the entry forms are BROKE, always have been, please fix them

[watchin]

When will someone PLEASE fix these stupid entry pages so that they

do not screw up plain text ( if I wanted this to be one continouse line

I'd have entered it that way ) and the first person that tells me I

should use HTML ENCODING in my

reply posts... THIS IS A PHOTO FORUM NOT A DAMN WEB PAGE CONSTRUCTION

SIMINAR. This has been BROKE and STUPID since day ONE... why hasn't

this ever gotten fixed.

 

(if you say you can't do it, I say FOOOEY go look at some of the other

web forums, they allow a mixture of HTML and plain text quite well.)

 

ARGH... do you get the idea I'm frustrated.... well DUH, good guess!

Greg

[bobatkins]

They're not BROKE(n).

 

I've never had any problems. What browser are you using? When entering plain text, blank lines give you blank lines, otherwise the text appears in a block. What exactly do you want it to do?

 

If you want to get fancy, learn HTML. I don't think learing that <p> gives you a paragraph break and <br> gives you a line break is beyond the mental capabilities of most users.

[tony bell]

Never have had any trouble either. Problem must be on your end.

[lex_jenkins]

Careful, there. That soapbox you're jumping up and down on has gotten rickety from the hundreds of previous preachers stomping around on it.

[david_h._hartman]

<em>"Never have had any trouble either. Problem must be

on your end." --Tony Bell<br>

</em><br>

I did years ago and so downloaded the code form some pages.

Noticed the <p> and <br> whatever they are called and

started using them. Ive always noticed this at PHOTO.NET so

long as Ive been posting here so Ive always used the

paragraph and line breaks in my posts. In the last month or so

type setters quotation marks and apostrophes got screwed up so

everything I post is now HTML.<br>

<br>

If you want a list like this...<br>

<br>

One<br>

Two<br>

Three<br>

<br>

Use...<br>

<br>

One<br><br>

Two<br><br>

Three<br><br>

<br>

Otherwise use this<br>

<br>

One<br>

<br>

Two<br>

<br>

Three<br>

<br>

Those are your choices and always have been since I first used

PHOTO.NET.<br>

<br>

Best,<br>

<br>

Dave Hartman.<br>

<br>

Sure hope this works or I'll look like a fool.

[david_h._hartman]

Otherwise use this... Looks like this in HTML</p>

 

<p>One<br><br>

<br><br>

Two<br><br>

<br><br>

Three<br><br>

<br></p>

 

<p>On my word processor the double HTML line breaks started life

as double paragraph marks.

[david_h._hartman]

<em>"the entry forms are BROKE, always have been, please

fix them" --G J Moody<br>

</em><br>

Im no HTML expert; this is the way Ive always found

HTML to function. This is not unique to PHOTO.NET.<br>

<br>

Best,<br>

<br>

Dave Hartman.

[jbq]

I'm sure that photo.net will accept your consulting services at the amazingly low price of 1 cent per hour, assuming that you bring your own hardware to use as a staging server, make a full analysis of impact on usability, performance, and cost, perform all the QA and develop all the relevant test suites, and maintain all the affected code for 5 years at no extra cost.

 

Seriously, chill out, it works just fine for the rest of us, after 1 or 2 posts you figure out how to write your text to make it look the way you want. And, yes, you can't have line-breaks in plain text without also having empty lines.

[basscheffers]

I agree, it's annoying and looks pathetic. If you want anything somewhat formatted, you have to use HTML. I know the programmers (Brian...) are busy, but changing "wrap=physical" to "wrap=virtual" and adding one regsub shouldn't be too time consuming, especialy for such a VAST improvement in usability.

 

While you are at it, put in a regsub that makes a url entered that starts with http(s):// a real link.

 

That leaves the emails. Lazy sod that he is, the original programmer (I am asuming PhilG) probably went for the physical wrap so it would look good in Pine without any effort. I personaly wouldn't call a line wrapper much of an effort and if you want a Tcl proc that does it, I'll email you mine...

 

Those small changes will transform the entry forms usabilty from pathetic "My First Message Board" quality to All You Will Ever Need...

[watchin]

THANK YOU Bas... That is exactly what I was getting at.

 

And just because someone will put up with a pathetic excuse for a data entry mode, does not mean that "it works fine for the rest of us."

 

I've been using this board for "a while" and NO I won't get used to it.

 

I've been doing the <br> junk and that is what I'm complaining about,

that's NONSENSE.

