Upgrades

Check, check 1.

"Your comment submisson failed for the following reasons: Invalid request"

I'm seeing an interesting "update" button that appears between the comment count and "leave a comment" , but it disappears just before the whole page finishes rendering.

Firefox 3.01
WinXP SP2

fresh cache

possible clash: Noscript 1.8.0.2

Hey, that one went through when I disabled "redirect remover" actually. That usually doesn't apply to submission buttons. It shouldn't.

And now the update button is below my comment, presumably below the entire thread? That's a nifty lil thing.

Testing. New paragraph. Another new paragraph. Comment submission or preview failed: Invalid format detected. Please review the following corrections that have been made to your comment. Note: Apparently blank lines are not being converted to paragraphs.

Mike Elzinga said: Testing. New paragraph. Another new paragraph. Comment submission or preview failed: Invalid format detected. Please review the following corrections that have been made to your comment. Note: Apparently blank lines are not being converted to paragraphs.

Dale Husband said:

Mike Elzinga said: Testing. New paragraph. Another new paragraph. Comment submission or preview failed: Invalid format detected. Please review the following corrections that have been made to your comment. Note: Apparently blank lines are not being converted to paragraphs.

Testing! You have to hit Preview twice and then the Submit button. Every time!

The update button has been there for a while.

Test newlines

Newlines work here, with Firefox 3 on Windows vista.

What browser, version, and OS are you using?

As I explained when we were testing this out on my blog, validation is completely dependent on your browser. The comment is not sent to PT until it is validated.

Therefore, when reporting bugs I need to know what you are running.

This is the expected behavior:

A well-formed comment should go through fine, either with preview or a direct submission.

A comment that doesn't obey XHTML semantics will cause your browser to stop the preview/submission. Your browser will tidy the comment and report the differences between your original comment and the tidy, so you can adjust the tidy if necessary. You should then be able to submit it.

If you are being told that valid comments are invalid, please give me all the details possible on what you are trying to do.

Aerik said: Hey, that one went through when I disabled "redirect remover" actually. That usually doesn't apply to submission buttons. It shouldn't. And now the update button is below my comment, presumably below the entire thread? That's a nifty lil thing.

I just realized that I left out the "Check Spelling" feature during the upgrade. It is now in the templates, and will appear on the pages as they are rebuilt/commented on. I'll run another full site rebuild next weekend.

Well, let's check this thing.

And Aerik, I had much the same problem previously (because I had downgraded NoScript's whack-a-script messages).

Bad XHMTL: bold italics

... it works like a beaut!

Reed, seeing how much (excellent) work you put into this, isn't it time to cut the site's spell checker? Dunno about other browsers, but Firefox provides (real time) checking.

Btw, it may even have an XHMTL checker plugin, for all I know. (Quick browsing shows at least one HTML checker, but on whole page basis I think.) This integrated one may offer better functionality though.

[Alas, as I'm a non-user my opinion isn't carrying much weight. Perhaps the site's checker is larger, and correct, on biology. I have to train mine, and with a non-biologist at the keys I have a lousy 'expert' on the job...]

On upgrades: any thought on going to a registration
requirement for posting? It is normal for forums and
does a lot to slow down malicious posters (who have
to register with a new email every time they get run out)
while being little problem for legitimate posters (who
only have to do it once).

White Rabbit (Greg Goebel) http://www.vectorsite.net/gblog.html

Just a test, disregard. GVG

If your comment is not properly formed, changes will be made to it

What if the logic in my comment isn't properly formed? Can you make me seem smart? Please?

I noticed in posting a comment just now in another thread that your handy-dandy parser called me on putting two spaces following a period (full stop). Rather than argue, I let it have its way, knowing I could comment on it here. I know that HTML seems to like removing what it considers to be extraneous spaces, but wikipedia seems to think that two spaces is the appropriate method: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_stop I happen to agree, if for no other reason than for clarity, which is something we should strive for in writing. Just my too sense (how about that for weird grammar? Let's see what your parser does with it shall we?!)

Naked Bunny with a Whip said: If your comment is not properly formed, changes will be made to it What if the logic in my comment isn't properly formed? Can you make me seem smart? Please?

Paul Burnett said:

Naked Bunny with a Whip said: If your comment is not properly formed, changes will be made to it What if the logic in my comment isn't properly formed? Can you make me seem smart? Please?

Or if you sign in with a name like, say, "jobby," could it convert snarky comments into Considerate Christian(TM) comments?

Paul Burnett said:

Naked Bunny with a Whip said: If your comment is not properly formed, changes will be made to it What if the logic in my comment isn't properly formed? Can you make me seem smart? Please?

Or if you sign in with a name like, say, "jobby," could it convert snarky comments into Considerate Christian(TM) comments?

