I guess I'm in favor of leaving things as they are, although I wonder if it would be possible for Max to give us automatic line breaks without a lot of extra code. That would sure make things easier. In the meantime, I hope you'll consider putting in <br> line breaks when you're posting lyrics. It makes things so much easier for those of us who have to fix stuff. I'm glad we have a forum that allows the use of HTML in messages, because it's nice to be able to post links and occasional other fancy stuff - but I agree that it would be nice if we didn't have to put in those line breaks.

I've gotten so used to this HTML stuff that I find myself typing <br> and <a href=http://www.hinkydink.org>click</a> in letters I send home to Mom. It's OK, though - she's always known I'm weird....

You'll find all the HTML you'll ever want to use at Mudcat on this page (click). All you really need is the line breaks, but the other stuff is kind of fun to use. Please don't use HTML tags in Forum messages unless you know what those tags are going to do. Feel free to practice in practice threads, but I don't think it's wise to practice HTML in music threads. We delete messages in practice threads and don't consider that censorship, but we're reluctant to delete other messages. If you goof up, that's another matter - just post a call for help in the "Help" forum, and somebody will drop by and fix your mistake.

I notice that sometimes if a Mudcatter posts a song without line breaks, somebody else will come along and post the same lyrics and include line breaks. That poses an ethical dilemna for those of us who have "edit" buttons. Do we reformat the original post and delete the second (which duplicates the efforts of the well-intentioned reformatter), or do we do the easy thing and delete the first post and leave the corrected one? I think that maybe for the sake of saving space and time, it might be best if people do not post a second copy of lyrics simply to correct HTML - just post a request in the Help forum, and somebody with an "edit" button will come along and fix the problem. For the same reason, saving space, I think it's usually best not to post lyrics that are already in the database - better to post a link, or instructions on how to search for the lyrics.

I hesitate to suggest that people use HTML editors to prepare their Mudcat posts. My experience is that you get too much extraneous HTML from most HTML editors (and the HTML functions of MS Word and Outlook). All that extra HTML slows down the Forum.

So, Max, would it be an easy thing for you to set up the forum so we wouldn't have to put in those line breaks but could still use other HTML?

-Joe Offer-