 

Take a look at some other boards (DigitalDingus, Steve's Forums, DPreview, etc..) and you'll see the non-amateur methods in use.

 

Brian, I know you guys are doing all you can to improve this board,

ergo the great thrashing lately with critiques and galleries... BUT

 

DAMN IT - this is silly! With the size of the membership and the number of hits per day... come on!

 

.... return soap box to corner ... deep breath, deep breath ....

.... say a few mantra's ....

 

Okay I'm calm again, ;{)

Greg

[david_h._hartman]

<em>And just because someone will put up with a pathetic

excuse for a data entry mode, does not mean that "it works

fine for the rest of us." --G J Moody<br>

</em><br>

I was trying to be helpful and you lack appreciation. You want to

be rude, fine. Ill be blunt: you are obnoxious and self-centered.

My advice was not an excuse nor was it pathetic and the entry

form is not a pathetic excuse. PHOTO.NETs forums are great

the way they are and there many others who like them just as they

are. There are many who like this feature where one can drop an

HTML code fragment in a thread. Its unique to this photo

site only. Maybe it was common years back now its unique.

Many of us would rather not see the forums dumped down. If you

like the others sites why not do the obvious?<br>

<br>

<em>"Lazy sod that he is, the original programmer (I am

asuming PhilG)..." --Bas Scheffers<br>

</em><br>

Phil Greenspun did a great job and created a unique site. I e-mailed

him four times in about two years and got a prompt courteous

reply each time. I dont find that lazy. He mostly pointed

out the lack of volunteer and programmers time but he read

and he replied.<br>

<br>

Most sites wont take this kind of complaint about the site

in a public forum. Its almost saintly of PHOTO.NET to put up

with this stuff, All caps and statements like "STUPID since

day ONE." Others you can e-mail privately if you like and

get a form reply (or not) and pretty much know your message wasnt

read.

[basscheffers]

It doesn't need to be "dumbed down", just made a little more usable. The HTML should always be there, it is great, but a nicer way of inputting without resorting HTML would go a long way. I often give less well formatted answers and non-clickable links because I can't be bothered with doing my own formatting. A minor change is all we are asking and I am pretty sure that even YOU would be using it 90% of the time that you would otherwise use HTML and be glad it's there. You don't know what you can have till you've got it. Or something.

 

Ever heard of sarcasm? I have a lot of respect for Philip Greenspun as a web software engineer but he has been know that if he could get away with it, to cut corners on interface - reducing usability - and this is certainly the case here. Which is fair enough, as this was coded in the evenings in his pre-ArsDigita days, but a small change would be nice.

 

The difference with this and other photo forums is that many users, like it or not, are paying customers. So that gives those people the right to complain as well!

[david_h._hartman]

<em>"The HTML should always be there, it is great, but a

nicer way of inputting without resorting HTML would go a long way."

--Bas Scheffers<br>

</em><br>

I wont argue with that.<br>

<br>

<em>"A minor change is all we are asking and I am pretty

sure that even YOU would be using it 90% of the time that you

would otherwise use HTML and be glad it's there." --Bas

Scheffers<br>

</em><br>

Not likely but Im strange. Im basically functionally

illiterate without a computer. Thats not a joke. I cant

read my own handwriting. I gave up cursive handwriting about a

couple of decades ago. I cant spell worth a damn. I write

in MS Word and being lazy use FrontPage Express borrowed from

WinNT 4.0 SP6a to do my coding most of the time.<br>

<br>

They took away my Kodachrome 25 and got away with it. If they

come for my keyboard youll see a man get mean!<br>

<br>

<em>"Ever heard of sarcasm?" --Bas Scheffers<br>

</em><br>

Yes but I dont know you so Id have to see a silly

smiley face to know that. It takes time to know a persons

humor in a forum.<br>

<br>

<em>"The difference with this and other photo forums is that

many users, like it or not, are paying customers." --Bas

Scheffers<br>

</em><br>

Not that many. Id drop the price to $19.95 taking a hint

from late night TV (you know the ads that can fool some of the

people all of the time) and Id accept VISA and MasterCard.

