Preview post - do we have one ?

[Barkley]

Is there a reason we can't preview a post before submitting it?

I've not seen a forum before that didn't have the facility if I'm truthful, so maybe I'm just blind, and it's there somewhere lol.

I like to post articles etc, but find the paragraphs and sentences are often unspaced after submitting, as I can't preview.

Any info would be cool.

Many thanks for reading.

PS. I notice smileys falling to the left of the paragraph a lot, instead of the right side.

 

[Stinky666]

Mar 7, 2013 22:28:31 GMT -8 Barkley said:

Is there a reason we can't preview a post before submitting it?

I've not seen a forum before that didn't have the facility if I'm truthful, so maybe I'm just blind, and it's there somewhere lol.

I like to post articles etc, but find the paragraphs and sentences are often unspaced after submitting, as I can't preview.

Any info would be cool.

Many thanks for reading.

PS. I notice smileys falling to the left of the paragraph a lot, instead of the right side.

 

In the full reply page, there is a preview. It's known as "WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)", which is a preview post.
If you look just below the text area that you're typing in, there are 2 tabs, one that says "Visual" and another that says "BBCode".
BBcode is as it used to be, you see everything for what it is (if you click a bold tag for example, you see the code for it).

Visual is the WYSIWYG. Going into and whatever you do, you will literally see it straight away. So if I highlight my text and clicked the bold tag, it would make my text bold, and I wouldn't see the code for it.

Do it in a post, and switch between the BBCode tab and Visual, you'll see exactly what it does

[Barkley]

Mar 8, 2013 1:10:53 GMT -8 Stinky666 said:

Mar 7, 2013 22:28:31 GMT -8 Barkley said:

Is there a reason we can't preview a post before submitting it?

I've not seen a forum before that didn't have the facility if I'm truthful, so maybe I'm just blind, and it's there somewhere lol.

I like to post articles etc, but find the paragraphs and sentences are often unspaced after submitting, as I can't preview.

Any info would be cool.

Many thanks for reading.

PS. I notice smileys falling to the left of the paragraph a lot, instead of the right side.

 

In the full reply page, there is a preview. It's known as "WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)", which is a preview post.
If you look just below the text area that you're typing in, there are 2 tabs, one that says "Visual" and another that says "BBCode".
BBcode is as it used to be, you see everything for what it is (if you click a bold tag for example, you see the code for it).

Visual is the WYSIWYG. Going into and whatever you do, you will literally see it straight away. So if I highlight my text and clicked the bold tag, it would make my text bold, and I wouldn't see the code for it.

Do it in a post, and switch between the BBCode tab and Visual, you'll see exactly what it does

Thanks Stinky.

I'm aware of both styles of posting, but a preview in my mind is something that shows exactly what will be on the page, before pressing submit.

The visual does not do this. Perhaps for basic text, but certainly not for anything pasted from another site, such as a mix of pictures etc. If I'm using visual as a default, there is no preview, unless you switch to BB, then back again, which doesn't work well.

Having things set this way may be great for this forum, as it is a forum full of coders, and admins. Our own forums are full of general people from many walks of life that just about know how to switch a pc on, and with a little practise, say hello, on a forum.

Also, the letters have no gap from the left side, which causes problems, such as the enter/page down button acting like a backpage as it's too close to the side. This is also a pain in the 'ahem' when trying to get the mouse pointer in behind the first letter of each line.

Another thing I'm finding is that it is often impossible to use the pointer to highlight anything, once you've written a little, and I have to use the shift and arrow keys instead.

Not trying to be critical, but just trying to share what I'm finding as I go along. I'm a poor coder, but I can spam like a pro ha ha, so notice these things lol.

[Barkley]

test


Thanks Stinky.

I'm aware of both styles of posting, but a preview in my mind is something that shows exactly what will be on the page, before pressing submit.

The visual does not do this. Perhaps for basic text, but certainly not for anything pasted from another site, such as a mix of pictures etc. If I'm using visual as a default, there is no preview, unless you switch to BB, then back again, which doesn't work well.

