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Wings Over Scotland


No more excuses

Posted on January 14, 2014 by

Alert readers will already know how cranky we can get about badly-formatted comments, which waste a lot of our time and are disrespectful to other readers. In fairness, however, our shonky comments plugin didn’t help. So after much poking around we’ve switched to a new, sleeker system. It’ll be second nature to anyone with experience of HTML, but for everyone else here’s a simple pictorial guide.

newcomments

(Click the image to enlarge.) There are numerous other HTML tags in existence, but the <i> and <b> ones should be plenty for most purposes – don’t go mad making everything purple and different fonts. The new preview pane below the actual comment box shows you exactly how your comment will appear before you hit Submit, so now if you post one with no paragraph breaks in it there isn’t a court in the land that would convict us for smashing your head in with a jagged rock.

That is all.

74 to “No more excuses”

  1. faolie says:

    Well, I’m just going to comment here so’s I can comment on the new editor.

    Reply
  2. Doug Daniel says:

    Hmm, h1 tags blocked?

    Reply
  3. Gavin Alexander says:

    Not not bad at all!

    Reply
  4. Rev. Stuart Campbell says:

    I wonder if IMG tags will now work for pictures.

    link to wingsoverscotland.com

    Hmm, not really.

    Reply
  5. Doug Daniel says:

    Maybe now my phone will actually display formatting.

    Reply
  6. David McCann says:

    Testing, testing. BTW. Not the Scotsman one!!

    Reply
  7. faolie says:

    er, got that one wrong. RTFP next time.

    Nice enhancement Rev, but what if you make a mistake like not closing a tag? Or, indeed, not actually reading the post and making a completely inane comment?

    Reply
  8. Doug Daniel says:

    Why is the Chrome mobile browser rubbish?

    Reply
  9. Peter A Bell says:

    Still no reply facility. And it is rather annoying the way the preview jumps about with the avatar appearing as you type and disappearing when you stop.

    Reply
  10. antmcg says:

    Excellent Job

    Thanks Rev 🙂

    Reply
  11. Bugger (the Panda) says:

    Bugger (the Panda)

    What was wrong with smoke signals and steam?

    Reply
  12. John D says:

    Thanks Rev Now when are we getting a like button?

    Reply
  13. Kalmar says:

    But does it still do the annoying wysinwyg thing with line feeds?
    Ooh, no, that’s better!

    Cheers Rev. It’s even fixed the weird autocorrect interaction which made it near impossible to use on the phone. Outstanding!

    Reply
  14. naebd says:

    Oh very good. Very good indeed. Commenting pain levels reduced hugely. :thumbsup:

    Reply
  15. Albert Herring says:

    What’s wrong with purple anyway

    Reply
  16. Albert Herring says:

    Hmph. Didn’t even work.

    Reply
  17. themadmurph says:

    italics
    bold
    bold italics

    I am an HTML GOD! 🙂

    Reply
  18. benarmine says:

    What the hell is an html tag? Where can I buy one?

    Reply
  19. PRJ says:

    This is blinking good

    Reply
  20. Angus McLellan says:

    Yay!

    Reply
  21. PRJ says:

    didn’t work?

    Reply
  22. Angus McLellan says:

    Damn, that didn’t work! Where’s the blinking text?

    Reply
  23. Rev. Stuart Campbell says:

    “Nice enhancement Rev, but what if you make a mistake like not closing a tag? Or, indeed, not actually reading the post and making a completely inane comment?”

    That’s easy. I shoot you.

    Reply
  24. Ruby Tuesday says:

    link to s1032.photobucket.com

    Reply
  25. Ruby Tuesday says:

    That didn’t work I wanted to embed image. Please remove my last post

    Reply
  26. Rev. Stuart Campbell says:

    “Now when are we getting a like button?”

    I currently have that scheduled for the eleventeenth of Norflember 2178.

    Reply
  27. kalmar says:

    Image?

    No.

    Reply
  28. Rev. Stuart Campbell says:

    “That didn’t work I wanted to embed image. Please remove my last post”

    OR YOU’LL DO WHAT?