I dont take much from this site but someone, I believe

named "Sandy," made an offer of double (match) your

money and 18 months. I puked (sorry) on the PayPal legal

agreement. While I was thinking about alternate payment I went to

the post office, a two mile round trip. The head gasket on my car

gave and it sucked half the anti-freeze on the way back. The

"vapor trail" as most impressive! Clyde Barrow would

want one for his getaway car.<br>

<br>

PHOTO.NET needs those impulse buyers.<br>

<br>

<em>"So that gives those people the right to complain as

well!" --Bas Scheffers<br>

</em><br>

Take it easy on Brian. Sometime back I made comments that were

easy to miss understand. Brain got ticked off at me. I remembered

asking a friend to beta test a program I wrote. My friend spent

almost no time testing and carped at the limitations of the

programming environment is was using. I put two and two together

and shut up.<br>

<br>

Till next time...

[watchin]

David,

Please calm down... The pathetic excuse for an entry form was NOT AIMED

AT YOU or any one person... I was referring to this silly box I'm now typeing run-on sentences into which will not allow me to format anything unless I know and use (correctly) HTML.

 

I did not think I was being rude, just terse and to the point. If I was rude to you (like you have returned in kind to everyone that disagrees with you!) then I will apologise.

 

RUDENESS WAS NOT THE POINT !

Trying to get a problem and frustration fixed WAS THE POINT..

 

Greg

[mottershead]

Greg, so far as I can tell everything that someone types is run into a single continuous line until he leaves a blank line, which results in a paragraph break. In short, new-lines are ignored unless there are two of them, which results in a paragraph break.

I've found this a bit inconvenient occasionally -- when trying to do numbered or bulleted lists in plain text, for example. You have to make each item a separate paragraph with blank lines in between, which isn't very intuitive.

 

But I find the current approach more often to be convenient; it means I can just type and not worry too much about line-breaks and the like. I know they will all get chucked out and the text made into neatly wrapped paragraphs unless I happen to have two line-breaks in a row, which makes a new paragraph.

 

What do you suppose the people who are used to the current approach would say if it were changed? We might get some fairly ragged-looking posts until people realized that their text wasn't getting wrapped the same way as before.

 

As for allowing a few HTML tags into a "Plain Text" post, such as <a> anchor tags, <img> for images, and perhaps some others like <em> or <b>, without having to go all the way to HTML, with a <p> in front of every darn paragraph -- I've thought that would be useful. I have to find the time to implement it. Actually, I'd like to get rid of the HTML capability just because it lends itself to mischief.

 

By the way, how have you been? Do you remember me from DEC, if you can remember that long ago?

[bobatkins]

I'd hate to see the HTML option vanish. I do find it useful for lists, tables etc.

 

Already a lot of HTML tags are blocked to prevent people messing with the site, and that's already inconvenient at times. I'd really like to be able to use the <pre></pre> tag set when quoting materal from other pages, but it's on the "bad tags" list so I can't! I know why it's banned (because long lines don't get wrapped, so you can push the margins of the page way off the screen), but it's a shame.

[david_h._hartman]

Moody,<br>

<br>

Just after writing <em>"Please calm down"</em>

You are using all caps which on the net is that same shouting. <em>"The

pathetic excuse for an entry form was NOT AIMED AT YOU or any one

person..." </em>This is what Im talking about when I

say you are rude and obnoxious.<br>

<br>

You say, <em>"And just because someone will put up with a

pathetic excuse for a data entry mode..."</em> This is a

slur at those uses and likes the current data entry form.<br>

<br>

Here you are again shouting, <em>"RUDENESS WAS NOT THE POINT

! Trying to get a problem and frustration fixed WAS THE POINT.."</em>

Its as if you expect to force your will on others by

shouting at them. Its self-centered. You need more than to

express your views. You want your way and want it now. <br>

<br>

Read what you have written but read it as if its written to

you not by you. Look at the number of loaded words used. Its

up to you. If you want to have an exasperated, obnoxious style

then write exactly as you did with your original post.<br>

<br>

<em>"If I was rude to you (like you have returned in kind to

everyone that disagrees with you!) then I will apologise."</em>

When its time to apologize just apologize. Justifying

yourself before or after negates the apology.<br>

<br>

Dave Hartman.

[basscheffers]

Nobody is asking for the HTML option to vanish. Brian, I am sorry to say your assumption about the "wrapping changes" is dead wrong. The only way it wraps properly on an html page now is because html ignores line breaks and changes them into whitespace. Yes, there are single line breaks in the posts now, that's what a physical wrap does. If you were to switch to "wrap=virtual", the only thing that would change is that if people specificaly type a line break, they get it - if you do the regsub to change that line break into a <br>, of course. Which seems fair enough to me.

