CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
This topic is for discussing technical operation of the HFW Website — the WordPress blog software that accepts and displays lesson comments and other aspects of the site's pages. Operational policies, guidelines, etiquette and the like should go in other appropriately-titled topics.
Technical operation of the BBPress software of the forum, which is different from the above, may be discussed in the Forum Technical Operation topic.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
From the Dec. 08 Website Update topic:
Fianchetto: I noticed some time ago that WordPress looks not just for tags, but for the angle brackets. It will take huge chunks of text between angle brackets that is obviously not HTML and disappear it all as if it were some giant, illegal tag.
If you wish to use the angle bracket for anything other than HTML, then use the HTML entities instead — "& L T ;" = left bracket and "& R T ;" = right bracket (leave out the spaces). These will be displayed as brackets, but will not be interpreted by WordPress as the brackets of HTML*. So you could use the HTML entities to make tags in explanations of HTML without having them execute. (But there should be less need to do so now, because we should be moving our explanations to the forum instead and putting a link in HFW to the forum where the explanation lies. This gets the techy stuff out of HFW.)
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*Alas, you can't do that here with BBPress. We are stuck with inserting spaces in the forum, dang it.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
WordPress analyzes hyphens and will convert multiple hyphens as follows:
1 hyphen = hyphen
2 hyphens = en dash
3 hyphens = em dash
4 hyphens = em dash + hyphen
5 hyphens = em dash + en dash
6 hyphens = em dash + em dash
and so forth. Thus there is no way to type a string hyphens that will appear as a string of hyphens.
When a msg is edited, the Ajax editor shows the hyphens as they have been typed, but as soon as you return to WP, the above rules go back into effect.
You could substitute the en dash for the hyphen by using the HTML entity for it, e.g. & ndash;& ndash;& ndash; (remove the spaces) and so forth. The en dash used like this looks fairly close to the hyphen.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
The URL for each comment is viewable at HFW like it is in the forum (# symbol). By mousing over a comment's date-time group, the URL is displayed at the bottom of the browser window. You could either write it down to use it in a link or click it to go to the comment and thus transfer the URL to the address field at the top of the browser. Once transferred, you can highlight, copy and paste it into a link.
popzzz
Member
MUCH easier to right-click the date/time and copy link location ..... less trouble .....
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
You're right. I never noticed Copy Shortcut (in IE7) before, probably because I've never right-clicked a link. Thanks.
popzzz
Member
Uh well yeah for Internet EXploder I guess .....
So people still use it huh ..... go figger .....
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
A. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL LINKS (Underscores have been inserted in examples to prevent execution.)
1. If http:// is included in an anchor tag, WP knows the link is an external link. The tag will contain the URL as it was typed, e.g. <_a href="www.wordcount.org/main.php">amazing thing<_/a> works as intended.
2. If an anchor tag omits http://, then WP assumes that the link is an internal link to whichever page on which the link appears. For example, <_a href="#comment-111893">here</_a>, if entered on comment page 1 of the Elope lesson, becomes <_a href="http://www.hotforwords.com/2009/02/19/elope/comment-page-1/#-111893">here</_a>. Thus, to link to a comment on the same page, only the comment number is required; WP will temporarily prefix all the rest whenever the link is used or mousedover.
B. LINKING TO COMMENTS IN A PAGED ENVIRONMENT
1. The URL must include the page number of the target comment, e.g. comment-page-N, where N is the page number (but see exception in 2, below). If the page number is omitted from the tag, the user will link to the top of the highest-numbered page (typically the video thumbnail) and not to the target comment. For example, <_a href="http://www.hotforwords.com/20090/02/19/elope/#comment-111893">here</_a> leads only to top of the last page of the Elope lesson, but <_a href="http://www.hotforwords.com/20090/02/19/elope/comment-page-1/#comment-111893">here</_a> leads to the target comment.
2. An exception exists if the link does not lead off-page. If the target comment appears on the same page as the anchor tag, the page number is not required and the target will appear on screen as desired even though the finished anchor tag does not contain the page number parameter. Thus, if the anchor tag appears on page 1 of the Elope lesson, entering either <_a href="#comment-111893">here</_a> or <_a href="http://www.hotforwords.com/20090/02/19/elope/#comment-111893">here</_a> will produce the following successful tag: <_a href="http://www.hotforwords.com/20090/02/19/elope/comment-page-1/#comment-111893">here</_a>.