Ban the boob.

David Stanton said: Ban the boob.

Did anyone notice that someone made the biggest policy change of their administration without hardly a comment from the media. See: Timetable for withdrawal.

On my browser, Firefox 3 / Vista, double spaces don't cause a problem for the validator. What browser are you using?

However, using two spaces, which is appropriate for writing, is not going to show up any differently than one space on the website.

sentence one. sentence two. sentence three.

paragraph two.

Therefore, when reporting bugs I need to know what you are running.

Ian said: two spaces following a period (full stop)

I've confirmed the problem with IE, and I think I know where it is. I'll work on a solution later this afternoon.

Torbjörn Larsson, OM said: I wish to report a downgrade: the main page no longer shows which thread "Recent Comments" belongs to.

I've never heard of double spacing or full stops before, and the short Wikipedia example seemed harder to read due to uneven word spacing. Punctuation is, after all, contextual and not necessarily noticed at high reading speeds.

But the Wikipedia article referred to some empirical research or surveys (didn't check) that presumably indicates it is helpful for readers. Unfortunately the software industry doesn't acknowledge this.

Test:

Why are you using target="_blank" tags in your comments? They are not supported and get stripped by KwickXML.

They always seemed to worked before, and I use them out of habit.

I've fixed two reported problems in IE. (Tested with 7).

IE still does some really odd things with tags.

Wheels said: They always seemed to worked before, and I use them out of habit.

Alright, well, I knew the comments were formatted with some form of XMLese, I just didn't know about Transitional stuff. Although I guess I should have checked out De Rerum Natura a few months back to learn that. :) Still puzzled about the recommended rearrangement of it instead inside the tag, though.

D'oh well, that's what feedback is for. Now I know not to type out those attributes only to have them ignored.

Validation is accomplished by getting the browser to parse your comment into an html tree object via DOM. The parsed tree is then read back into a string and the strings are compared. If your browser is swapping tags around, there is not much I can do, except add a force validation feature.

I’m using Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.11, Windows XP, Service Pack 3.

— Mike Elzinga

It looks like IE, unlike Firefox, does not preserve tags it doesn't understand. Where were all you people when we were testing this out?

I changed a few lines, and stopped using the browser's default parsing algorithm because IE sucks big time.

Did I mention how much I hate IE?

Reed A. Cartwright said: I changed a few lines, and stopped using the browser's default parsing algorithm because IE sucks big time. Did I mention how much I hate IE?

Testing;

— Mike Elzinga

Reed A. Cartwright said: I changed a few lines, and stopped using the browser's default parsing algorithm because IE sucks big time. Did I mention how much I hate IE?

Frank J said:

Testing;

— Mike Elzinga

Also testing. Sorry, the link is not to Ray's paper.

Did you try a hard refresh (Ctrl-R)? "Quote" tags to work of me in IE 7 on vista.

Reed A. Cartwright said: Did you try a hard refresh (Ctrl-R)? "Quote" tags to work of me in IE 7 on vista.

Can you email me the comment that you are trying to use? (See the contact us button at the top right.)

Reed A. Cartwright said: Can you email me the comment that you are trying to use? (See the contact us button at the top right.)

test

test

Well, maybe this is quicker. The Contact Us button doesn't put in a recognizable address.

I'll replace the angle brackets with curly brackets.

{blockquote author = "Mike"}This is a blockquote.{/blockquote}

{quote author = "Mike"}This is a quote.{/quote}

Maybe it doesn't like my name. :-)

You must not be running Internet Explorer. Your quote tag worked. Mine didn’t.

I fixed the email address. Now to your comment.

I can confirm that it breaks the script on both IE and Firefox.

However if I use author="Mike" instead of author = "Mike" it works.

I'll look at one of the libraries I'm using to see where that error is occurring.

Test quote

Test blockquote

Reed A. Cartwright said: I fixed the email address. Now to your comment. I can confirm that it breaks the script on both IE and Firefox. However if I use author="Mike" instead of author = "Mike" it works. I'll look at one of the libraries I'm using to see where that error is occurring.

Yes. I've identified the problem and can fix it, but I haven't yet.

Reed A. Cartwright said: Yes. I've identified the problem and can fix it, but I haven't yet.

Frank J said:

You must not be running Internet Explorer. Your quote tag worked. Mine didn’t.

It says "Upgrades - The Panda's Thumb - Windows Internet Explorer" on the top bar (title bar?). That plus the fact that I click on the IE icon to get to the Internet tells me (correctly?) that I am running IE. Beyond that my understanding of computers drops off faster than the understanding of evolution by a YEC who flunked biology.

