MSE A-Z Comment and Suggestion thread

sra

Thanks

I pointed out that you can subscribe to a forum somewhere but obviously forgot to link to it.

I'll fix both of these soon

There is a big problem in that when you use a lot of text formatting in a post, then edit that post, little errors creep in that are hard to remove.
I've edited some of the guides before only to find huge spaces when when re-submitted (Look at what happened to the old search guide when it was cut and pasted) - that's why I save up and make big edits rather than lots of small ones

tigermatt

Hi sra,

I've got another suggestion, this time for the Inserting Links guide. There's a little known feature at the bottom of the advanced posting interface (not quick reply) that will automatically find and BB Code links that it finds in the message text.

It's quite useful for posting links when you just want a (shortened) link to appear because you just paste the link in without BB Code and the link is automatically parsed at posting time.

I appreciate you probably don't want to confuse new users reading the guide but just thought I'd let you know it was there if you didn't already know!

Thanks for the great guides

sra

Till now the guides have been primarily aimed at beginners who just want to know the basic stuff and I've deliberately left out a heck of a lot of stuff just to keep them really basic.

But I am going to re-write them bit by bit and I'll add all the extra more advanced bits and pieces people have asked about repeatedly. The trick is to try to do it without having too much text and scaring the technophobes


Parsing links is actually a really difficult bit to easily describe because of the way the forum works -

If you have 'parse links' ticked links are parsed
If you don't have 'parse links' links aren't parsed

But, if you have 'parse links' ticked, then you Preview the post, then try to untick 'parse links', the tick-box has no effect because the forum parsed links for the preview and won't unparse them once they're parsed!

So you've gotta highlight the link with the Remove link button and start again :rolleyes2

pavlovs_dog

perhaps a way to achieve this would be by using a colour code, so that the technophobes know not to panic of something makes no sense to them, because the text colour will tell them that it is a more 'advanced'/complicated forum feature :think:

Edinburghlass_2

My only comment, apart from the fact that I think its great, is I would like to see it being the OFFICIAL A-Z and not unoffical.

pavlovs_dog

Edinburghlass wrote:

My only comment, apart from the fact that I think its great, is I would like to see it being the OFFICIAL A-Z and not unoffical.

seconded! :beer:

tigermatt

sra wrote:

Till now the guides have been primarily aimed at beginners who just want to know the basic stuff and I've deliberately left out a heck of a lot of stuff just to keep them really basic.

But I am going to re-write them bit by bit and I'll add all the extra more advanced bits and pieces people have asked about repeatedly. The trick is to try to do it without having too much text and scaring the technophobes


Parsing links is actually a really difficult bit to easily describe because of the way the forum works -

If you have 'parse links' ticked links are parsed
If you don't have 'parse links' links aren't parsed

But, if you have 'parse links' ticked, then you Preview the post, then try to untick 'parse links', the tick-box has no effect because the forum parsed links for the preview and won't unparse them once they're parsed!

So you've gotta highlight the link with the Remove link button and start again :rolleyes2

I guessed this would be the case - it is quite confusing as you say and will probably confuse newbies.

I look forward to seeing the "advanced" guides because I don't know about all of the features on this forum, and if I do I can't use them correctly!

mbb123

if posible could you link to the page where you can change your page preferences a long time ago i changed to 40 a page when someone told mne it could be possible to do so having just had a new computer i have forgot where it is now surprise surprise i cannot find it.

Edinburghlass_2

Along the top you'll see Main Site, Forum then User CP, go into User CP and click on edit options on the left hand side and you'll that that option there, don't forget to click on save when you change anything.

marleyboy

Well done sra, very impressive, keep up the good work