3. Linking to a page that does not contain the target comment fails just as omitting the page number parameter does (see A1, above). Thus blog file name, page number and comment number must match.
Captain Jack
Member
CampKohler, that's a pain in the A$$! You think programmers could make this easier and not so time consuming now days.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
The whole paging thing is a PIA, but here we are. By requiring the page number, WP doesn't have to do the math to figure out which page to deliver.
New question: How can the user, from any page (other that the highest) go to the highest page? I have seen some sites with paging that have in addition to the Next button, a Last button. That would be handy.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
Scratch that last item. I don't know what I was (not) thinking. The highest page is always the last page.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
In the past, the blockquote tag normally produces a bold text. Months ago, I could disable the bold by including an unbold tag inside the blockquote tag. Last week that did not work, no matter how I tried it; it was bold and that was that. This morning I was surprised to find that blockquote no longer produced bold text (which is how I prefer it). I notice that the bold behaviour is still working on previous lessons. I would have thought that any changes would be global and would show up on all lessons.
Things keep changing around.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
Blockquote
Today the blockquote tag was observed to operate as it originally did. It is automatically bolded, but if the text is enclosed by <_/b> and <_b> tags, the text is not bolded, so we have regained control. Personally, I see no reason whatsoever for quoted material to be bolded.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
Logged in, but looking like it's not.
Today I got into a state where it appeared that I could not log in, but, in fact, I was logged in. Evidently my cookie crumbled, but that's a minor matter; it's what happened when I tried to log in that was a problem. I sent this to M:
For some reason, HFW no longer remembered me after being at another PC for a few days. I was reading the Nerdic blog and noticed I was not logged in, so I clicked Log In from the banner menu, entered the data, clicked Remember Me and Log In. I was returned to the top of the Nerdic blog, but there was no reply dialog box and all the comments read, Log In to Reply. So I clicked Log In again and repeated the process two more times, getting identical results. Thus I thought I could not log in at all.I also noticed that if I accidentally typoed the password, I got a pink error msg, so I knew that HFW was recognizing the password as being correct by virtue of being returned to the Nerdic Blog (vs. the receiving the error msg). Opening up a new (second) tab on HFW, I saw that I was logged in after all, because the Log Out item (vs. Log In) appeared in the banner menu. In that tab, I logged out and tried to duplicate the problem of returning to the original page still showing me being logged out, but I could not; after logging in, I was returned to the Nerdic blog in the logged-in state as it should be.
Using FF 3.0.7.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
Che's copy/paste question
... I could right click to ‘copy image’ (FF3, PC ) then paste in the IMG HTML as in the HFW Forum section. Now this function does not work. What changed & what must I do to get it to work again?
I need to understand exactly what you mean by "does not work"? Tell me, step-by-step what you do and what you see that makes you think it is failing. That way I can duplicate your steps and see what I can see. (I will be back late tonight.)
Che Rambler
Member
When I use to right click my mouse over an image a list appear, one of the option was 'copy image' this option is still there but the list looks different now.
So once I would click on the copy image I then would take it over to the this Forum and click on the IMG box to insert the image, when I click on the Submit Post the image would transfer to the page.
Since I had my computer worked on by a technician some things have changed.
So I'm not sure if what I need is a plugin or some other application.
I'll keep checking my email to do this in real time.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
Che: First, I posted in the wrong topic, since you are talking about a forum problem, not a WP problem. Nevertheless, here goes. At least in Firefox (which I use), the context menu (right-click) offers, among other options, Copy Image and Copy Image Location. You may be selecting the wrong one.
Copy Image transfers the graphic (pixels) to the clipboard. At that point, you can paste the image only into something that can accept a picture, like MS Paint. The IMG button opens a dialog box for the purpose of entering the location of the image, not the image itself, e.g. http://www.hotforwords.com/wp-content/uploads/ner-dic.jpg. The dialog box wants text, not a graphic. Therefore you need to click Copy Image Location instead, which copies the URL of the image and not the image itself. It can then be pasted into a dialog box, such as the one that appears when you click the IMG button.
