Link button causing Explorer to freeze

[Arcadia]

Tim, has there been a revision to the software? I was trying to link to another page of the forum in one of my posts and a different than usual dialog box appeared. I entered the URL I was trying to link to, hit OK, and the screen froze, both times I tried. The only way I could get rid of the dialog box was to refresh the page.

 

Has anyone else run into this problem? I'm going to experiment with a few more things and see if anything else crops up.

 

Oh, and I'm on a different computer than usual, it's running Windows 8.1 ... hmmmm. When I get a chance I'll try the same thing on my poor old beat up Vista machine.

[Arcadia]

Also, the multi-quote function is not, er, functioning. Just get an empty reply box. "Quote" works as usual, though.

[Arcadia]

Let's see if the spoiler button works ....   NOPE. That's not working either, but at least it doesn't freeze up the screen.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Well, at least you can always type in the spoiler code yourself:

 

 

[spoiler] Whatever you want to hide [/spoiler]

 

I'll see whether I'm having the same problems here.  Be right back.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Testing the link function.

 

Added: Seems to work as usual for me.  (The link itself even works correctly -- goes to your first post above.)

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Tim, has there been a revision to the software? I was trying to link to another page of the forum in one of my posts and a different than usual dialog box appeared. I entered the URL I was trying to link to, hit OK, and the screen froze, both times I tried. The only way I could get rid of the dialog box was to refresh the page.

 

Has anyone else run into this problem? I'm going to experiment with a few more things and see if anything else crops up.

 

Oh, and I'm on a different computer than usual, it's running Windows 8.1 ... hmmmm. When I get a chance I'll try the same thing on my poor old beat up Vista machine.

 

Also, the multi-quote function is not, er, functioning. Just get an empty reply box. "Quote" works as usual, though.

 

Let's see if the spoiler button works ....   NOPE. That's not working either, but at least it doesn't freeze up the screen.

 

And MultiQuote seems to work for me.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Now gotta find the spoiler button (I usually just type in the code).  OK, that one.

 

 

Here's what I want to hide.

 

 

And back again in the open.

 

Added:  Yup, that works as usual here.

 

 

 

Well, looks like at least part of the problem is on your computer, so let's try some basic troubleshooting:  Is it plugged in?  :P

 

Did the forum ever work on this system?  Have you tried rebooting the system?  If there's more than one browser on the system, have you tried a different one?

 

[Arcadia]

And MultiQuote seems to work for me.

 

Well, looks like at least part of the problem is on your computer, so let's try some basic troubleshooting:  Is it plugged in?  :P

 

Did the forum ever work on this system?  Have you tried rebooting the system?  If there's more than one browser on the system, have you tried a different one?

Okay, back on my old computer, and obviously multiquote is working fine, the spoiler button

I'm not spoiled!

is working fine, the link button not only is working fine but it now looks the same as it always did ... so yeah, the other computer is to blame.

 

To answer your questions:

 

Plug? What's a plug?

 

It was just given to me (early Christmas gift) so I don't know.

 

Not yet. It's been sent to the corner for a couple hours to think about its misdeeds.

 

When I get time I'll download Firefox and see if that works.

 

Questions of my own: is this why I've seen so many bad reviews of Windows 8? And will my life get even worse if I accept the free upgrade to 10?

[Carol the Dabbler]

... is this why I've seen so many bad reviews of Windows 8? And will my life get even worse if I accept the free upgrade to 10?

Don't ask me -- we're still using XP and Windows 7!  I would definitely try Firefox, though.  We've had trouble on here before with Explorer.

 

[Arcadia]

Awakened the truant, nothing's changed ... I suspect more things don't work but haven't the time to find out right now. But here's the dialog box I see when I try to make a link: 
 
Or not. Apparently I can't copy and paste a link either! But I can try typing it:

Yep, that's it. Now why would a dialog box look different depending on what operating system and/or browser you're using?

Explorer generally is easier for me to use on this forum than Firefox; the latter has no word wrap, making editing in plain text a real headache. To be honest, I was perfectly happy with good ol' Windows 3.1; it did everything I needed it to do....

And now that I've said that, I see that the formatting is working differently in this version ... my old laptop automatically puts a space before and after an image, this one doesn't. And the word wrap is wrapping, but right in the middle of words ... weird!!!!

[Carol the Dabbler]

Somethin' ain't right -- what would an email address have to do with creating a link?

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I've been having the same problem with my input not wrapping when I'm in plain text mode -- but it used to go automatically to the next line when I hit the end of the input box, before we updated to the current rev of Firefox.  I'm thinking there may be a setting somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it, so I have queried Mozilla Support.

 

[Arcadia]

Somethin' ain't right -- what would an email address have to do with creating a link?

 

Beats me ... unless you were trying to link to an email address, of course. :P

 

What puzzles me is why I'm getting this dialog box at all, instead of our old familiar.

 

Re: word wrap ... when I first installed Firefox, I tried to find out if there was anything I could do about the word wrap, and there is a fix; but it required more technical know-how than I have, or have time to acquire. So I just try to deal with it, but it's a pain.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Wrap used to work for me on Firefox, right up till our recent update.  Of course, that could be a coincidence -- or it could be an incompatibility thing.
 
