Forum related computer tips, tricks and treachery

[EarthlingX]

I'm starting this thread as a drop zone for a topic related stuff, examples, questions and hopefully some useful answers, as well as a help reference.
I warn you of my disability for clear explanations, but if you keep asking, you might be able to pull it out of me, or perhaps receive mercy from some other knowledgeable bystander/lurker.

Recommended reading :
http://www.phpbb.com : BBCode guide

My first attempt in this forum posting help will be to tackle the mystery of the tags. (famous too-doo-doo-doom music insert)

The Mystery of the Tags
is actually no mystery at all, it is similar to using parenthesis, where you have one for opening and one for closing the block statement. (Bantha ! wha ?)
Example :

(some yadda yadda)

Here '(' means start and ')' character is for ending the statement block.

Similar idea is behind that tag treachery, where starting and closing tags take a little difference, or if i may say : 'Devil is in the details'. Let see which on some simple examples, like quoting.

This is an example text block, which will be quoted.

and this is what you need to write, to get the effect of the above example, except for the explanations :

[quote]This is an example text block, which will be quoted.[/quote]

[quote] - starts the quote block
[/quote] - ends the quote block

As you can see, the magic is in '/' character at the correct place, and that is all the difference between those two. Most common posting bug is when any of the characters making the tag is missing. In that case server/forum side computer/program doesn't understand what it has to do, with not so eye-pleasing effects :

This is an example text block, which will be quoted./quote]

and

This is an example text block, which will be quoted.

which happens because of improper opening and closing sequence. This two above were meant to look like this :

This is an example text block, which will be quoted.

and

This is an example text block, which will be quoted.

or in raw :

[quote]This is an example text block, which will be quoted.[/quote]

or 

[quote]This is an example text block, which will be quoted.[/quote]

Since i'm already at the quoting, one more tip about it :
- if you want to quote with a name attached like this :

This is an example text block, which will be quoted.

you have to do this :

[quote="MysteriousStranger"]This is an example text block, which will be quoted.[/quote]

Please note the " character on the each side of the mysterious name, and = character, which makes this trick possible.

You hardly need to write, or remember any of this tags and their many tricky names, because of those neat buttons on the top of your posting area, which will automatically :shock: enclose selected text with the starting and ending tag which you click, both of them.

If you think some poster is cheating with some convenient posting magic, you can also click 'quote' button on his post, and get all his treachery to the open.

And that is not all.

 

[Shpaget]

To add something nice about quoting, which I found only on this forum...
You can easily quote parts or whole posts from multiple previous posts by highlighting the text you want to quote and clicking the quote button in the top right corner of that post.

It will automatically copy and paste selected text and put it between proper BBC tags.

 

[EarthlingX]

To add something nice about quoting, which I found only on this forum...
You can easily quote parts or whole posts from multiple previous posts by highlighting the text you want to quote and clicking the quote button in the top right corner of that post.

It will automatically copy and paste selected text and put it between proper BBC tags.

Thank you Shpaget, very nice tip

I could add, that the same thing works with other tags too. Let see what we are talking about :

this is a regular posting area :

and this is an example of a text to be quoted

selecting text and clicking on the 'quote' button gives :

[quote]and this is an example of a text to be quoted[/quote]

I use this a lot, actually all the time, with all of them tags

There is another very important button on the bottom of the posting form, which i would like to bring to your attention :

Preview

It allows you to be the first to see the posting mischief you are going to make, even before you press the 'Submit' button.
I strongly recommend using it before posting, because it allows scientific experimenting without any harm to the forum environment.

Another very useful button you might have encountered, is 'Edit' button. This one allows you to correct your posting mistakes, and no, there is need to be ashamed to do it.
It is most likely the most used button in my daily posting exercises.

Very good posting sequence would than be :

- Write text in the posting area
- 'Preview'
- check, fix, correct
- 'Preview'
- check
- if it is ok,
- 'Submit'
- check
- 'Edit' and fix grammar and typos (i never see them before that - 9 edits for this post, after previews, of course)
- 'Preview' - 'Submit'
- wait for flames.

And that is not all.

 

[a_lost_packet_]

A simple explanation of what all this code means:

BBCODE: What is it and how do I use it?

SDC uses "bbcode" which is a type of simple translation of HTML, the language the internet uses, for the most part, to communicate information to your screen.

BBCode is easy to use and it shouldn't be something one balks at simple because it's "code." In fact, it is no different than typing a sentence in a post. The difference is how the forum software reacts to it. After all, in order to use BBCode (bulletin board code) the forums have to be able to recognize it.

A simple line of code to display "bold" text would look like this.

[b]This is bold text.[/b]

And, the result would be:

This is bold text.

The forum software keys in on brackets [ ] and what they enclose. The forum software see's the first bold command and then realizes you are instructing it to put in bold text everything that appears after that command. However, it will NOT execute that command without a subsequent stop command. It will simply wait to "see" where you want it to stop showing the bold text. If you don't enter a stop command, in this case, it simply will not execute the command at all. To do that, you use an end statement which, for the bold command is the but, with a forward-slash mark (/) leading the "b" character.

