Tips on using the board

[Luke Blanchard]

I thought a thread of this kind might help out our new members. If anyone has a question, just ask away.

When you're writing a post, you can make the html tags in it visible by pressing the 'html' button (the rightmost one above the reply box). This is particularly helpful if you want to put a "reply" quote at the start of your post. When you press the "reply" button immediately below a post you want to respond to, the board brings up a box with the post's text in a blockquote (at the bottom of the box). If you bring up the html, you can place your own text after the quote by placing it after the /blockquote instruction.

I sometimes write my posts in Word and then transfer them across. This can result in unwanted formatting effects, so when I do this, I switch to html format and cut out the chaff I don't want.

[Captain Comics]

Those are giood ways to edit art, but you don't have to go to the HTML if it makes you uncomfortable (some are less comfortable than others). When you're in the edit window, just click on the art and the original dialogue box comes up, the one from when you first uploaded it, which includes the size box. Change the numbers there to anything that fits your layout.

I use 150 as a width and flush left (or flush right) when I'm saving space, but you can't see much.

I use 250 and flush left (or flush right) when I'm embedding art in a post.

I use 500 or 600 when I want the art to run the width of the copy (usually to accommodate a cutline and/or art credit), and leave the default setting that forces type to jump below it. Flush center achieves this as well, but I've never tested to see how that works on phones.

[Luke Blanchard]

Sometimes a post is briefly visible but disappears when its page finishes loading. I don't know why this happens, but if you hit "escape" while the post is visible you can sometimes interrupt the process before the post disappears.

This post displaced the thread All-purpose newspaper strips discussion line from the homepage.

[Luke Blanchard]

I had a problem that text I was trying to place after adjacent images in a post kept appearing between them. I found advice online to place the instruction <p style="clear: left;"> in the html after the images, and that solved it.

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

The posting/editing box looks different.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

I noticed that the other day. Did Ning have an update?

[Richard Willis]

I noticed it too. Everything seems to work the same.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

...except posting multiple images. It used to be they'd display in the order posted. Now it's reverse order.

[Richard Willis]

Getting the desired order of images has always been tricky in HTML. I've been doing OK selecting the first image, hitting my keyboard's return/enter key, followed by either additional text or just the selected second image. The visual mode shows how it will look and it works. I'm using images from my own computer, not linking to images.  

[ClarkKent_DC]

What happened to the quote function in the posting/editing box?

[Mark Sullivan (Vertiginous Mod)]

If you Reply to the message rather than the discussion you get this. That's the way I remember quotes looking...I don't remember a quote function, but I don't use it that often, either.

ClarkKent_DC said:

What happened to the quote function in the posting/editing box?

[ClarkKent_DC]

Mark Sullivan (Vertiginous Mod) said:

If you Reply to the message rather than the discussion you get this. That's the way I remember quotes looking...I don't remember a quote function, but I don't use it that often, either.

Okay ... but there used to be a button that would turn any text into a quote, after you highlighted it and clicked on the button. Where did that go?

[Randy Jackson]

Yes, I can see it's not there anymore. It appears as if the editor has been redesigned, and as if several buttons have been removed.