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HTML help

17 Apr 00 - 11:32 PM (#213453)
Subject: HTML help
From: Barky

Help me please! I know very few HTML codes. I know "line break", "bold" "italic" ""paragraph:, and that's it!!! HELP ME MAMA!

~Barky


17 Apr 00 - 11:49 PM (#213462)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: thosp

well here's one place you can go blueclicketything

peace (Y) thosp


18 Apr 00 - 12:02 AM (#213467)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Jon Freeman

Hi Barky, There are loads of HTML threads to be found if you search the forum, also have a look at the FAQ thread.

Line break is easy - just add <br> at the end of the line. 
Paragraph break is <p> but you are better off using the line break.

The font settings you mention need starting and stopping.
Bold is <b> to start the bold text and </b> to end it.
Italics are <i> and </i>

There is nothing to stop you doing <b><i> to get bold italics but remember you must close them when finished otherwise all the posts in a thread could end up in italics or whatever.

Jon


18 Apr 00 - 01:08 AM (#213487)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Sorcha

OK, Jon, just how did you get the actual HTML codes to show up in the post, instead of having to break it up into little bits such as < b > ? Tell secrets time!!


18 Apr 00 - 01:26 AM (#213493)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Joe Offer

You use ampersand codes, Sorcha. But do Jon and I have to reveal all our secrets? The display codes are tough enough, but displaying the display codes is even tougher. But if we really gotta tell, click here.
<-Joe Offer->


18 Apr 00 - 01:32 AM (#213496)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Sorcha

Tell all! All secrets!! Tell now!! NO secrets allowed!! (will check out the click here) Pro'bly not like I'll ever use it! but it is handy to know! Thanks, just from a nosy researcher at heart. I just wanna KNOW!


18 Apr 00 - 01:40 AM (#213499)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Barky

TEST!


18 Apr 00 - 01:41 AM (#213500)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Barky

DAM


18 Apr 00 - 01:41 AM (#213501)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Barky

Dam again!


18 Apr 00 - 01:43 AM (#213502)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Sorcha

Barky, that is spelled "damn".A dam is built by beavers, and stops up a crick! Learn to swear properly, girl!! *BG*


18 Apr 00 - 01:53 AM (#213506)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Dale Rose

Jon, some long while back, Max fixed it so that all but the most violent of html errors are stopped at the end of the post they are in, so the next guy starts out fresh. Max or Joe could explain what the errors are that really jam things up. But then, maybe THOSE ought to be among the real secrets, so no one uses them on purpose!


18 Apr 00 - 04:43 AM (#213534)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Joe Offer

Yes Dale, there are things of which I dare not speak. Cleaning up after 'em is a bear, so I don't want to encourage anybody to do such things.....
-Joe-


18 Apr 00 - 08:32 AM (#213566)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Jon Freeman

Barky,

I have just had a look at your HTML and I am not sure what you were trying to achive but here are a couple of notes.

1. The BODY tag is one that you shouldn't use in Mudcat. It has its own place in an HTML document and is set by Max in its proper place near the beninning of the document. Any other use of the BODY tag could cause problems.

2. If you were trying to change the color of your text, you use the FONT tag. It you read through the thread that Joe has provided a link to you will find out how to do this.

Dale, one thing to be aware of with errors is that browsers handle them differently. As an example, a missing closing quote on a link does not seem to effect Internet Explorer (the link may not work but the browser recovers) but it is likely to stop Netscape loading and further. One problem here is if the person who made the error is an IE user, he/she is probably going to be unaware that they have made the remainder of the thread unreadable for others.

Jon


18 Apr 00 - 02:48 PM (#213840)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Joe Offer

Yeah, the differences between Netscape and MSIE can cause some problems. I've got one that's really bugging me, and I'm hoping somebody can help.
John in Brisbane asked me to post his terrific Glossary of Scottish Words last week. It works fine with MSIE, but for some reason, Netscape displays Max's dropdown menus and a "reply" box in the middle of the page, about at the word "sin." Can anybody tell me how to fix it?
-Joe Offer-


18 Apr 00 - 03:20 PM (#213857)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Jon Freeman

Well Joe, I have had another look and still think that the problem is something to do with Netscape and the size of the tables. I have produced one big table containing all the data in the Glossary and Netscape locks up when I try to load it. Perhaps somebody else will come up with a better solution or a different answer but I think the glossary needs splitting up a bit more.