Having things set this way may be great for this forum, as it is a forum full of coders, and admins. Our own forums are full of general people from many walks of life that just about know how to switch a pc on, and with a little practise, say hello, on a forum.

Also, the letters have no gap from the left side, which causes problems, such as the enter/page down button acting like a backpage as it's too close to the side. This is also a pain in the 'ahem' when trying to get the mouse pointer in behind the first letter of each line.

Another thing I'm finding is that it is often impossible to use the pointer to highlight anything, once you've written a little, and I have to use the shift and arrow keys instead.

Not trying to be critical, but just trying to share what I'm finding as I go along. I'm a poor coder, but I can spam like a pro ha ha, so notice these things lol.

[Barkley]

OK, after a quick test, it's clear that if I were to copy and paste my own post from above, on a site like this that uses 100% width (I presume), the text is reproduced the same in the result.

However, if I copy from 'this' site, and post on my own, which has a width of 950px, then it becomes totally different.

Before submitting:




After submittal:



As you can see, the visual in my window does not give me wysiwyg when it's posted.

[Stinky666]

Barkley

I'm not the best person to properly explain in details, but Ryan should see this today no doubt, so I will leave him to respond properly to you.

However I do want to pick up on two points:

1 ) Maybe I am wrong, but the font in both of the above look different to one another. If that's your own forum, be sure to set your Editors (admin > themes > advances styles > editors) font to be the same size, style etc as it is in an actual post (content).

2) Not being able to put your cursor in front of the first letter. I'm glad you've mentioned that, because I find that to be extremely annoying and have done for a long time. Many times I have thought I have placed the cursor in front, hit the "back space" button, and then it's taken me BACK a page or two on the forum lol. Hopefully Ryan Roos will pick up on us both mentioning this, and have it fixed (or do so himself).

[Barkley]

Mar 8, 2013 2:22:20 GMT -8 Stinky666 said:

Barkley

I'm not the best person to properly explain in details, but Ryan should see this today no doubt, so I will leave him to respond properly to you.

However I do want to pick up on two points:

1 ) Maybe I am wrong, but the font in both of the above look different to one another. If that's your own forum, be sure to set your Editors (admin > themes > advances styles > editors) font to be the same size, style etc as it is in an actual post (content).

2) Not being able to put your cursor in front of the first letter. I'm glad you've mentioned that, because I find that to be extremely annoying and have done for a long time. Many times I have thought I have placed the cursor in front, hit the "back space" button, and then it's taken me BACK a page or two on the forum lol. Hopefully Ryan Roos will pick up on us both mentioning this, and have it fixed (or do so himself).

Edited back out of your quote lol:


Thank heavens it's not just me, ha ha.

I appreciate the return reply. The fonts will be different (I think) because one is copied from here (my post above in this thread) and the other is the result of a post being made on my own forum, but I'll check, and thank you for the navigation.

I'll need to log off soon, as being awake for the whole period I should be asleep makes the keyboard look very blurry lol, but I've been trying away to remove the moderator stamps from each board, as I find them overpowering.

I did find some code, which went in the main footer, but it appears outdated, and unsuitable for v5.

I like your avatar changer too (not just the pretty faces lol).

Stay cool, and thanks again.

[Barkley]

I need to complain about Proboards being 'all white' ha ha, as you can see from my continually posting inside every quote lol.

[Ryan Roos]

The Visual Editor is the Preview

It does display what will be posted just like a preview does. If it's not identical then you edited parts of your theme that changed that.

Barkley In your two screenshots above those are identical. The only difference is word wrap based on width. Depending on the forum that is different for every single user any way. No preview window is going to work any differently. You are going to see it at your width and not other people's (unless the forum has a set width). The font size is the same, the color is the same, the breaks are in the same places. They are the same. If you re-sized your browser window it's going to effect where the word wrapping occurs. You can witness that in real time by yourself. There is no way to avoid that unless you format your posts at a set width, which would be up to you. And IF you did that then it would be identical for everyone. So the Visual Editor is the preview. No different then v4.

