MeFi Lexicon?

October 30, 2003 10:34 AM

I've been a MeFite for about a year now. Occasionally someone makes a post beginning with "On preview:". I still have no idea what this means. Anybody?

Which leads me to: How about adding a MeFi lexicon?

Thanks.
posted by ZenMasterThis to feature requests at 10:34 AM (33 comments total)

You spend time composing a post, say 2 minutes. Then, when you hit "preview" (which you must hit before committing the post) you realize that a relevant comment has been made in the time it took for you to compose your post. SO rather than re-writing the entire post, you add "on preview, I agree with ZenMaster" so people don't wonder why you missed that key point when your post comes sequentially after his.
posted by cell divide at 10:39 AM on October 30, 2003

"on preview" is when you spew your spew and then you hit the preview button to check formatting, spelling, etc.

When the preview page loads for you, you'll see any new comments that went up while you were busy spewing. If they have anything germaine that you wish to comment on, you may tack a quick comment at the end of your finished comment, "On preview...", rather than recompose your entire post.

On preview: What cell divide said.
posted by ursus_comiter at 10:42 AM on October 30, 2003

Also, there's a Metafilter wiki for your reference needs.
posted by furiousthought at 11:02 AM on October 30, 2003

For questions like this, you should check out the wiki.

On preview: what furiousthought said.
posted by dhoyt at 11:07 AM on October 30, 2003

Try the wiki.

On preview: what furiousthought and dhoyt said.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:09 AM on October 30, 2003

did we mention there was a Wiki?

Nope, not funny on preview, either
posted by anastasiav at 11:15 AM on October 30, 2003

Speaking of wikis, can anybody recommend a good piece of windows software for generating wikis on a local machine? I don't need a server based implementation, but I would still like most of the wiki functions.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:26 AM on October 30, 2003

Just wrote up an entry for the wiki on this term.
posted by adrianhon at 11:41 AM on October 30, 2003

On preview:

WikiFilter
posted by matteo at 11:42 AM on October 30, 2003

monju_bosatsu - if you don't have a server, how are you going to see the pages?
posted by andrew cooke at 11:53 AM on October 30, 2003

andrew cooke - I don't want to create a web site at all; I want a set of local documents on my machine that function like a wiki. I don't need it to be accessible from anywhere else.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:09 PM on October 30, 2003

I don't want to create a web site at all; I want a set of local documents on my machine that function like a wiki.

In other words, you want to create a Web site.
posted by kindall at 12:15 PM on October 30, 2003

Okay, while we're asking questions to which we should know the answer, what does YMMV mean?? That one's been driving me nuts.
posted by widdershins at 12:16 PM on October 30, 2003

Your Mileage May Vary

(or, just because it worked for me, doesn't mean it will work for you)
posted by briank at 12:20 PM on October 30, 2003

Your Mileage May Vary.

On preview: ...oh, nevermind.
posted by me3dia at 12:22 PM on October 30, 2003

kindall - okay, I get your point. I want to create a website in the sense that I want a set of hypertext documents linked together. However, it is not going on the web, and no one else will be editing it, so a server based solution is impractical and unneccessary. What I want is a piece of software that will take a set of documents and automatically create links among the documents based on a set of Wiki words I give it. Any ideas?
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:22 PM on October 30, 2003

monju_bosatsu: Try Eddie's Wiki. I haven't tried it myself, but there's been a lot of buzz about it lately on Ward's Wiki.
posted by Khalad at 12:36 PM on October 30, 2003

Ah, briank and me3dia, thank you. At least it wasn't super-obvious, so I don't feel too stoopid for not figuring it out.
posted by widdershins at 12:40 PM on October 30, 2003

I thank you all.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:05 PM on October 30, 2003

monju_bosatsu: Since WiKis are generally dependent on some flavor of scripting your going to need a server. Installing Apache, PHP, Perl and MySQL under Windows is trivial and then you can WiKi away to your hearts content from http://localhost.
posted by cedar at 1:41 PM on October 30, 2003

i think (s)he wants something that generates static pages that have cross-referenced links.

either that or we're using "server" to mean different things. to me, a server is the program your browser talks to. it's necessary if you want the pages to be dynamic (eg if you want to change their contents). you can run a server (a program - an http server) like that on your local computer. it doesn't need a separate computer with special internet access (which is also called a server, but isn't the kind of server i was talking about).
posted by andrew cooke at 1:56 PM on October 30, 2003

Installing Apache, PHP, Perl and MySQL under Windows is trivial

lol Wow, you really have lost touch with your fellow man, haven't you?
posted by rushmc at 2:27 PM on October 30, 2003

wuss
posted by bshort at 4:04 PM on October 30, 2003

Hey, where the fuck is Boing Boing?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:11 PM on October 30, 2003

someone tried a trivial windows install on it.
posted by quonsar at 4:19 PM on October 30, 2003

Open Wiki. I use and I like. Although you need ...
PWS (Personal Web Server) or IIS v4.0 or higher
VBScript v5.5 or higher installed
MSXML Parser 3.0 or higher installed
A database like MS Access, MS SQL Server, Oracle, My SQL or Postgre SQL
posted by seanyboy at 5:02 PM on October 30, 2003

"Open" Wiki requires Microsoft PWS, Microsoft VB Script, Microsoft XML? I won't turn this into Slashdot, but, strange...
posted by Jimbob at 5:23 PM on October 30, 2003

it's 'open' in mickeysoft-speak only.
posted by quonsar at 5:29 PM on October 30, 2003

I don't get how anyone could possibly see any more than 10 or 15 comments featuring the "On Preview" remark and not somehow decipher the underlying pattern.

The Ed Heads aren't gonna like this.
posted by dgaicun at 5:40 PM on October 30, 2003

It's "Open" in the same way as my Win2K version of Firebird is open... You sarcastic bastards. :-)
Plus it looks good and it has a groovy double-click and edit behaviour I'd like to see in all Wikis.
posted by seanyboy at 1:55 AM on October 31, 2003

Deride scheming on pretext.
Decried screaming for contest.
Derive meaning from context.
Denied preening his syntax.
Disguised cleaning his latex.
posted by Opus Dark at 2:42 AM on October 31, 2003

I love it when MeFi gets back to its web-geek roots. Not that I understand much of it...
posted by i_cola at 6:08 AM on October 31, 2003

Geek! Ah, I feel at home now.

And PHP & Apache 1.x is pretty trivial on Win32, but Apache 2 and MySql is a bit more tricky. A bit.

On Preview: I can't be arsed with this humour. Fill in your own joke.
posted by twine42 at 12:03 PM on October 31, 2003