wrote:
I have now got the quotes delimited in the emails with {== and ==} pairs, as I hope is visible above if you are reading this as an email.


Oh dear! Sorry about that. Try again...

Martin.




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