I've had a brief conversation with Mozilla Support, which I thought I was starting to understand, but then immediately lost my way.  I will post the entire thing here in hopes that it will make sense to Tim, and that it will be of help to him in case it's a forum issue.  (I still have no idea whether it is or not.)
 

Before we installed the latest version of Firefox, I could type into a web page's input box (e.g., when posting to a forum) in plain text mode (as opposed to WYSIWYG), and when I got to the right-hand side of the box, my input would automatically start a new line. This no longer happens. My input gets to the right-hand side of the box and just keeps going in one long line, so that what I've already typed gradually scrolls off the left side of the box, and I can no longer see it.
 
I find plain text mode very helpful for some editing, but without the ability to see the whole paragraph at once, its usefulness is greatly diminished. I've tried seeing if there was a setting I could change, but if there is, I haven't yet found it. Please help!

 

Hi Carol, did you have that problem when filling out the form to submit your question on this site, or is the problem limited to particular sites? It may be difficult to investigate on forums where a login is needed to even type into the editing box, but if you indicate which site it is, perhaps someone can take a look.

 

No, I did not have that problem when filling out the help form, but I don't recall my input looking like plain text (i.e., it was in a sans serif font, not Times New Roman).
 
Specifically, I have noticed this when typing in a new post on Sherlock Forum (www.sherlockforum.com). If I'm in WYSIWYG mode, the editor works fine, but in plain text mode, the line just keeps going. Before downloading the latest rev of Firefox, it would do the automatic new-line.
 
I cannot offhand say whether this happens on other sites as well, since I can't offhand think of any others that give one the choice between plain text and WYSIWYG modes.

 

Hmm, IP.Board, that has several versions.
 
I noticed you are a moderator on that forum, so maybe I can ask you to check something. After switching over to plain text and typing something, could you right-click your text and use Inspect Element (Q) to open the Inspector. Firefox should display an HTML "tree" diagram in the lower part of the tab with that editing element selected. What kind of element is it? For example:

• textarea - by default, textarea controls wrap, but the site may be applying a custom style rule; you can view style rules for the control on the right side of the Inspector

• pre - by default, Firefox does NOT wrap text in a pre element, but this started a few versions ago and isn't new to Firefox 42

• other element - what do you see? if it's a span or formatting tab or something else nonstructural, could you look a level or two "up" in the HTML tree to see what is containing the text?

If I'm interpreting things correctly, it's a textarea, but I'm not at all experienced in this sort of thing, so I'm attaching a screenshot for your perusal.

I've tried scrolling down in that lower-right area, and see lots of stuff, none of which seems to say anything about "wrap" -- so I've attached a second screenshot with that area expanded.
 
Hopefully that'll show everything you need!

 Note: Tim, I have those files saved.  If you'd like to see them, I'll upload them to PhotoBucket and post them.
 

I see it, at the very bottom of the first screen shot, the rule:

white-space: pre;

In Firefox, white-space: pre does not wrap. If you want text to wrap you need to use white-space: pre-wrap (as the name implies).
This problem first emerged in Firefox 36 and was fixed in CKEditor 4.4.8 released July 1, 2015 (see https://dev.ckeditor.com/ticket/13031 and http://ckeditor.com/release/CKEditor-4.4.8), but if you are using a version of CKEditor bundled with with IP.Board, you might still have an older version.

 

Sorry, you lost me there. (I should mention that I'm merely a Mod on Sherlock Forum, not an Admin. I don't have access below BBCode level.)

Your first paragraph sounds to me like the forum software is set up so as to not wrap -- i.e., there is no problem, it's simply the way things are set up to behave.
 
But then your second paragraph refers to "this problem." Could you explain what problem you're referring to? And is it in the forum/editor software or in my version of Firefox -- or some sort of compatibility thing? Thanks!

 

You can test this in the Web Console (Firefox menu button or Tools > Web Developer) by pasting this JavaScript code in the command line. Note that you may first have to type some text to enable pasting.

document.querySelector("textarea").style.setProperty("white-space","pre-wrap","important");
If there is more then one textarea then this simple code may not work.

• https://developer.mozilla.org/Tools/Web_Console

This version can be used as a bookmarklet: javascript:void(document.querySelector("textarea").style.setProperty("white-space","pre-wrap","important"));

 

 

Now you've *really* lost me!

I will pass all of these replies along to the forum administrator, in hopes that he can make use of them.
 
Thank you.

Added: Then I heard from jscher2000 again:
 

Before Firefox 36, "pre" and "pre-wrap" both wrapped lines to stay within the available width. Firefox 36 and later no long wrap lines for "pre" only for "pre-wrap". This is an issue with the site in Firefox 36 and later, not any individual user's Firefox.

The CKEditor style rules were fixed (by changing pre to pre-wrap) so that update should eventually reach the forum, but from what I can see, it has not yet done so. I don't know whether the change will come in an updated to IP.Board, or whether the administrator wants to get it directly from CKEditor, or wants to "hack" the style sheet directly.

