Quoting Posts

[jimnyc]

A lot of posts of late are coming up with the quote tags screwed up and making threads more difficult to read. When the quote tags are over applied, or missing, the reader now has a jumbled bit of text to go through with multiple posts all put together as one, and it becomes difficult to tell who wrote what.

Here is a screenshot of what it should look like when you are making a post and having had quoted someone. Notice the opening quote AND closing quote:



The opening quote must have the word QUOTE of course, and it MUST be surrounded by an opening and closing bracket. Once the persons words you are quoting is completed, the word QUOTE must be at the end of the text. This ending quote MUST also have the opening and closing brackets surrounding the word - and just as important, the ending quote tage MUST have a backslash just prior to the word QUOTE. This means BOTH words have to be surrounded by opening and closing brackets, and the closing bracket must always contain the backslash, which is telling the code that this is the end of what needs to be quoted.

Another common mistake is when someone tries to make some of the quoted posts words as bold. What this does when you put some of the words in bold is the same as quoting, except now it puts the letter B in opening brackets and then at the end of what you would like bold should be another B, but just like when quoting, and the closing bracket must contain the backslash. This is how a typical bold statement should appear:



And lastly, using them together. Many times people want to quote a member and then highlight some of their post in bold. These codes MUST remain independent. Here is an example of what I find many sometimes doing wrong, which is mixing the codes:



And this is how it should appear, with all opening tags and closing tags independent of one another. All tags need an opening "statement" and a closing statement, which all need to be cleanly by themselves.



There is of course no rule over this, and we know it's still going to happen here and there. But hopefully with a little better understanding we can minimize how often this happens and make threads more fluid for everyone.

Btw, the idea of opening and closing tags applies the same for all of the others, for example: Italics, underline, centering, code, IMG...

[jimnyc]

I hope this fixes more problems than it creates. But thanks to a tip from a member here, I have installed code from vbulletin that should prevent quotes from getting screwed up. If someone accidentally places the bold within the quote tags, it will prevent the post from going forward and alert you when you hit the submit button, and will need to be fixed. And even if you submit a post, both with the quote tags in brackets, but forget the backslash in the last one, it will prevent you from submitting until the code is fixed.

The idea behind this code is to simply prevent bogus code from being submitted with your posts, forcing users to fix the code and submit correctly. This will alleviate much of the issues where posts get quoted improperly and ten posts later the entire thread is jumbled characters and none of us knows who posted what.

Here is the only issue I can think of - if someone truly has no idea at all how the quoting functions work and have no idea at all how to fix the bogus code. I can see it being a bit frustrating. But I believe everyone knows how to use the code, just that at times when posting quickly, a letter here or a letter there gets misplaced. But this is open for testing and if becomes problematic, we can change it back. Or even better, if someone continually gets the error and really has no idea how to fix, just post here for additional help!

[jimnyc]

I hope this fixes more problems than it creates. But thanks to a tip from a member here, I have installed code from vbulletin that should prevent quotes from getting screwed up. If someone accidentally places the bold within the quote tags, it will prevent the post from going forward and alert you when you hit the submit button, and will need to be fixed. And even if you submit a post, both with the quote tags in brackets, but forget the backslash in the last one, it will prevent you from submitting until the code is fixed.

The idea behind this code is to simply prevent bogus code from being submitted with your posts, forcing users to fix the code and submit correctly. This will alleviate much of the issues where posts get quoted improperly and ten posts later the entire thread is jumbled characters and none of us knows who posted what.

Here is the only issue I can think of - if someone truly has no idea at all how the quoting functions work and have no idea at all how to fix the bogus code. I can see it being a bit frustrating. But I believe everyone knows how to use the code, just that at times when posting quickly, a letter here or a letter there gets misplaced. But this is open for testing and if becomes problematic, we can change it back. Or even better, if someone continually gets the error and really has no idea how to fix, just post here for additional help!

I also want to thank "Anton Chigurh" who is the one who linked me to the code that helps us here!

[Neo]

My 2 cents: My old desktop used IE and I never had issues like this, but when it died and I got a used laptop, it has Mozilla and I've got this issue and others, like with the useing of emo's. I HATE MOZILLA!

[Anton Chigurh]

My 2 cents: My old desktop used IE and I never had issues like this, but when it died and I got a used laptop, it has Mozilla and I've got this issue and others, like with the useing of emo's. I HATE MOZILLA!

It's not a browser specific issue.

[aboutime]

It's not a browser specific issue.

I use GOOGLE CHROME only, and everything works perfectly, every time with Windows 7.

[jimnyc]

This issue is the same regardless of browser or OS. It's a board issue, and whether the person posting utilizes the boards built in codes properly. If someone places a backslash in the wrong place, it'll come up messed up no matter what you're using. And if tags are placed in the appropriate place, it'll come up fine.

