Importan change to the SOA Calculator

Clariman

GeorgeUK wrote: »

So you had to insert a "special character" or something? Based on the browser?

Yes. Even slightly more complicated than that, because each browser (4 of them) had to work with each set of discussion forums (3 of them). MSE, Makesenseofcards and The Motley Fool use different forum software, each with their own unique sets of controls for highlighting and for laying out the text etc.

Luckily 3 of the browsers that I tested worked 99% the same way (Firefox, Opera and Safari), but Internet Explorer was a pain in the proverbial! As mentioned above, Internet Explorer loses the line-breaks when copying and pasting from the calculator Format window, so I have to have to code that specifically writes them back in again and displays them as characters in the Format screen (making sure that the Format screen, itself, just displays them and doesn't actually process them as more line-breaks!!). That all worked fine with the Forum software on The Motley Fool and makesenseofcards and also worked with the old MSE post editor. However, the new MSE post editor (which is the default) put line breaks in anyway. So, if my memory serves me correctly, the other 3 browsers worked fine everywhere, but IE behaved differently in conjunction with MSE than it did with the others.

Anyway, nobody really needs to know all about that, but it was a traumatic period of my life (believe it or not, I do have one!)

Kinda makes me glad i'm not smart enough to produce something like this

Kinda makes me wish I wasn't! To be honest, I am no web developer. I used to do some programming pre-Internet days but that was decades ago. I had developed a few simpler online calculators for the first time last Autumn. I didn't think that the SOA Calculator would be much different. Oh who wrong I was. It was one heck of a learning experience for me!!

All that matters, though, is that it helps people manage their debts.... and despite the major headaches in developing it, it did give me a perverse pleasure ... it is always good to learn new things.

Edit: I did ctrl+a, ctrl+c then ctrl+v to do the copy and paste - doubt that'll make much difference, but...

That shouldn't matter. However, if you did any editing once it was pasted in, then you might have deleted a key control tag accidently. I doubt it though.

Unless anyone reports having the same problem, I'll not mess around with the code any further - given that it wasn't introduced by last night's changes. But if others are getting the same problem, I'll investigate it further.

Clariman

sparky0107

Just bumping this back up

Clariman

GeorgeUK and I have got to the bottom of the problem. The new SOA Calculator should be performing in exactly the same way as the old one, but with the enhancements mentioned at the beginning of the thread.

MSE has two ways of creating and editing posts. I think the one that most users use is the WYSISWYG one (what you see is what you get) and the calculator's output formats fine if you use that editor. If you use the older style editor i.e. the one where you type the tags like [ b ] in for bold etc, then there can be a formatting problem.

I don't think my recent changes have altered that in any way, so please continue to use the calculator as normal. Please let me know if you have any difficulties. In the meantime, I'll see if I can find a solution to the formatting with the old style editor.

Clariman

Clariman

General bump up for the early evening