[b] is the command to tell the forum to display the following text as being "bold."
[/b] is the command to the the forum to stop displaying bolded text.

All bbcode works in a similar fashion. The bracketed command tells the forum to perform a certain type of display or function and the bracketed forward-slash command tells it to stop a certain type of function.

All the hotbuttons on the top of the tool bar on each post window do is place "start" and "end" bracketed commands on either side of whatever text you have highlighted. Formatting code that isn't paired with its stop command or end statement will not be executed. To demonstrate, I'll but the "Bold" code right here: and leave it without a subsequent, bracketted stop/end command for the rest of my post. You'll notice the rest of my post is not bolded because there is no end statement. Here are some extra bold commands without closing bracketed end statements, just to tick the software off... lalalalaQQ ...

Protip - Formatting: Spacing Requirements and Line Feeds

Some BBCode requires that no spaces or line returns be between the code and the formatted area. That's not, necessarily, true for most font formatting code. But, for embedded materials and special formatting, it's usually a must. Most commonly, people run afoul of this when linking images and highlighting them and using the hotbuttons. They will sometimes get an extra line feed because they've just quickly highlighted the link text and have accidentally "highlighted" the carriage return (line feed/whatever) immediately above it. If the image link is not bracketed appropriately and has an extra line return between the brackets and the hotlink, it will not display appropriately because the forum software will try to display the line feed as well.

Example:

Won't give us an image hotlinked in our post. Instead, it will refuse to perform any embedding command at all because it is improperly formatted. So, it treats it as regular text and automatically creates a link because it recognizes a weblink address beginning with http://


But, spaces are fine and will be ignored. So, the following hotlink with way too many spaces between brackets

[img]                                   http://www.videointerchange.com/images/Test-Card-F.jpg           [/img]

will still give us this:

The software will strip out spaces when it is posted. However, it will not correct carriage returns/line feeds. (Incidentally, improperly formatting bbcode commands, where able, was how people used to illustrate them on compliant boards if they did not have the

 command to display unformatted code.)

So, if you have a problem with a special format or embedded object, check for unnecessary line feeds and proper command formatting.

 

[orionrider]

One nasty trick happened to me a few days ago.

1. Member 'A' posts a very long text at the bottom of a thread.
2. I reply using the button at the bottom;
3. 'A' deletes his post;
4. 'A' immediately uses the 'reply' button to post the same text again, with some alterations;
5. later I go back to the thread and my reply has vanished!

If I click on my nickname and check my list of recent posts, my reply is still listed :?

 

[EarthlingX]

One nasty trick happened to me a few days ago.

1. Member 'A' posts a very long text at the bottom of a thread.
2. I reply using the button at the bottom;
3. 'A' deletes his post;
4. 'A' immediately uses the 'reply' button to post the same text again, with some alterations;
5. later I go back to the thread and my reply has vanished!

If I click on my nickname and check my list of recent posts, my reply is still listed :?

I'll drop a couple of assumptions, without looking at the actual PHP code, so it might be a bit off. It might also be a bit problematic to explain this in plain English, since i don't want to start with more advanced topics until the basics are covered.
It is also very likely, that you will get a much better response in Community Talkback

Having said that, it has most likely something to do with the PostID field, forum database organization and the function which calculates ID for the new post.
In short, not much you can do about it, and the post is probably gone, depending on the transaction and backup protection of the forum data, but most likely it was overwritten, or too much trouble to recover.
This problem can be very likely easily solved by reserving PostID at the time when you press the post button in the PHP code which runs the forum, but it is nothing either you or me can do here.

 

[orionrider]

This is not a bug; in fact, it's a requirement. If someone deletes his post, it is normal that the replies below get deleted, otherwise the thread would become inconsistent.

Some BB have two kinds of 'Reply' buttons: one is meant to reply to a specific post and the reply gets killed if the post is removed. The second is meant to add a general reply to the thread. Unless the whole thread is dropped (eg: the OP deletes the first post), this reply stays alive.

 

[EarthlingX]

This is not a bug; in fact, it's a requirement. If someone deletes his post, it is normal that the replies below get deleted, otherwise the thread would become inconsistent.

Not really. There is no requirement to post something related to the last post in thread, AFAIK.

Some BB have two kinds of 'Reply' buttons: one is meant to reply to a specific post and the reply gets killed if the post is removed. The second is meant to add a general reply to the thread. Unless the whole thread is dropped (eg: the OP deletes the first post), this reply stays alive.

I think we have a lot of less demanding ground to cover until we get to this debate, like image sizes, url posting, YouTube posting and such.
If you are really so much interested in this problem, you can put together a test forum on your machine, and play with it, not that i see how that could help with solving your problem, which if i understand correctly, is not a problem anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAMP

WAMP is an acronym formed from the initials of the operating system Microsoft Windows and the principal components of the package: Apache, MySQL and PHP (or Perl or Python).