My theory is that you probably just misremembered what you used to click on. If that's not the answer, ask again.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
Logged in, but looking like it's not. (Continued from here .)
I was able to duplicate the problem again. I had both a HFW page and a forum page open at the time, and, after logging in, refreshing the forum page showed a logged-in state. Having popped back to the HFW page, it still showed a logged-out state. But refreshing that page now showed a logged-in state. So this problem is not a fluke. M notified.
logischabbaubar
Member
CampKohler, I've had the problem that Firefox showed a logged-out state on several HFW pages when I've just had logged in several times. It seems to me that Firefox displayed a cached page that had been loaded when I hadn't been logged in because Firefox displayed a logged-in state when I forced to reload the page by holding the SHIFT key and clicking the reload icon.
Does your problem still appear after you've cleared the Firefox cache?
Che Rambler
Member
I'm off to try something something I'll be back.
logischabbaubar
Member
First guess: The image that you want to copy is a background image. In this case, "Copy Image" and "Copy Image Location" don't appear in the context menu. Other guess: It's not a normal image but a flash file.
"Extras" - "Page Info" - "Media" gives you a list of all media files embedded on a web page with additional informations about them.
Che Rambler
Member
Che Rambler
Member
Thank you I got it figured out 
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
My audio is still dead for YT only (Window Media Player songs OK, Windows sounds OK, etc.) I reloaded Flash Player, but still no go. The strange thing is that it worked one time in the middle of all this, but then died again. Any ideas?
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
With respect to the YT audio, the YT window has a volume adjustment that sometimes gets set to zero. Naturally, it only affects YT.
CampKohler - Sacramento CA
Member
Venomrock76: (From HFW lesson) I assume you mean a link to some Web page. The manual format is
<_A href="http://somewebsite.com/somewebpage.htm/">link text<_/a>A common error is not enclosing the href URL in double quotation marks. (All parameter values are enclosed in quotes.) If you do not have any link text, there will be nothing for the user to click on, so, practically speaking, you have to put something there. Beyond that, all I can say is that it has to be correct, so doing anything incorrectly should not be done.
After posting, try the link. If it does not work, right-click the message, choose View Source and do [Ctrl-F] and search for something unique in your message so you can jump to your message's spot in the huge HFW page. Then examine the link to see where you goofed by comparing to a known-good link, which you could write down until you have it memorized. To get a known-good link, practice this in the HFW sandbox here. (Note that this is NOT the sandbox for the forum, which, because it uses different software, behaves differently and should not be used to practice for the HFW site.) Also, when you use the WP edit function, you can look at the link that way, too.
Either in the lesson comments or the sandbox, you have only five minutes to edit a message. In the sandbox, you can re-edit the same practice msg for those five minutes instead of making a zillion practice msgs if you are not the kind throw your hamburger wrappers and Coke cups out the car window. In the comments, if you can't get the link to work in the five minutes allotted, then edit the msg and leave nothing but a period (a blank msg). Then you can go practice in the sandbox to work out the bugs and make a second msg with a working link. Practice the View-Source-and-find-your-msg thing until you can do it quickly so that you can fix things quickly and beat the edit timer without breaking a sweat.
A simpler way to make a link is to just type the URL only:
http://somewebsite.com/somewebpage.htm/http://), it assumes you want the URL to be converted to a link and creates the A tag for you. In that case, you have no opportunity to enter link text; the URL becomes the link text, so it's not quite as cool. However, there are times when you want the user to actually see the URL so that they know what they are looking at. (Note that by the fact this is in blue here, the forum does this, too, but obviously this fake URL won't go anywhere.)
In case you examine the link using View Source after WordPress creates it, be advised that WordPress will add some additional parameters to the link, so don't wonder where they came from; you have no control over that.
Putting a forward slash at the end of the URL makes the link a bit faster; it is good practice, but not required.
So go practice some and pose here any questions that come to mind.
Che Rambler
Member
That was really informative CK, FYI the link really works to a real website,
"It's true I tell you"
Peace
Che
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