[aboutime]

A lot of posts of late are coming up with the quote tags screwed up and making threads more difficult to read. When the quote tags are over applied, or missing, the reader now has a jumbled bit of text to go through with multiple posts all put together as one, and it becomes difficult to tell who wrote what.

Here is a screenshot of what it should look like when you are making a post and having had quoted someone. Notice the opening quote AND closing quote:



The opening quote must have the word QUOTE of course, and it MUST be surrounded by an opening and closing bracket. Once the persons words you are quoting is completed, the word QUOTE must be at the end of the text. This ending quote MUST also have the opening and closing brackets surrounding the word - and just as important, the ending quote tage MUST have a backslash just prior to the word QUOTE. This means BOTH words have to be surrounded by opening and closing brackets, and the closing bracket must always contain the backslash, which is telling the code that this is the end of what needs to be quoted.

Another common mistake is when someone tries to make some of the quoted posts words as bold. What this does when you put some of the words in bold is the same as quoting, except now it puts the letter B in opening brackets and then at the end of what you would like bold should be another B, but just like when quoting, and the closing bracket must contain the backslash. This is how a typical bold statement should appear:



And lastly, using them together. Many times people want to quote a member and then highlight some of their post in bold. These codes MUST remain independent. Here is an example of what I find many sometimes doing wrong, which is mixing the codes:



And this is how it should appear, with all opening tags and closing tags independent of one another. All tags need an opening "statement" and a closing statement, which all need to be cleanly by themselves.



There is of course no rule over this, and we know it's still going to happen here and there. But hopefully with a little better understanding we can minimize how often this happens and make threads more fluid for everyone.

Btw, the idea of opening and closing tags applies the same for all of the others, for example: Italics, underline, centering, code, IMG...

jimnyc: Way back when. I had been a qualified, certified HTML operator. Anyone who knows, or has used HTML to compose, or create any kind of Web page, or Web site knows those CODES you showed above.
HyperTextMarkupLanguage is behind nearly everything found on the Internet. It's easy, and fun to use.
Those opening, and closing TAGS are the standard across the entire Internet.

[Anton Chigurh]

jimnyc: Way back when. I had been a qualified, certified HTML operator. Anyone who knows, or has used HTML to compose, or create any kind of Web page, or Web site knows those CODES you showed above.
HyperTextMarkupLanguage is behind nearly everything found on the Internet. It's easy, and fun to use.
Those opening, and closing TAGS are the standard across the entire Internet.

This is BB code, specific to php driven message board software. Not to be confused with hypertext markup language. The BB code tells the software what markup to use when rendering.

[aboutime]

This is BB code, specific to php driven message board software. Not to be confused with hypertext markup language. The BB code tells the software what markup to use when rendering.

I understand that Anton. Just made a comparison for those who might be interested. PHP is a totally different ball game...so to speak. No need to confuse. Much like javascript would do as well. Nonetheless. We...if we want, can use the html idea in conjunction with the Closed, and Open [ ] Para's, and get the same result.
Thanks.

[Anton Chigurh]

I understand that Anton. Just made a comparison for those who might be interested. PHP is a totally different ball game...so to speak. No need to confuse. Much like javascript would do as well. Nonetheless. We...if we want, can use the html idea in conjunction with the Closed, and Open [ ] Para's, and get the same result.
Thanks.

Some of the BB codes also command the js in the forum board scripts, it's really quite slick and enhances security as well. Perl is wonderful.

[aboutime]

Some of the BB codes also command the js in the forum board scripts, it's really quite slick and enhances security as well. Perl is wonderful.

Agreed. I still find myself amazed at times. Thinking, and wondering how easy the writers of those programs make it look.
Just the placement of certain characters, spaces, and marks based on ONE's and ZERO's is almost as impressive as looking at the Grand Canyon for the first time.

[Anton Chigurh]

Agreed. I still find myself amazed at times. Thinking, and wondering how easy the writers of those programs make it look.
Just the placement of certain characters, spaces, and marks based on ONE's and ZERO's is almost as impressive as looking at the Grand Canyon for the first time.

I'm a pretty fair to middling PHP writer. Not too bad at js either. It really is a world and universe all its own with comprehensive, ever evolving languages, etc. Wonderful brain gymnastics.

[aboutime]

I'm a pretty fair to middling PHP writer. Not too bad at js either. It really is a world and universe all its own with comprehensive, ever evolving languages, etc. Wonderful brain gymnastics.

You got it. That's the best description of what it is I've heard in a long time.
When I was in the learning stages of html, and computers in general, in the Navy.
They originally called all of it "FRED" F'in Ridiculous Electronic Devices.

[Anton Chigurh]

You got it. That's the best description of what it is I've heard in a long time.
When I was in the learning stages of html, and computers in general, in the Navy.
They originally called all of it "FRED" F'in Ridiculous Electronic Devices.

Learning it is a killer and there's really only one way to do it, trial and error after study.

Really tough stuff, just kills ya initially until the light bulb comes on..