I think that the Glossary is worth while and would be quite prepared to give it a home on part of my Web space (the one without the adverts) and split it up into smaller pages, one for each letter of the alphabet if that is of any help. The only problem I have at the moment is maintaince. I am not sure that I would want to take that on and I am looking for a way of allowing somebody else to be able to transfer files to part of my site to make this possible.

Ideally, this project would be housed somewhere where cgi scripts or similar could be used to make a searchable directory. The Mudcat site would be ideal for this but I think that Max probably has enough on already.

Another alternative that I can think of that would certainly make downloading faster would be to stick with using the threads but have more than one glossary thread and a "Master" glossary thread that simply gives links to the individual pages. If you doesn't mind a bit of editing when John wants to make changes, this might be the easiest solution.

Jon


19 Apr 00 - 06:57 AM (#214211)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: MudGuard

line 4: body tag
line 148: html tag (there should not be any html before it)
line 150: head tag (should come before the body)
line 161: second body tag
line 994: is 74789 characters long, could be a problem?

line 1128: also longer than 32767

line 1192+: some p tags without closing /p, unquoted href

line 1456: unquoted href
line 1521+, 1589+, 3480+: p without /p
line 3770: p tag between table tag and tr tag

Joe, I guess the p without /p should not kill any browser. Try to split the extreme long lines and put quotes around any unquoted href (there might be some I did not spot). the body, html and head tags in wrong order might confuse browsers.

MudGuard


19 Apr 00 - 07:17 AM (#214214)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: MudGuard

Joe, one more hint: there are probably more than the 2 extremely long lines which I found by chance. I'd recommend splitting all lines longer than 4000 characters.
MudGuard


19 Apr 00 - 08:29 AM (#214233)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Jon Freeman

I am not sure about the other errors Mudguard has spotted but the first 4 are generated by the Mudcat system and exist on every thread in Mudcat and while incorrect, have not been known to cause any problems.

I am particularly interested in the long line lengths. The way the program seems to just pick some random data (in this case the form fields) does seem as if it could be some form of memory allocation error (at least it would in programming languages I am used to).

A few questions for Mudguard:

What editor do you use to find the errors?

Why is it that clicking reload on Netscape on the page in question clears the problem?

Can you spot any errors in This? I have had no problems loading it in IE but Netscape hangs for ages (download stops, and I can't get any response from the program) and occasionaly it has locked up completely when I try to load it. Maybe it is just my computer struggling but I use a K2 500 with 128 Mb of RAM which I would think should be fast enough and why don't I have the same problem with Explorer?

Jon


19 Apr 00 - 11:48 AM (#214327)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: MudGuard

Hi Jon,
I don't know for sure if long lines cause problems. It was just a guess.
I use textpad, available at www.textpad.com, an editor which does syntax coloring (I load the source into it). The rest is done by a long-trained eye to spot problems
I do not use Netscape, so I don't have any knowledge why the problem disappears when reloading (could the long lines cause any transmission errors?)
On first glance, I do not find any severe errors in your page (only your table: borders is an argument expecting a value - although most browsers assume some default value other than 0 if no value is given).
But I did not check every single data cell or data row.
cu
MudGuard


19 Apr 00 - 01:59 PM (#214400)
Subject: RE: HTML help
From: Jon Freeman

Thanks Mudguard, I am just in the process of downloading text pad. I have a lot to learn about HTML but I think that an editor with syntax highlighting will prove useful to me.

I am not sure about the error but my guess was that maybe the Netscape program allocated a buffer of a certain size to do whatever it does when reading the HTML and maybe encoundered a line too lone - too much data with the end result of it reading another part of memory containing some previously stored data. Could be anything I suppose but I'm sure cutting down the lengths of lines has to be a good move anyway.

Jon