Tips for easier posting

Post Reply New Topic

I'm 63 now, and I find, sometimes, that I tend to do things inefficiently with the online experience , from back in the day, when the web first began (usually from long habit, and from linear thinking as a result of NT-environmental conditioning).

I've been working out a few techniques as I go along, and thought I'd share them with others; hope you find them useful.

I recently answered a post on a computer topic, then immediately found another post in the same forum that some of my previous post fitted better in, and was superflous in the original post.

So, I opened the two posts in separate browser tabs (use new browser if you only have IE) edited my original post to cut the superfluous text, and paste it into the reply to the other topic.

Another thing that finally dawned on me, considering how slow and thoughtful I become when composing an OP, and how slow and inefficient the web browser is for editing, that I can compose them more efficiently in a word-processor offline, then copy and paste into the forum composing window, which is what I'm now starting to do for those "more thoughtful" posts.

Also, my memory isn't first-class these days, but now that the "missing piece of the puzzle" isn't missing anymore, I expect great things from my memory, as I learn how to care properly for this newly re-awakened human becoming.

In the meantime, I use author search on my username to keep a browser tab open with a list of all my posts, so I can keep track, and avoid too much duplication.

As WP are the first forums in my online experience where we all basically "speak the same language" ("These are my people" as the late "Charley Weaver" used to say), I'm intially feeling very inspired and creative, like a newborn.

Hope I'm not getting too carried away here in these forums (too many posts too fast?).

"There's no place like home ...,"
"There's no place like home ...,"
"There's no place like home ...,"

Thank you, WP, for bringing us all "back to Kansas" again

HTH, Your Obedient Brahmin,

Great post.

1. Later versions of IE do have tabs but everyone should be using firefox anyway ... unless you're somehow locked in (parents/administrators) there's no reason to use an inferior free application if a vastly superior free one is available - sorry - I'd like to say that' personal bias... but it isn't

johnpipe108 said:

2. I use notepad and sometimes make notes as I go along.

also...

Any advice on how to do quotes properly. I know I just did one but it was a bit of work and I don't think the formatting is right. I'm sure there's a trick to it.

I do these things too.

I see while in the reply window that your quote is constructed correctly; otherwise it wouldn't work. The opening quote is constructed as a left and right bracket enclosing a command, and the close quote is the same with a forward slash before the command. I often have to use the quote tag manually to break up one quote in to separate blocks, or to include quotes from two posts..

When making tags manually, sometimes I forget to close a tag, then the Preview shows a tag that is visible, making sure all tags are properly opened and closed fixes the problems. Un-opened or un-closed tags can cause long strings of text to be affected, and when you see this, check all the tags.

Sometimes, at my age, I mistakenly type a "{" instead of a "[" and this will mess things up, especially as they are the shift of the same key, and easy to mistake when typing fast, and it's not always so easy to see the difference on screen.

One thing with regard to tags in general, some don't work correctly on older browsers (like Netscape 7 which I'm using right now.). What happens, for example, when selecting a word and clicking B, I, or U, is that only the opening tag shows up on the first click, and the tags always are the last character on the page and have to be cut and pasted into their correct position in the text, and the second click will put up the closing tag, again it shows up at the end and has to be moved.

Only the newer browsers will operate all the tags correctly. The quote tag hasn't given any problem, it works as it should when clicked. In the newer ones, it's only necessary to select the desired text and "push the button."

I see that all the tags, bold, italic, underline, and quote have the same structure. The only thing I don't have committed to memory is the "quote=username" part, I have to look at it in a reply window when I want to use it for a second quote that has been done by pasting from the other post.

It would be neat if it were possible also to have a quote that didn't say "quote" outside the box for certain contexts, but this would only be icing on the cake.