Quoting problems

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:25 pm

Can someone just fix it?

Here is an example, not that you should need one to know what is being talked about.

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50 ... &start=250

Fix the CSS so it closes the div or span after each post properly so a quote if forced to end, or auto-correct the quotes when a close tag is missing, or something.

I have never seen this happen on any other forum running phpBB.

I mean all someone would have to do to screw up any thread would be to leave a quote open like this [ quote].

EDIT: fixed the screwed up quote in this post to fix THIS thread.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:45 pm

SOP is to report the post that's causing the problem (I did), and/or to PM the person who posted and ask them to resolve the problem in case it takes the mods too long to do it (I did this, too, and got a positive response).

The solution is not to add to the problem by creating your own problematic post that we must also all wait on you to fix, and complain in-thread when that will not get a resolution any faster and just derails the topic (though that may be a good thing in this case).

Our system of fixing faulty quote tags works fine. Why should we change it to something more automatic and faster?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:52 pm

Maj wrote:Our system of fixing faulty quote tags works fine. Why should we change it to something more automatic and faster?

?

-Crissa

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:10 pm

I didn't know that SOP Maj, and couldn't find the offending post to tell which one to report. I was cloning them all trying to though!

Who done it?

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:18 pm

Crissa wrote:
Maj wrote:Our system of fixing faulty quote tags works fine. Why should we change it to something more automatic and faster?
?

-Crissa

Maj is dragging the THAC0 discussion itself in here by alluding to it. Where I see no reason to "fix" THAC0 cause it isn't broken, she is claiming there is no need to fix the system for fixing broken quote tags here on the forums.

The problem with that reason, other than trolling, is that THAC0 cannot do something to harm to entire forums here, such as malicious code could. And if the quotes are broken, then it means some other problems could occur due to lack of error-checking that could allow someone to inject malicious code into a post possibly using direct < php> in a post itself to run a script from the post on the database or forums, and mess it all up.

phpBB 2.0.22 has a few vulnerabilities of which code injection is one. But so far this forum is small and seems to have not been found by the pron-bits yet to spam it, so nobody has tried to inject code into it yet to cause it problems.

When it IS found though, the forum is liking open to such attacks, and they need to be fixed, which would be error-checking such as the closed and open quote tag, or ANY other tag, problems.

Probably a good thing this forum does NOT use the keywords meta tag so spiders are prevented from knowing what it is about, and thus has so far saved it the risk of attack by keyword attacks which target high popularity keywords. But that won't last long IF some bot does find the forum and decide to have "fun"* with it.

*The use of the word fun here, is in the same context that WOtC claimed how "everyone would love 4th edition when it comes out and will think it is fun", and overusing that word as well as "cool". It is in no way to say that any schmuck should see fucking up a website as something to do for their own entertainment, or that it is entertaining to fuck with other people for ANY reason.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:39 pm

shadzar wrote:I didn't know that SOP Maj, and couldn't find the offending post to tell which one to report. I was cloning them all trying to though!

Wait... You can tell someone to fix a CSS sheet, but you can't find an extra close quote tag in the last post that looked normal and involved a quote tag?

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:55 pm

Maj wrote:
shadzar wrote:I didn't know that SOP Maj, and couldn't find the offending post to tell which one to report. I was cloning them all trying to though!
Wait... You can tell someone to fix a CSS sheet, but you can't find an extra close quote tag in the last post that looked normal and involved a quote tag?

The textarea to post in is small for me to read. I have to bring up the page source code and read through it for longer posts.

A fix to the CSS would cause the DIVs and SPANs to force and end to any tag left open in a post. So it is one of the quickest fixes, that leaves only the offending post to be slightly broken, rather than continue to break the rest of the page. Then it doesn't matter which post it is that needs fixing, as no one would have to except for the person who has a post that looks silly for breaking the tags.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:30 pm

shadzar wrote:The textarea to post in is small for me to read. I have to bring up the page source code and read through it for longer posts.

Don't web browsers have a zoom function?

shadzar wrote:A fix to the CSS would cause the DIVs and SPANs to force and end to any tag left open in a post.

In this particular case, I do believe the problem was not a tag left open, but a tag with an ending and no beginning. How would your solution handle that?

Edit: I confirmed that inserting a closing tag with no opening tag does indeed screw up the page.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:54 pm

I use the built in magnifier. No need for a page to ever scroll left-right.

If an open tag did it, then all the more reason it needs to be fixed, since the tags have a feature to auto-close when using the buttons, maybe it needs to be disabled so you don't open one, change your mind, and the software decide to close the tag for you that was no longer ever opened.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:26 pm

The closing tag isn't an actual closing tag, but an instruction to the software that constructs the pages we view out of CSS, Maj. Shad is saying that the posts could be constructed in the CSS in such a way that run-on controls like italics or this indention could be isolated.

-Crissa

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:48 pm

Actually not the CSS, but PHP that adds the tags as HTML output. But the CSS can be written to force something like a < br/> to close any open HTML element after each post so when the HTML is constructed, anything after it that post is not affected by that post.

So CSS can fix it, but CSS doesn't construct it, in case you cared...

*CSS = Cascading Style Sheet page formatting (bold, italics, underlines, solid border, cellpadding, margins, etc), not writing code.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:59 pm

So a "/quote" is considered an open HTML element?

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:50 am

Open as in it doesn't have both parts, like some HTML elements do not have a closing tag.

Like an open parenthesis can be open form the front ( [with the opening parenthesis] or back ) [with the closing paraenthesis].

So an open tag means it is part of a pair, but is missing one half of the pair.

P, BR, and some others don't really have a closing tag. But if you use CS, you need to use the pseudo-tag to close it /P, /BR. Which gets real funny with PHP and tags because you should always close every tag with "/>" to make sure the PHP sees it correctly using the / to escape the string character properly so you end up with a "< /p/>" for a closing tag for a paragraph with CSS under PHP formal coding. :yuck:

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 1:52 am

Shadzar,

If you are finding it difficult to read posts in the posting textarea I'd like to point out that a number of Userstyle extensions/plugins/whatever exist. There is probably one for your web-brower of choice. Afterwards, you need only insert a short piece of style information in a userstyle for tgdmb.com.

Code: Select all

textarea.post &#123;
  width&#58;960px !important;
  height&#58;480px !important;
&#125;

I am now happy with the size of my posting textarea.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 3:12 am

For some reason the update to stylish for firefox has made it unusable and screws with adblock plus. I have been looking for another update to fix the problem.

I just cannot currently write/save new styles.

Even a new install of stylish had problems remain.

But thanks for the heads up.