    Reply
  29. DougtheDug says:

    I Wonder…

    Reply
  30. Rev. Stuart Campbell says:

    Didn’t anyone notice the bit in comment #4 where I said that IMG tags didn’t work?

    Reply
  31. DougtheDug says:

    No, it’s clever.

    Reply
  32. kalmar says:

    One last test…

    Reply
  33. john king says:

    Hmmmphh help he’s got me tied up in this cupboard

    Reply
  34. DougtheDug says:

    Testing.

    link to twitter.com

    Reply
  35. DougtheDug says:

    Testing

    Wait, did we miss @UK_Together's big rally for the Union? Man! link to t.co— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) January 14, 2014

    Reply
  36. DonUnder says:

    Spangly!

    An internet beer for the first person to figure out how to make Stu’s head explode through liberal use of neon pink scrolling, blinking text in Comic Sans Serif font.

    😉

    Reply
  37. This is brilliant, Rev!

    Testing…

    The <code> tag works:

    print "Yes Scotland\n";

    <span style=”…”>…</span> doesn’t work.

    Lists don’t work, either.

    Quotes:

    It’ll be second nature to anyone with experience of HTML

    Reply
  38. Atypical_Scot says:

    Peter A Bell;

    Tee-hee

    Reply
  39. uilleam_beag says:

    Oh wow, it even works on my Android phone.

    At least, I think it does (no preview box).

    Reply
  40. antmcg says:

    testing from Android tablet
    Hmm, I see a preview but colour doesn’t seem to work 🙁

    Reply
  41. GP Walrus says:

    Test:

    List item

    Reply
  42. GP Walrus says:

    Hmmm.

    Reply
  43. MochaChoca says:

    Testing … Testing… 1..2..3..
    iPhonetastic
    to boldly go…
    Etc etc

    Reply
  44. Morag says:

    I currently have that scheduled for the eleventeenth of Norflember 2178.

    Same time as the reply-to-post facility, I trust? It’s hard enough to keep up with this site without having to keep scrolling back through stuff you’ve already read, looking to see if there are any new comments since you looked the last time.

    Reply
  45. Morag says:

    By the way, I like it. Minor pity about the edit facility but not really.

    Reply
  46. Iain Henderson says:

    Works much better on android devices…in the old editor you more or less typed blind due to the on-screen keyboard covering the bit of text you were working on. So no excuses for my spelling now either. Ah well.

    Reply
  47. Patrician says:

    Ignore only testing

    Does this print with purple?

    Does this print with red?

    Don’t do this

    Weird font

    Reply
  48. Arbroath 1320 says:

    I fink me’s gonna have a bit of bovver or maybe not! :LOL:

    Is anyone running a book on the first person to have their head smashed in with a rock?

    If someone is put me down for a tenner on Arbroath1320 will you? 🙂

    Sorry Stu I just can’t resist doing emoticons so hope they work here otherwise I feel a rock headache coming on! :LOL:

    Reply
  49. Doug Daniel says:

    Of course, the great thing about this is there’ll be no more accidental copying of cite tags.

    People will have to do it on purpose now…

    Reply
  50. Garve says:

    blockquote? Yes

    underline? No

    Reply
  51. Midgehunter says:

    göüdbö,öslug löü Turkish joke

    göüdbö,öslug löü In bold

    göüdbö,öslug löü

    Fuk it, how do you get back to normaltext?

    Reply
  52. Midgehunter says:

    Ah, it does it automatically. Thankyou

    Reply
  53. Dinnatouch says:

    I’m surprised to see the live preview box works on the iPhone, usually Apple make life difficult for those of us used to normal operating systems.

    Reply
  54. Big Al says:

    Good grief! This is like finding a bunch of weans playing in a ball pit! (your all fantastic weans)

    Did none of you go through the pain of learning HTML for a GeoCities website? Or am I showing my age again? I promise not to bust out my HTML unless absolutely necessary.

    Keep having fun all!

    Reply
  55. jake says:

    Reply
  56. jake says:

    wow…it does bold, italic and invisible!

    Reply
  57. Barontorc says:

    Feeling quite superior that I have never invoked the wrath of Rev! Still there’s a first time!!!!

