1. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Suggestion More formatting options

    Discussion in 'Support & Feedback' started by OurJud, Sep 23, 2016.

    I think for a forum that features so many short story and novel extracts, submitted for critique and competition purposes, it would be most useful to have more formatting options.

    When I'm presented with large bodies of texts in stories and extracts, I'm put off reading because of the tight line-spacing making following the words very difficult.

    Double line spacing isn't an option because it literally doubles the space taken up in the post, but I wonder if it's possible to give us a 'story / extract' formatting button witch would widen the line spacing, even if only by a little?

    Also, an 'indent' for single lines would also be very useful, so that we can indent new paragraphs in the familiar fashion, as would an option to justify text.
     
  2. Malisky

    Malisky Malkatorean Contributor

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    Good idea.
     
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  3. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    You can do the indentation:

    This is indented​

    This is not indented.

    It is a bit unwieldy to do just the first line of a new paragraph, though, because you'd need to add tags every time.
     
  4. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    The other thing I suppose you could try is to insert a small, blank image that creates an indent at the first line of every new paragraph. Also not exactly an elegant solution.
     
  5. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Exactly. There are many ways you can indent the first line of a paragraph (........ coloured white is another way) but they're all a pain in the arse.

    I suppose what I'm asking for is a third tab in the top right of the editor (alongside the 'remove formatting' and 'use BB code editor') which gives us a menu of very basic word processing options.
     
  6. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I'm not sure XenForo supports it (or whether that matters).
     
  7. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    Line spacing: Can be done by adding a simple BBCode tag.

    First-line indent: This one is tougher. I can see two ways of doing it using BBCode:
    1) Wrap every single paragraph inside tags. This could be combined with line spacing into a single [manuscript] tag (or something like that), but you would have to wrap each paragraph within new tags.
    2) Use tags that are converted into tabs/spaces that you have to manually put in front of every single line you want to indent (much like putting white '.......', but using a tag instead).
    Neither of these sound like they're any good, since it's not a particularly streamlined and easy method.

    The ultimate solution would be if we could add BB tags that automatically adds indents after each new line, but I have yet to find a way to do this.

    Will continue to look around and see if this can be done.
     
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  8. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Good stuff.

    Out of interest, @Komposten, what would be the BBCode for line spacing?

    Are we talking simple html / css ?
     
  9. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Testing BBCode Tags

    [JUSTIFY]Vestibulum finibus ac felis vel fringilla. Sed et est congue, malesuada nibh ut, porta mi. Nam massa urna, bibendum a lectus a, finibus ullamcorper lorem. Curabitur condimentum ultrices pharetra. Quisque nibh est, faucibus nec mi eget, efficitur consectetur elit. Proin sed lorem eget nisi ultricies imperdiet. Cras semper lorem eu dui vestibulum, eu consequat lectus tincidunt. Suspendisse facilisis a lacus vitae tincidunt. Phasellus placerat, quam et vulputate dictum, lacus neque pellentesque magna, et interdum lorem nunc eget velit. Fusce pulvinar odio a nisi congue bibendum. Ut molestie semper nulla, nec tempus leo lacinia id. Aliquam porta mi eget convallis rhoncus. Curabitur feugiat condimentum ante, at sodales odio tempor sit amet. Integer placerat lorem nec justo vulputate, pulvinar feugiat odio mattis. Nam nec libero interdum, finibus neque eu, dictum odio. Aliquam egestas nisl sit amet arcu mollis facilisis.[/JUSTIFY]

    [DIV style="line-height: 14px"]Vestibulum finibus ac felis vel fringilla. Sed et est congue, malesuada nibh ut, porta mi. Nam massa urna, bibendum a lectus a, finibus ullamcorper lorem. Curabitur condimentum ultrices pharetra. Quisque nibh est, faucibus nec mi eget, efficitur consectetur elit. Proin sed lorem eget nisi ultricies imperdiet. Cras semper lorem eu dui vestibulum, eu consequat lectus tincidunt. Suspendisse facilisis a lacus vitae tincidunt. Phasellus placerat, quam et vulputate dictum, lacus neque pellentesque magna, et interdum lorem nunc eget velit. Fusce pulvinar odio a nisi congue bibendum. Ut molestie semper nulla, nec tempus leo lacinia id. Aliquam porta mi eget convallis rhoncus. Curabitur feugiat condimentum ante, at sodales odio tempor sit amet. Integer placerat lorem nec justo vulputate, pulvinar feugiat odio mattis. Nam nec libero interdum, finibus neque eu, dictum odio. Aliquam egestas nisl sit amet arcu mollis facilisis.[/DIV]
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2016
  10. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    There is no such tag, as far as I know. But adding one would be easy.
     
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  11. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    How does it work in a wordprocessing programme? I have mine set up for an automatic indent after every 'return.' Can this be replicated on the forum, when MS samples are copied and pasted in? (An indent AND a line space together would be excellent on the forum.)
     
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  12. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Even doing this creates problems because the post editor here can't 'read' the formatting from a WP when we copy&paste, so we end up with crazy line-spacing when we post, all of which has to be corrected.

    I think it's best to remove all formatting from your MS before you copy&paste here, and then use any BCCodes @Komposten can bring us in the future.
     
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  13. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    The problem with that approach is italics. If you use italics, they get removed when you remove your formatting. Going back in and re-adding them is a pain. I can copy/paste stuff from my MS (Apple's Pages) into my email programme (BT Yahoo) and it retains things like italics, even font colours. So this isn't impossible. I hope they come up with a solution, because this is a writing forum, and people are going to need their formatting retained when the transfer stuff for critique. What about folks who write poetry? Some of that is very crucial when it comes to retaining formatting.
     
  14. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    Italics, bold, underline and strike-through are retained when you copy from a WP (tested with Word), other than that I think formatting is generally lost.
     
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  15. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Oh, dear. Well I copy/pasted from Pages (I don't use Word) when I entered stuff into the workshop, and I had to go through and manually restore everything. This doesn't happen with my email.
     
  16. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Try right-clicking to paste and see if you get a Paste Special option. That might retain the underlining, italics etc.

    The indent issue is a function of the forum software, I think. It's a common issue with forums.
     
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  17. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    If we could just have control over line-spacing that would be a big help.
     
  18. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I'll give that a try at some point.
     

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