Forum Update

[BruceBowler]

True, the <br>s are gone, now the messages are full of  &nbsp's and &gt's etc (OK, not "full of", but they weren't there before)

It shouldn't be *THAT* hard to strip *ALL* of the html cruft out of a message before you send it down the nntp pipe.

[GerdW]

Hello Molly,

some comments/questions:

1) Sometimes there is an entry "Edit message", sometimes not... Why is this?
Example: look for 'Gradual rise' in the labview forum. I made two replies to the question. At the 2nd reply  I can "edit message", at the first not. Break/checking again: Now some minutes later I cannot edit bth of them. Is there some timeout in your forum software?

2) The cursor in the message edit window (Java app?) is sometimes 'out of order'...
Examples: if I go to the very right of the last line, the cursor jumps to the start of the line. If I write, the cursor jumps back to the end and the characters appear where they should.
Or I append a 'new line' (return key) at the end of the text. When I press 'cursor right' key, the cursor goes one pixel to the right even if its at the end of the text. Then I have to press 'delete' two time to remove the 'new line'... This behaviour makes you crazy if you are used to word/notepad/whatever.
(Btw. I'm using FireFox1.06 on Win2000, all patches)

[EdDickens]

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1) Sometimes there is an entry "Edit message", sometimes not... Why is this?
Example: look for 'Gradual rise' in the labview forum. I made two replies to the question. At the 2nd reply  I can "edit message", at the first not. Break/checking again: Now some minutes later I cannot edit bth of them. Is there some timeout in your forum software?

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I asked this question a few months ago. Molly said there was a 5 minute time out for editing messages, as long as a newer reply had not been posted. As soon as a new reply is added to the thread, the older ones are locked out from editing.

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2) The cursor in the message edit window (Java app?) is sometimes 'out of order'...
Examples: if I go to the very right of the last line, the cursor jumps to the start of the line. If I write, the cursor jumps back to the end and the characters appear where they should.
Or I append a 'new line' (return key) at the end of the text. When I press 'cursor right' key, the cursor goes one pixel to the right even if its at the end of the text. Then I have to press 'delete' two time to remove the 'new line'... This behaviour makes you crazy if you are used to word/notepad/whatever.
(Btw. I'm using FireFox1.06 on Win2000, all patches)

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I've also seen these types of problems with the editor on FireFox 1.04 (now on 1.6) running on XPpro SP2.

Ed

[altenbach]

Gerd, Yes, there is a timeout that determines how long you can edit a contribution. This is a normal forum feature. Imagine somebody would go and surgically remove every word of his posts inside an existing long thread or change the meaning 180 degrees. It would make the entire thread useless.

If there is a glaring mistake (e.g. an acidental broken link, etc) you can always notify a moderator (same pulldown as "edit post") to have it corrected.

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@GerdW wrote:
Or I append a 'new line' (return key) at the end of the text. When I press 'cursor right' key, the cursor goes one pixel to the right even if its at the end of the text. Then I have to press 'delete' two time to remove the 'new line'... This behaviour makes you crazy if you are used to word/notepad/whatever.
(Btw. I'm using FireFox1.06 on Win2000, all patches)

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I don't see these editing peculiarities in IE, but part of the problem might be due to the fact that the editor inserts quite a bit of hidden fluff. For example hitting a simple "enter" might produce "<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>". You can always click "Edit as HTML" and you'll get much more predictable behavior.

[GerdW]

Hello Molly and Ed,

to the editing stuff:
I wanted to edit my message before any other made a new reply to the thread. But I couldn't... So had to write a new message just to add a sentence (or two).

Can the timeout made longer (or even no timeout)? Or can the rule be changed to "no new reply and nobody, who subscripted this thread, was reading my message"?

[chilly_charly]

Molly,

Is there any possibilty to disable the new edit facilities, and to choose to stay permanently in the HTML edit mode ? I have lost hours (seriously) because there is no way to recover the typed text if you accidently leave the edit window. This is awfully boring. I suppose that with time I'll ultimately get the reflex to save my contributions before doing anything else, but at the present time I have simply reduced my reply rate !

[RayFarmer]

Molly,

Why does my edit window leave large gaps between lines of text?

see this text window as an example

The old edit window didn't do this, is there a setting somewhere to change the spacing between lines?

Also, why do the announcement links use my thread settings. I have my setting Newest to Oldest but the links in the announcements are using Sort Messages by thread?

Regards

Ray Farmer

Message Edited by Ray Farmer on 07-27-2005 10:15 PM

[tst]

Ray, use shift+return instead of return (and thank Altenbach).

[Molly K]

Hello all:

Thanks for helping each other out!

I will try to consolidate some of the questions and answers for you.

Why does my edit window leave large gaps between lines of text?
Use shift+return instead of return.  I will add this to the list of things we are working with the vendor to resolve.

Why do the announcement links use my thread settings?

I did this on purpose by adding a sort parameter in the URLs.  For users who are not familiar with the threads, it makes most sense for them to read them from beginning to end rather than jumping in the middle of a particularly long conversation.

Is there any possibilty to disable the new edit facilities, and to choose to stay permanently in the HTML edit mode?

There sure is.  I haven't tried it yet, but My Profile >> Preferences >> Use HTML Message Editor.  You can uncheck that box and it should do the trick.

Sometimes there is an entry "Edit message", sometimes not... Why is this?
There is a 5 minute window of opportunity after you post a message to be able to start editing that message.  The window is 5 minutes to allow you to catch spelling/formatting mistakes quickly.  The window is short to reduce the possibility of editing your message while it's being synched to the NNTP newsgroups AND to prevent users from drastically changing the intent of their message in the middle of a conversation. 
I do not believe that as soon as there is a reply to the message that the Edit Message feature is removed.  I think it only is controlled by the time limit.  I can't say that I have ever tried this though.

I hope that I got most of them.  Have a great day!

Thanks!

[RayFarmer]

Hi Molly,

That's a long list!

Item 9 in the Features requests, shouldn't this be in the known features, as in it should do it but doesn't?

(Just having to switch back to List New message first option)

(You deserve a gold Enthusiast's mug for the work you are doing)

Regards

Ray farmer