September 21, 2003

5:16 PM

I was trying to put less-than and more-than symbols in a post and used the "& # 62/60;" format. It worked in preview, but in actualité, it left a big blank space where the enclosed [witty] comment was supposed to appear.
What's the situation with character entity references here on MeFi? [The FAQ was silent on this, so I ask.]
posted by Blue Stone to bugs at 5:16 PM (14 comments total)

You have to re-paste the symbols after you preview. Then it'll work.
posted by dgaicun at 5:18 PM on September 21, 2003

what dgaicun said.
posted by quonsar at 5:22 PM on September 21, 2003

You have to re-paste the symbols after you preview.

Exactly. To elaborate just a little: In preview, the code is replaced by the symbol itself. But the symbol doesn't work when you hit post. So go back, replace the symbol with the code, hit post, and it'll all be better.

See, it's an 'A' with a halo: Å
...must be a Xtian thing.
posted by Shane at 5:29 PM on September 21, 2003

It's a bug. Matt just needs to reencode the textbox on preview - replace & with & - and then it would work on mefi like it does elsewhere.
posted by holloway at 5:44 PM on September 21, 2003

<Thankyou all, kindly>
posted by Blue Stone at 6:16 PM on September 21, 2003

It eats  s too.
posted by Space Coyote at 6:52 PM on September 21, 2003

it's been discussed a bit in the past.
posted by quonsar at 6:55 PM on September 21, 2003

Can we bring back the MetaFilter scholarship?

I dunno, can we?
posted by mcsweetie at 8:47 PM on September 21, 2003

I want my GPS coordinates pony still.

How hard can it be to add one more field to the user page template? No need to actually implement a full-fledged "who's nearby" filter. (Although, actually, that'd be pretty easy; anyone with the same major numbers is nearby... as the crow flies, at any rate.)
posted by five fresh fish at 9:02 PM on September 21, 2003

I don't see much point in adding the GPS field unless there is some way of seeing who is nearby. Not being a programmer, I am probably way off base, but surely it would use almost the same coding as the zip code locator thingy in using a formula to provide users within x numbers of yours? obviously, there are more numbers to calculate on, but the formula should not be that different?

I second the motion, though, for that particular pony.
posted by dg at 9:41 PM on September 21, 2003

I know how to make the symbol for a ♥, but I just like saying *heart*. Okay?
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:00 PM on September 21, 2003

dg: I believe that the widget which the mefi zip code locator is built upon also accepts GPS input instead, so there is no extra work whatsoever, apart from adding the extra field in the user config. Also, I believe that particular pony is mine, although I can't be arsed to dredge up the original thread. I might let you ride it sometimes if you promise to help with mucking out though ...
posted by walrus at 3:47 AM on September 22, 2003

뉴 욕 타 임 즈 없 어 요?
posted by eddydamascene at 4:52 PM on September 22, 2003

*looks up at the mess he made*
Some ampersand codes require additional language packs to display correctly.
posted by eddydamascene at 1:39 AM on September 23, 2003