RSS vs. Page formatting

September 20, 2007 3:37 PM

Why does this question lose all formatting even though it is formatted in my RSS reader? Doesn't appear to have happened to other questions nearby.
posted by vacapinta to Bugs at 3:37 PM (12 comments total)

It's minorly complicated:

For all MeFi posting pages we ignore line breaks in the first description field, but honor them in the extended areas. This is to keep the front pages short and sweet, collapsing any unnecessary vertical space. You can go on all you like in the more inside section, which is ok if it's a few paragraphs in length.

The line breaks are still in the database, we just don't replace the breaks with br tags. With RSS/XML, the breaks in the db are seen by readers and interpreted as line breaks on web pages when displayed, so you see formatting in your reader that you wouldn't see on MeFi.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:43 PM on September 20, 2007

Do you mean that it has nice line breaks in RSS? Askme posts don't automatically display interpolated <br> for linebreaks in the post text itself, but the linebreaks exist in the db, so I'm guess that either the RSS generation routine is doing something converty with those characters, or your (and maybe most/all) readers are respecting linebreaks the way a browser doesn't.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:45 PM on September 20, 2007

Or, you know, what he said.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:45 PM on September 20, 2007

That makes a lot of sense! Thanks!
posted by vacapinta at 3:46 PM on September 20, 2007

Did someone tell you about how we do line breaks yet? Oh, I guess so.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:48 PM on September 20, 2007

Line break dancing isn't for the weak.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:52 PM on September 20, 2007

Yep, them's the breaks, vacapinta.
posted by Abiezer at 3:56 PM on September 20, 2007

You know that scene in the original Batman film Burton did, where at one point Batman speaks a curt command to a remote control on his glove and suddenly the Batmobile, which has been parked elsewhere with its armor up, de-shields and drives itself to where he is?

I was just thinking that if that were redone as a steampunk scene set 130 years or so earlier, he might have held up a sort of oversized microphone-looking device and said, "carriage return."

Is what I was just thinking.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:01 PM on September 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

You *BLAM*hat scene in the original Batman film Burton did, where at one point Batm*BLAM*aks a curt command to a remote control on his glove and suddenly the *BLAM*mobile, which has bee*BLAM*d elsewhere with its armor up, de-*BLAM*s and drives itself to where he is?

I was *BLAM*hinking that *BLAM* were redone as a steampunk *BLAM* set 130 years o*BLAM*rlier, he might have held up a sort *BLAM*sized microphone-lo*BLAM*device and said, "carriage return." *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM*
Is *BLAM* I was just *BLAM*ing.
*BLAM**BLAM**BLAM**BLAM**BLAM**BLAM**BLAM**BLAM*

I've got a whole 'nother box of shells right here, in case you get frisky again, young cortex.
posted by bonehead at 4:17 PM on September 20, 2007

o*BLAM*rlier?
posted by Partial Law at 4:59 PM on September 20, 2007

would it be possible to favorite any post cortex makes, ever?

because the steampunk-Batman-pun above really does make me want to do that.
posted by heeeraldo at 7:09 PM on September 20, 2007

Why, I don't know, but I've never forgotten one of the mid-1990s Wired "Jargon Watch" bits: "batmobiling".
posted by cgc373 at 9:19 PM on September 20, 2007