I've uploaded a modified version of one of the Javascript libraries that I'm using. I made it handle malformed text better, and improved its detection of attributes.

Reed -

I'm usually using Microsoft's (Ian spits) IE. Current version is 6.0. I have to use this at work. At home I use Firefox. (Here comes a paragraph...)

Im my first comment, I also paragraphed and dropped down a line right after the wikipedia URL, but the parser seems to have attached the second para right onto the end of the first!

Well that one worked fine! Note that the spelling errors ('Im' instead of 'In' are all my own!

(testing from a different computer)

The irony is that I got an A in the only computer course I ever took. That was Drexel U., 1972. I may have passed by Michael Behe once or twice while taking my punch cards to the reader in a different building.

No replies since 7 this morning? Is something broke, or is everybody just busy elsewhere?

Well, that posted, so it must be the second hypothesis.

testing

testing again

I have something interesting for you Henry!

http://www.opposingviews.com/

Were We Created By Design?
Discovery Institute
vs.
National Center for Science Education
(About 4 tabs down)

Stacy

Oops! I forgot to mention that there is a poll there.

"Does Intelligent Design have merit?"

You need to hire some 'creationists' to help you with your site. You seem to be over your head.

Why is PT silent while Palin and the creationists are getting away with murder claiming that she didn't "really push" creationism in Alaska, as though she had to do something other than voice support for it? FactCheck has decided, for no readily apparent reason, that since Palin didn't do something that remains undefined (demand a law, teach a biology class, donate textbooks, who knows) she didn't "really" support teaching creationism. All the newspapers are dutifully repeating their conclusion. There's something fishy going on since any moron would realize that all the chief executive has to do is voice support, which she has done many times. What the hell is going on?

PT is connected to a non-profit. We have to be careful when dealing with news about political candidates so as not to hurt that non-profit. We're working on something, but have opted to wait to see if new information gets revealed.

PT is connected to a non-profit. We have to be careful when dealing with news about political candidates so as not to hurt that non-profit.

This is nuts. Any NCSE affiliated email list is also muzzled. With "teach the controversy" turning into a widely accepted political compromise PT is going to have to be able to discuss political candidates.

I am not computer saive at all, so all this talk is way over my head. However, for some guy ( or girl) to post a comment about PT having trouble is absurd. He (or she) must be jealous of all the expertise shown on ths site.

I didn't say that we had to say silent. I'm just saying that we are tying to be careful about when/how we mention candidates stances on education.

Lots of our crew members talk politics on their personal blogs that are not affiliated with us. Keep up with them, and you will be well served.

So what's the verdict on the new validation feature?

Reed A. Cartwright asked:

"So what’s the verdict on the new validation feature?"

I'm finding now, whenever I try to either Preview or Submit, if there are tags of any kind, it gets me to a white screen on which the stuff is printed, but there are no instructions on where to go from there.

This is also the case with the tags that are automatically placed in the comment to which I am replying.

If I back up and hit Submit, I am sent to the same screen. No instructions or buttons to Submit or Preview.
I have to remove all tags in order to Preview or Submit.

Otherwise nothing Posts or Previews.

Mike Elzinga said: I'm finding now, whenever I try to either Preview or Submit, if there are tags of any kind, it gets me to a white screen on which the stuff is printed, but there are no instructions on where to go from there. This is also the case with the tags that are automatically placed in the comment to which I am replying. If I back up and hit Submit, I am sent to the same screen. No instructions or buttons to Submit or Preview. I have to remove all tags in order to Preview or Submit. Otherwise nothing Posts or Previews.

Link

Mike Elzinga said: I'm finding now, whenever I try to either Preview or Submit, if there are tags of any kind, it gets me to a white screen on which the stuff is printed, but there are no instructions on where to go from there.

Wheels said: By the way, any preference about using 'a' instead of 'url'?

Here is a quote tag with spaces around the attributes equal sign.

— Mike

Here is a quote without spaces around the attributes equal sign.

— Mike

Here is a blockquote with spaces around the attributes equal sign.

Here is a blockquote without spaces around the attributes equal sign.

If you have autoquotes turned on in Word, then it will replace straight quotes with curly quotes. It is not possible to define attributes using curly quotes. Use a normal text editor instead of Word.

Reed A. Cartwright said: If you have autoquotes turned on in Word, then it will replace straight quotes with curly quotes. It is not possible to define attributes using curly quotes. Use a normal text editor instead of Word.

This is a quote tag, no spaces around the atributes equal sign.

— Mike

This is a blockquote tag, no spaces around the attributes equal sign.

test

test #2

Testing...

1

2

3

Also, do you kill the [cite] tag in blockquotes? Test.

what is cocomment?

What cite tag?

A Stumble for your efforts :)