Tech: HTML Query for experts

14 Dec 07 - 03:58 PM (#2215438)
Subject: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: Murray MacLeod

well, maybe it isn't really a HTML query as such, but there is a forum to which I contribute occasionally, and on this forum, in order to provide a clickable link, instead of doing the pointy bracket a=href thing, what you do is [url=whateverthewebaddressmightbe]Your text[/url]

now, is this a variant of HTML or is it a totally different laguage ?

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14 Dec 07 - 04:53 PM (#2215473)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: GUEST,Jon

It's called bbcode. bbcode is not standard and may be preceded by other letters, eg. ubbcode for the ubb board system.

It is not html but html is produced from it for the page output, eg. your link.

There are a couple of reasons I can think of for using it.

1. The code can be simplified and made easier for users.

2. A difficulty with html is if we just take it from an input form and pass it back it back in the post is that it all works. Some things that could be entered might not be desirable, others quite dangerous.


The bbcode way would only convert a tightly defined set of codes into html for the page. This might be seen by some as safer than effectively disabling or filtering out unwanted html.

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14 Dec 07 - 06:06 PM (#2215540)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: GUEST,Jon

Re 2: safer and /or simpler than.

Another point re 1: bbcode can be used to represent more than one html tag, [quote] could be blockquote and italics. This may also lead to

3: It might help towards creating a consistent "style" for a board.

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16 Jan 08 - 01:39 AM (#2237493)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: Joe Offer

OK, so here's another question. Seems like it's a really basic thing that I should have known years ago. At the Website of the women's center where I volunteer, there's a page called events.html. When I right-click on a link to the page and choose "save target as," it saves it as events.htm. I edited the page in Notepad and uploaded it as events.htm, and it appeared on the list of website documents as events.html - but wouldn't open when I clicked on it.

I opened my FTP utility and found the file events.htm. I renamed it events.html, and it worked fine.

OK, so all that is very confusing to read - and to type. My question is, what's the difference between a *.htm document and a *.html document??

-Joe-

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16 Jan 08 - 02:14 AM (#2237497)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: JohnInKansas

Joe -

I've encountered an assertion by Microsoft that there is a difference. Vista adds support for "more than three letters" in file extensions, and quite probably your save from notepad (in Vista) could have been done as .html. Microsoft states specifically that .htm and .html file endings "work differently" (in Vista) but don't describe any differences.

I've done a brief search at Microsoft to see if they'll tell me what the difference is (for Vista) but as is common for "anything Vista" all I get for search results is advertisments for Vista.

I'll try to watch this thread to see if anyone explains it to us.

John

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16 Jan 08 - 04:44 AM (#2237531)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: The Fooles Troupe

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html

Originally, before Microsoft stuck its d*ck beak in, as it has so many times before, stuffing up the normal processes as usually internationally agreed, it was JUST ONLY EVER ".html".

Of course, DOS, and the other Microsoft OSes using "8.3" formats was hopelessly stymied, so the ".htm" became a default (as far as I can tell, totally undocumented!) equivalent worldwide.

So then MickeyCrap 're-invented', as is its normal wont, '.html' as 'something Vista special'...!!!!

Of course, I may be just a little biased...

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16 Jan 08 - 05:17 AM (#2237547)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: treewind

About right, Foolestroupe, even allowing for the bias!
Windows 3.1 was in common use when the web started and still had 8.3 filename format.

Why MS should still be tied to the three letter file name suffix 12 years later is a mystery, though.
I hope they're not touting the shedding of that millstone as an "innovation"...

There are equally confusing scenarios of upper/lower case confusion - Windows hosted web servers can be case-insensitive, causing confusion when a site is move to UNIX hosting, or a site works OK when tested locally on Windows but when uploaded to a UNIX-hosted web server any mismatch between link names and actual file names shows up as a 404.

Anahata

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16 Jan 08 - 06:22 AM (#2237557)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: GUEST

Windows 3.1 was in common use when the web started and still had 8.3 filename format.

No it wasn't. The web went public on August 6, 1991 and the first release of Windows 3.1 was on March 18, 1992.

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16 Jan 08 - 07:06 AM (#2237575)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: GUEST,Jon

The behaviour for document extensions usually can be configured by the server administrator and I would guess a number have things set up to work with both as well as perhaps having a few default documents, eg. index.html, index.htm, default.asp, etc. the server can look for when a user for example requests http://www.mudcat.org

--
Re case, I did cause myself some confusion with that when I moved from asp to php. ?TopicID and ?topicid became different things...

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16 Jan 08 - 07:16 AM (#2237578)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: The Fooles Troupe

"Windows 3.1 was in common use when the web started and still had 8.3 filename format."

That's the Miscrosoft Party Line! Actually it's the other way around!

:-)

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16 Jan 08 - 11:01 AM (#2237700)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: Stilly River Sage

At the time they both came into being there weren't many users, so the discussion is almost moot.

The rule of thumb I learned years ago was that the .htm ending was coming from a PC computer environment with the Windows OS and the .html extension was in the Apple/Mac environment with the different operating system.

VISTA may be what finally pushes me over to becoming a Mac user. They do have kind of cute machines and monitors. It would be a fashion statement at the very least. :)

SRS

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16 Jan 08 - 11:57 AM (#2237746)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: treewind

"The web went public on August 6, 1991 and the first release of Windows 3.1 was on March 18, 1992."

Pedant alert!