 

As for the current content in the database, you'll just have to add a new type message type, text2 or something, to know which one you are dealing with on display.

 

Adding a few tags is alright. I probably won't use them, but that's just me. The auto parsing of a full URL into a clickable link is by far the most important one.

[mottershead]

Bas, Greg: first I'm not sure you are even talking about the same problem. Greg says it is BROKE and should be "fixed". Bas says the wrap=physical attribute should be replaced with wrap=virtual. I'm not very clear on what Greg considers BROKE, other than not having the ability to put a little HTML in here and there.

 

I don't see what is wrong with the wrap=physical. What is actually BROKE or "dumb" about it?

 

As it is now, the browser automatically wraps lines longer than the width of the textarea, and the inserted new-lines are sent to the server. For photo.net new-lines in the input aren't very important, since the text is just put onto HTML pages, where new-lines are ignored. The photo.net server replaces multiple successive new-lines with <p> tags so as to preserve the paragraphing.

 

What would be gained by going to wrap=virtual? The browser would wrap lines in the textarea but only newlines explicitly typed by the user would be sent to the server. Bas also wants those new-lines to be turned into <br> tags by the server. But the effect wouldn't be to make the post look exactly as it did in the narrow little textarea in the posting form, since on the browser side there would be a mixture of soft wraps inserted by the browser and hard wraps typed by the user. These would look the same to the user, but only the hard wraps would be sent to the server. That sounds more confusing to me. When he looks at what is on his screen, does the user remember which line-breaks he entered himself and which were put there by the browser's line-wrapping algorithm? I don't see how that is an improvement, apart from possibly making it somewhat easier to type lists, verse, etc.

 

If I were to do anything with the wrap tag, I would simply remove it, For one thing, it is deprecated by W3C. That would mean that there would be no automatic wrapping in the browser and only new-lines physically entered by the user would appear in the textarea and be sent to the browser. Assuming that wraps were converted to <br> by the server, then you would have some kind of WYSIWYG for the posts. But I'm still not sure this would be regarded as an improvement by people. Most of the time, as I said, I personally prefer the automatic wrapping, and I rather wonder whether other people would feel the same. Also, the final result would be sensitive to the posters choice of fonts. He might be quite satisfied with the "look" of his post in the textarea, but this might end up as very long or short lines when displayed in HTML, looking bad for the majority of people. Ignoring new-lines in the input (except for turning multiple successive new-lines into <p> tags) seems preferable.

 

But, I'm listening, so rather than just asserting that its BROKE, how about some reasons?

[basscheffers]

Yeah, definitely not "BROKE", just not working like he (or I) wants it to. I am against WYSIWYG, I hate those message boards input systems infinitely more than the flaws in photo.net's...

 

The change to go virtual - omnitting the tag has the same effect and actualy does still wrap text on screen but only sends explicit newlines - is there only for making it easy to do lists, can't think of anything else.

 

Like I said, the lack of automatic parsing of links is my greatest "pet peeve" about the input system, with the line breaks second.

[mottershead]

Bas, if removing the wrap attribute is the equivalent in your browser of virtual, then your browser isn't complying with the spec, since the spec says that the default is "off", which is the behaviour I described.

[basscheffers]

Apologies for using IE6 then! :)

 

Actualy, the HTML4.01 spec says "User agents may wrap visible text lines to keep long lines visible without the need for scrolling", which is what any sensible client would do and both IE and Mozilla do so.

[mottershead]

Bas, if you want to play standards-lawyer :-), the HTML 4.0 specs don't have any wrap attribute on the textarea tag. No W3C HTML spec ever had a wrap attribute for textarea. According to the O'Reilly book on HTML, various versions of IE and Netscape didn't agree on the wrap attribute values or their interpretation. But they did both agree that no wrap attribute was the same as wrap=off, and in the case of "off" (or no attribute) they put up horizontal scroll bars in the textarea if a user types a long line, rather than wrapping the line.

[basscheffers]

Yeah, noticed that. But not putting in any attribute at all seems to now result in line wrapping, both in the latest IE and Mozilla. I haven't tried yet wether this by default is a virtual or physical wrap by actualy submitting something to the server, though.

 

For shits and giggles I am submitting this from a local copy of the upload form without the attribute, let's see what happens! :)

[mottershead]

Since it isn't in the standard, browsers can decide what they are going to do with it. Probably, we both get to be right on how it behaves; we just have to find the right/wrong browser.