Line Break Issues in "Preview"

December 10, 2007 7:03 AM

It's pretty annoying that inserting carriage returns shows line breaks as typed in the "preview" window, but the final result is breakless (after all, what's the point of the preview?). I've had unpredictable results manually adding "BR" tags and "P" tags...they seem to sporadically interact with the typed carriage returns and yield vast white space. If anyone can point me to a workaround, I'd be appreciative. But, really, it'd be fitting if postings posted per the preview, no?
posted by jimmyjimjim to Bugs at 7:03 AM (29 comments total)

The problem, as I understand it, is with preview of above-the-fold text on AskMe. We don't auto-interpolate <br> tags into that part of posts on either the green or the blue, to discourage front page sprawl, but I see that the AskMe post preview does show them interpolated, which I guess is the main thing causing the confusion?

It's something we need to fix, regardless.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:08 AM on December 10, 2007

I've always used CTRL+Enter, which...
...seems to work OK.
posted by punilux at 7:27 AM on December 10, 2007

Please don't use paragraph breaks in posts above the fold on any of the subsites. And yes, it would be nice if preview matched posting output.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:46 AM on December 10, 2007

I'll make sure preview matches today, sorry about that.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:07 AM on December 10, 2007

A little more detail: <br> tags are generally respected by the posting form—if you put one in, it'll still be there at post time, and if it's in the [more inside] section it will stack with the interpolated linebreak, which is where the Great Big Whitespace thing comes from.

<p> tags, on the other hand, are stripped, so using them will probably just lead to tears.

General advice: avoid line breaks in the above-the-fold portion of posts, period. They're rarely a good idea on the blue, where it can make it hard to tell where the breaks between separate posts occur if there's linebreaks in a single post's text; we'll sometimes remove such front-page breaks for clarity.

That goes double in AskMe, where there's basically zero reason for post formatting hijinks.

In the more-inside, breaks are created automatically on normal linebreaks, so don't bother with manual tags; and just don't use paragraph tags at all.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:32 AM on December 10, 2007

Wow...you guys are amazing!

Good job moderating, btw, cortex...
posted by jimmyjimjim at 11:32 AM on December 10, 2007

I miss the old non-matching preview.
posted by terrapin at 11:46 AM on December 10, 2007 [5 favorites]

woops, just saw your second posting (posted concurrently). Not wanting to sprawl the front page makes sense. But sometimes posters do need to offset certain lines. Would it make sense to offer insertion of a horizontal line for that purpose? Or is there another way offset can happen without wasting much vertical space?

I'm glad preview will be fixed...at least I can fool around and try to make things legible within whatever parameters there are.
posted by jimmyjimjim at 11:59 AM on December 10, 2007

It's pretty annoying that inserting carriage returns...

Well guys, looks like we just dodged a bullet! You don't want to know what happens when jimmyjimjim really gets annoyed.
posted by grateful at 12:03 PM on December 10, 2007

One of the nice things about the [more inside] functionality is that it provides space for folks to do whatever they need to with vertical space—the idea is to keep what's on the front page relatively compact so that one or two questions don't just eat up a pile of real estate. Avoiding line breaks above the fold, specifically, helps with that, is how I see it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:08 PM on December 10, 2007

Carriage return? While we're speaking Old English, I have a few words I'd like to say.

Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron. Þa cwæð he, "Rihtlice hi sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað, and swilcum gedafenað þæt hi on heofonum engla geferan beon."
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:08 PM on December 10, 2007 [4 favorites]

Flagged as noise.
posted by waraw at 12:32 PM on December 10, 2007

You think that's noise? Wait til Astro Zombie 3 gets here.
posted by wendell at 1:04 PM on December 10, 2007

What I hate is when I hit the carriage return and the monitor flies to the left with excessive force and the platen gets dislocated. Can the mods fix this?
posted by languagehat at 1:05 PM on December 10, 2007 [4 favorites]

"What I hate is when I hit the carriage return and the monitor flies to the left with excessive force and the platen gets dislocated."

Yeah? What I hate is when I hit the carriage return and the monitor flies to the left with excessive force and the planet gets dislocated.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:10 PM on December 10, 2007

It's pretty annoying that inserting carriage returns...

Well guys, looks like we just dodged a bullet! You don't want to know what happens when jimmyjimjim really gets annoyed.
posted by grateful at 12:03 PM

Eponysterical?
posted by Cranberry at 1:37 PM on December 10, 2007

I don't get it; computers don't even have carriage returns. How many more times must this happen before we get a sarcasm tag?
posted by Kwine at 1:58 PM on December 10, 2007

What I r^eally hat^e is wh^en on^e of th^e k^eys sticks...
posted by miss lynnster at 2:06 PM on December 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

What I hate is when I hit the carriage return and the monitor flies to the left with excessive force and the platen gets dislocated. Can the mods fix this?

What is the proper amount of force with which to thrust your monitor sideways? And have you considered that perhaps the fault lies not in the force applied to the monitor, but in your poor job in securing the platen? I've head duct-tape works nicely in such cases.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:23 PM on December 10, 2007

ha, HEARD, not head.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:24 PM on December 10, 2007

I miss the bit where the shift key made you type in red. That was cool for all the outraged letters I used to write to local politicians. That and making holes in the paper with the period key. You just don't get that nowadays.

Or better yet - half red and half black.

That was really cool.

Yeah.
posted by Sk4n at 4:27 PM on December 10, 2007

Every time I preview a comment on the blue it adds a new line break (assuming there was one to begin with). Bug?
posted by 0xFCAF at 4:54 PM on December 10, 2007

I'm getting the same thing. Every time I press preview, I get another line break inserted between paragraphs.
posted by eyeballkid at 5:05 PM on December 10, 2007

Yep, the breaks were a bug related to the new, wider preview form. Should be fixed now.
posted by pb (staff) at 5:07 PM on December 10, 2007

God, I remember having to use a fucking typewriter to write papers. I'm too young for that shit.
posted by puke & cry at 5:18 PM on December 10, 2007

I sure miss the "ting!" sound at the end of the line.
Would it be possible to attach a "ting!" mp3 to every <br>?
posted by bru at 6:09 PM on December 10, 2007

I'd like to save a copy of some of the most interesting threads, but the carbon paper keeps getting jammed when I slip it down the vent in my monitor, and then there's the smoke and the flames and the running and the screaming. I'd like less smoke and flames and running and screaming, please.
posted by maudlin at 6:22 PM on December 10, 2007

"... But, really, it'd be fitting if postings posted per the preview, no? "

This is never a problem, once you learn to read MeFi off 8-bit paper tape.
posted by paulsc at 6:39 PM on December 10, 2007

8 bit paper tape is too logical and regular for me. I pine for 80 column IBM punch cards.
posted by flabdablet at 11:58 PM on December 10, 2007