    Reply
  58. Patrician says:

    Warning

    Don’t enter 2 left chevrons (the characters that start a tag) without a space between them, it locks the text entry box. Obviously they are not better together 🙂

    It plays havoc with Opera, Chrome, IE and especially Firefox, all on MS Windows. It appears to lock Firefox and the only way to get out is to kill Firefox. When I get time I’ll try some browsers on Linux later.

    Reply
  59. Craig P says:

    Big Al – geocities?! Are you Finnegan the Folk Hero of HTML?

    link to m.youtube.com

    PS – I will continue using notepad or similar to write comments then copy & paste into the comment box – I’m retro that way.

    Reply
  60. allen ralston says:

    That,s all well and good but you have not stated wether jagged rocks will still be an available option to use in an independent Scotland . Once again proof of not providing all the facts.

    Reply
  61. desimond says:

    Now all we need is a link that when clicked actually opens a new tab and allows you to keep your WoS page open too, rather than just take you from Wings over to the link page!

    Reply
    • Rev. Stuart Campbell says:

      “Now all we need is a link that when clicked actually opens a new tab and allows you to keep your WoS page open too, rather than just take you from Wings over to the link page!”

      Click with your middle mouse button rather than the left one.

      Reply
  62. Morag says:

    You’re on a hiding to nothing there. It’s been suggested to Stu many times but he just says you can do that by keeping the “control” key pressed while you click the link. Which is true, but it’s a pain to remember when nearly all other sites are set up to do it automatically with external links.

    Reply
  63. The Man in the Jar says:

    @Desimond & Morag
    Have you tried right clicking the link with your mouse. A dialog box appears and you select “open link in a new tab”, or are you using a “device” that has no mouse. My apologies if that is the case.

    Reply
  64. Craig P says:

    A wee test, I wonder if an image will appear below?

    Reply
  65. handclapping says:

    [Control] + click opens the link in a new tab if you are a user of the “keyboard mouse”

    Reply
  66. lumilumi says:

    Oh my, I’ve been busy and away, and now commenting on WoS is beginning to seem scary!

    I understand our Rev. Stu’s frustration… But asked to read the rules before commenting and then mentioning scarey words like “HTML” and “tags” will put off lots of might/would-be commenters who’re not very computer/internet savvy because they don’t know what those scarey words mean and they’re afraid of the wrath of the Rev falling upon their heads… 😉

    I liked the old style comment box when bold and italic were clickable above the box as I’m not too confident about getting my tags right (typos) – but maybe that’s for the better, I now have to put my point across by words alone.

    PS. As a Finn, I cannot help but read HTML as “hötömölö”, a Finnish nickname for it, which sounds very much like the Finnish word for “blah blah” or “nonsense” 😉

    Oh, and I like the new live preview [thumbs up smiley here]

    Reply
  67. Macart says:

    Just practicing.

    Just practicing.

    Just practicing.

    Just practicing.

    Reply
  68. Ian Brotherhood says:

    testing

    testing

    one two three…

    Someone help me here – why is the italic carrying over when I’ve closed it after the first ‘testing’, then the bold (as well as italic)is carrying on after I’ve shut that?

    It’s driving me mental.

    Reply
  69. Ian Brotherhood says:

    …eight and a half hours after issuing that heartfelt plea…has anyone offered their help?

    No.

    Thanks for nowt, ya shower.

    Reply
  70. Ian Brotherhood says:

    …yet another hour passes, and still, ‘no answer’ came the reply.

    It’s good to know who your friends are.

    I’m away to join Better Together, ya bastards.

    So there.

    Reply
  71. Alan Mackintosh says:

    Aye Ian, I tried to play with these < and these, b or i and got the same result. However i deleted them rather than pressing send…

    Reply
  72. Rev. Stuart Campbell says:

    Because you’re not putting the slash in the closing tag.

    Reply
  73. Ian Brotherhood says:

    Cheers Alan and Rev.

    Still can’t get it, but appreciate the feedback…

    I’m not putting…

    I’m not putting…

    Reply


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