The fact remains that during the first few years of the web, most individuals who were enterprising enough to figure out how to create a web site were using a system that had DOS-style 8.3 filenames. Eventually NT4 and Windows95 brought long filenames to those who upgraded.
(I was using OS/2 then, and NT and Linux later, but that definitely put me in a minority)

Anahata

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16 Jan 08 - 04:02 PM (#2237918)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: GUEST

I don't know SRS, I thought the PC Case I got today looks quite "cool", compared to my usual standards that is. Hadn't really taken any notice of the case (which will be more or less hidden under my desk) when I ordered it (a barbones bundle, case with motherboard,cpu and memory installed) and was a bit surprised when it arrived. Never had one with a key before!

Oh well idiot here forgot to get a graphics card for it so putting the other bits in/installing Linux, etc. comes tommorrow. I'll probably swear at it a few times in the process.

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17 Jan 08 - 09:50 AM (#2238378)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: Stilly River Sage

I'll see your case and raise it with all of the choices at places like Fry's electronics. I've always wanted to build my own system, but haven't had the time to do the tinkering. Maybe the next one. That's another way around VISTA. Buy a OEM version of XP-Pro and go from there. Dual core mother board, great graphics card, etc. etc.

SRS

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17 Jan 08 - 09:57 AM (#2238389)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: The Fooles Troupe

Sadly XP will be totally - as distinct from practically as at the moment :-) in a couple of years. Since Vista is so crocked, start thinking about Linux... Forget Mac - MS have their little grubby paws inside there too...

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17 Jan 08 - 01:32 PM (#2238579)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: JohnInKansas

News Bulletin 10 January 2007: Microsoft announced the retirement Jeff Raikes, President of Microsoft Business Division. (Former Vice President for Advertising and Graphics Design at Apple, hired by Microsoft ca. 1981 at about the time - or a very little before - Vista planning began to get started.)

News Bulletin 15 January 2007: Bill Gates announces in his speech at CES his complete withdrawal from participation in the management of Microsoft. (The Vista hole is too deep for even Bill to bail them out - and he wants to make himself completely unavailable?)

Vista is quite clearly an attempt to make "Windows" more "Mac-like" in an attempt to pull in some of the 20% of personal computer users who use Macs. Apparently nobody told them that the 85% of people who use (or used to use) Windows would find Vista to be "a piece of sh*t."

Of course that's all just wild speculation ...

John

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17 Jan 08 - 01:48 PM (#2238596)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: Mr Red

I use several websites that use this - I presume they just convert as soon as you send.

eg tek-tips.com but there are others.

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17 Jan 08 - 01:55 PM (#2238606)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: katlaughing

I just ordered a new mini-tower from Dell's "refurbished" site and was glad to find they still have some available with XP rather than Vista. That is one program I don't ever want to have to deal with, from what I hear!

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17 Jan 08 - 02:21 PM (#2238626)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: GUEST,Jon

Some nice cases there,SRS.

Anyway you can have mine... Think I've had enough already. I can't get the thing (AMD X2 6000 dual core, 2GB RAM, NVidia 8500 card - a bit of a step up for my usual) to start up. The blue light on the case flashes for maybe 1/2 second but that's it.

Ho hum... It's been fun the last few days.I had my first breakdown my end (we've been down before but not for crashes at home with the folkinfo server). Tried some online updates. Not sure whether my timing seeming to coincide with the Suse system crashing with hardware problems but wound I wound up with a system missing essential files.

Move folkinfo to shared hosting and try to bring my existing maintence plan forward (it was to get a machine I bought it Dec, in use as the new folkinfo server and I was to have a faster thing I hoped would be a bit faster for some things I wanted to try and the current server was to be set up as a then hopefully reliable spare server) and I wanted to get my new one running first as it would be a bit easier for me that way.

Forget video card yesterday in my order to set things moving for return to home hosting and for the new machine, so I start to build today. Now it's looking, until I get this resolved, I'll be using the the older and (now) suspect former server which was to be the spare web server for my personal use - I can live with the occasional crash for now on that.

Of course in the meanwhile as I set about the changes and another plan,I find I can't get into folkinfo on the 3rd party shared hosting services. It's just giving me blank pages - guess that now has to become the priority...

grrr...

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17 Jan 08 - 02:25 PM (#2238629)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: JohnInKansas

kat -

Vista does have some good features. The problem is that by completely trashing the entire language with which Windows users are familiar, they've made it impossible to use the good features without starting over from the ground up.

Of course they did add a lot of "just plain trash" in the bargain. Who needs eleven different keyboard combinations to replace two clicks on the left arrow button, with a completely different seven to replace the up arrow. (Actual "feature" described in the O'Reilly book I'm trying to use to figure out how to get something functional out of Vista.)

John

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17 Jan 08 - 02:55 PM (#2238658)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)

Jon

Just a thought - is your new power supply powerful enough. I just have a vague memory that when I rebuilt my machine a few years ago I got something similar - brief lights then nothing - and had to replace my old power supply with one a bit stronger. (I also disconnected the leads to the blue lights on my case!).

Mick

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17 Jan 08 - 03:35 PM (#2238690)
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML Query for experts
From: GUEST,Jon

I should think I'm OK there ,Mick. The mb, cpu, memory and p/s came together pre-assembled. I should only have been fitting the other bits I bought (graphics card, hd drive and dvd drive) for a system. I think one spare I do have is another power supply though - might try it tomorrow.

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