 

[orionrider]

EarthlingX, I think there is a misunderstanding. When I said 'It is a requirement' I didn't mean that 'I require' or demand something. On the contrary, I meant that the behavior of the forum is correct (not a bug), that in fact it works according to the 'use-case requirements' (in IT jargon), i.e.: the way it should work.

I have no problem with the forum, now that I'm aware of how it works.

 

[EarthlingX]

Let's get even more aware and put more light on details of various other treachery.

This here is recommended reading for new members on this forum, from http://www.phpbb.com/community/faq.php?mode=bbcode :

• Creating Links
• Adding an image to a post

There is something interesting about above posted net address/url, which, i think, deserves a bit of attention.

I will try one more time, with a bit of magical formatting :

http://www.phpbb.com/community/faq.php?mode=bbcode

Trick here is hidden in the mysterious '?' character, if i try and ignore it's more balanced '=' relative.

Now hold to your chair and get aspirins ready.

'?' character marks the end of the url, and beginning of parameter list for underlying server script, or server-side process.

Why this headache ?

Because of YouTube treachery.

Usual URL which you get on YouTube includes parameter list, which doesn't go well with the forum digestion, and then you are faced with horrors like this :

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZPqToZhwqk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

which might dishearten you in a rightful pursuit for more video posting. Solution is simple :

- Delete everything, including '&' until the end of the line, and try again :

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZPqToZhwqk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZPqToZhwqk[/youtube]

'&' character delimits parameters for YouTube-side database/script/thingy and chokes poor unsuspecting SDC tag processor.

And that is not all.

 

[MeteorWayne]

This topic doesn't really fit the purpose of the Science 101 forum, so has been moved to User Announcements.

 

[EarthlingX]

It seems to be a science magic to a lot of people posting here, that's my excuse. This move might bring this thread to more wide exposure to this topic, let's hope it will help

I will bump this from time to time with a couple of tips lost in the wilderness of forum history, but i might have not been the only one smart-axing here :

From the famous Relativity Calculator :

Next thing you need to know are those square things above posting area, with writing on them, let's call them 'buttons'.
They 'tag' the text you selected.
Example :
-

http://www.somesite.com/image.jpg

becomes

[img]http://www.somesite.com/image.jpg[/img]

Properly posting URLs is a bit trickier, but with a lot of practice, dedication and keyboard study, you will be able to do this:

to make text :
Very Fancy Web Title

point, or redirect browser to address :
www.owgawdwhatasite.com


Here's the trickery :

- Select text to convert to link
- click on the URL button
- insert '=' sign after 'url' at the beginning of the tag
- insert address after '=' sign
Like this :

Very Fancy Web Title

[url]Very Fancy Web Title[/url]

[url=]Very Fancy Web Title[/url]

[url=http://www.owgawdwhatasite.com/]Very Fancy Web Title[/url]

It is much less trouble with YouTube videos :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIaORknS1Dk

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIaORknS1Dk[/youtube]

If you see some post you like, you can press 'quote' on the post and have all the insides you can handle visible.

Oh, and press 'Preview', at the bottom of posting area, at least once

And that is not all.

 

[EarthlingX]

Here's a couple of short, hopefully sweet hints :
- image width that fits comfortably in the posting area is about 700 pixels. I recommend use of 600 to 650 though, but that, i guess, is a matter of personal taste. Might even be worth a bit of discussion.

- if you press the 'quote' button on the post you are replying to, it saves a bit of confusion for readers, and you can just start typing your wisdom after the end of quoted text. It might even confuse people to think you know what you are talking about Nesting comments is another trouble that might profit from more scrutiny.

- please use a spellchecker. There are available for any platform, browser or what not, a bit of a starting point is here. You can also find a couple of opinions on this topic here.

- there is a very neat add-on for Firefox, which recovers lost forms - no more lost posts for any of evil reasons. Yea, ok, i'll tell, stop that. It's called Lazarus Form Recovery.

And that is not all.

 

[EarthlingX]

I wish (not for the first time) there was a sarcasm emoticon....

Please, take your pick :

http://www.freesmileys.org/ :

 

[a_lost_packet_]

http://www.freesmileys.org/ :

Oh.. Saints preserve us! HERE THEY COME!!!








Look! Some are coming single file, to hide their numbers!

 

[EarthlingX]

Here is another rather common problem and a solution :

From Re: "dark matter" :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)
NOTE: for some reason this link keeps dropping the last parenthesis mark, which resuluts in directing you to a wiki query page. Just add the last parenthesis to the address in the url bar or click on the link to the correct page indicated in the query.

Chris

You can also enclose in the URL tag, like this :

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)[/url]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)

or even better, like this :

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)]Plasma (physics)[/url]

Plasma (physics)