For example all the red words above are the last word on each line at my width, but for you they are probably different. The posts are formatted the same though. A preview is going to display different based on width regardless.

Additionally you have more space to click than just the tiny space between the first letter and the border of the box.



As you can see you have a lot of space. 13px is more than adequate.

You could also click to the right and navigate with arrow keys.

You could also click anywhere on the line and click the 'Home' key.

If you feel that 8px isn't enough on BBCode then you can edit it yourself.

Find this in your CSS file.

.ui-wysiwyg .editors .bbcode-editor textarea {
 color: #000000;
 background-color: #ffffff;
}

and add this

padding-left: 5px;

to make it look like this

.ui-wysiwyg .editors .bbcode-editor textarea {
 color: #000000;
 background-color: #ffffff;
 padding-left: 5px;
}

Change the 5px to whatever you want. You cannot edit the Visual editors padding.

You have no less space to click than you have in any other text box on the internet. If you are having trouble clicking when replying then you are having trouble clicking everywhere.

Stinky666 I don't know why you would click Backspace when you click the first space of a line. If you are experiencing that consistently then you should adjust your habits. First, slow down and pay attention where you are clicking. Second, get in the habit of using the Delete key. You could be clicking up a line or two and deleting the spaces you were trying to backspace. You would be prone to far fewer mistakes that way and won't get thrown back to previous pages. We can't help browser shortcuts. You clicked onto the page and clicked backspace. That tells the browser to go back. The computer does as it's told.

[Barkley]

Good tip about using the delete key Ryan.



I am another one who deletes with backspace, and have done since my first press of a keyboard ha ha. Bad habit indeed, which comes to light only when the page flies back and you lose all your work.
Loving the home key tip too. I need to have a serious word with my pc tutor, which was err .... me.


If I 'copy' something from the CSS editor for example, it flies to the top, and I lose my bearings, so any advice on why that happens would be cool. Also trying to highlight within a code box can be a nightmare.

Regarding your code, I tried it, and don't see any difference with the gap between first letter and left side, even with 100px. My CSS code is slightly different to the one you quoted, regarding colour.



.ui-wysiwyg .editors .bbcode-editor textarea { color: @posts_odd_text_color; background-color: @posts_odd_background_color;}

So may I ask, when editing code, is it better to copy the entire style sheet into an editor, then put it back, or do it in the visual editor, and if so, what would be the preferred choice of the pro coder?

Many thanks.

[Tim Camara]

To fix your code, take this:

.ui-wysiwyg .editors .bbcode-editor textarea { color: @posts_odd_text_color; background-color: @posts_odd_background_color;}
and replace it with this:

.ui-wysiwyg .editors .bbcode-editor textarea { color: @posts_odd_text_color; background-color: @posts_odd_background_color; padding-left: 5px; }


As for the 'Pro Coder', I can't claim that title myself, but the Visual Editor is easier to understand, while the Style Sheet offers more control and more options. You can pick whichever is better for the current situation. We never force you into one mode or the other.

[Barkley]

Tim, that was what I did.

Is that code to move the first letter away from the left edge as seen in Ryan's images? If so, no difference, regardless of number.

Appreciated.

[Tim Camara]

Try making it this:

.ui-wysiwyg .editors .bbcode-editor textarea { color: @posts_odd_text_color; background-color: @posts_odd_background_color; padding-left: 5px !important; }

[Barkley]

Mar 8, 2013 13:15:18 GMT -8 Tim Camara said:

Try making it this:

.ui-wysiwyg .editors .bbcode-editor textarea { color: @posts_odd_text_color; background-color: @posts_odd_background_color; padding-left: 5px !important; }

Thanks Tim.

I've just realised I've been previewing the results in 'visual' (my preferred choice), and it's the visual that doesn't work, which isn't surprising given the fact that the code is for the BB.

The BB and quick reply box are now fine, with a likeable gap, so appreciated.

I'll see if I can find the equivalent for the visual, and see if I can't edit that one too.

[Tim Camara]

Mar 8, 2013 9:40:59 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

You cannot edit the Visual editors padding.

Let me save you some time.