So Tim, this is apparently now a forum-software issue (since Firefox has washed its hands of the responsibility), though I have no idea whether you have any control over this sort of thing.  I have thanked jscher2000 for clarifying that (but the forum won't let me add an eleventh quote box).

 

[Arcadia]

I will also note that copy and paste has stopped working for me in the forum. At first I thought it was just that I couldn't copy and paste from another website or file, but nope, I can't even copy and paste from somewhere on this forum, not even, say, the post just above this one.  Heck, I can't even copy/paste my own text that I am currently writing. I can, however, copy/paste from this forum into, eg, Notepad.

 

Again, this is in Windows 8 (and whatever version of Explorer is installed, I still haven't figured out how to figure that out...) Vista's still working fine, so clearly it's some sort of compatibility issue. Gah, how I hate upgrades.....

[Van Buren Supernova]

Not sure if it helps,..

My laptop is using Windows 8, and there is no problem although I don't think I use it enough for this forum to be sure. But so far so good.

However, I keep rejecting 8.1 upgrade as I heard it's problematic.

 

Yes agree, Microsoft likes to fix what is not broken, Windows 98 is still the best for me.

 

Just for sharing, I have some editing problem with full version in mobile (like what we had established), the newest one I found was inability to edit.

So in editing box, nothing is shown, that way I can't do anything to 'repair' my post.

It was the same after restarting, but recover after I gave up and left it overnight.

 

So, conclusion...ermm... the machines are out to get us...!

[Carol the Dabbler]

 

 

I can't even copy/paste my own text that I am currently writing.

 

That was a copy-and-paste with manual BBCode, so it's still working for me, though not for you.

 

 

 

Gah, how I hate upgrades.....

 

That makes two of us!

 

 

 

Yes agree, Microsoft likes to fix what is not broken, Windows 98 is still the best for me.

 

*sigh*  I remember Windows 98.  It was very nice.  It worked.

 

 

 

I have some editing problem with full version in mobile (like what we had established), the newest one I found was inability to edit.
So in editing box, nothing is shown, that way I can't do anything to 'repair' my post.
It was the same after restarting, but recover after I gave up and left it overnight.

 

Since the full version is not really supposed to work on mobile phones, the only surprising thing about all of that is that it sometimes *does* work.

 

 

 

So, conclusion...ermm... the machines are out to get us...!

 

I'm willing to believe that.

 

But I suspect the actual reason is far more prosaic.  Computers nowadays have tons of software installed.  Even a really basic system has far more software on it than would have been considered even possible only a few years ago.  On top of that, there's a new version of everything about every five minutes.  This means that programmers simply cannot take the time to turn out finely crafted pieces of work like we tried to do back a few years (and even then, there were always bugs).  They have to rush, to get the new rev on the market in time to beat the competition.  Frankly, it's a wonder that anything works at all!

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I have added this new Mozilla Support reply to my lengthy post above, but am repeating it here for anyone who's already read that post without the addendum.
 
 
Added: Then I heard from jscher2000 again:
 

Before Firefox 36, "pre" and "pre-wrap" both wrapped lines to stay within the available width. Firefox 36 and later no long wrap lines for "pre" only for "pre-wrap". This is an issue with the site in Firefox 36 and later, not any individual user's Firefox.

The CKEditor style rules were fixed (by changing pre to pre-wrap) so that update should eventually reach the forum, but from what I can see, it has not yet done so. I don't know whether the change will come in an updated to IP.Board, or whether the administrator wants to get it directly from CKEditor, or wants to "hack" the style sheet directly.

So Tim, this is apparently now a forum-software issue (since Firefox has washed its hands of the responsibility) -- though I have no idea whether you have any control over this sort of thing.  I have thanked jscher2000 for clarifying that (but the forum won't let me add an eleventh quote box).

[Arcadia]

XP was nice too. It's still running on another very old laptop that I have ... that machine is sound as a bell ... on the inside. The exterior is literally falling to pieces, as is it's successor, which is why I'm now on this brand new one. It's very pretty on the outside, but ..... arrrrgh!

 

At any rate, this copy/paste stuff is apparently a common issue with 8. I've seen some suggestions in forums but they're too advanced for me, and anyway I suspect they won't solve the problem I'm having. My gut instinct tells me it's an issue between Win8 and the forum software specifically -- because cut and pastes works in Facebook. Sigh.

[Carol the Dabbler]

... this copy/paste stuff is apparently a common issue with 8.

 

Thanks for the warning!  :(  Hopefully they'll get that fixed in 8-point-something.

[Arcadia]

... this copy/paste stuff is apparently a common issue with 8.

 

Thanks for the warning!  :(  Hopefully they'll get that fixed in 8-point-something.

 

Maybe that's why they're offering the free upgrade to 10. I haven't accepted yet, but I already hate 8 enough that I suppose I will, someday.

 

First, however, I have to figure out how to get my old programs onto the new laptop, as it doesn't come with an optical drive -- but it does come with a recovery disk. ??????

[Carol the Dabbler]

You say it doesn't have an optical drive.  Does it have a floppy drive, then?  ;)

 

I take it the recovery disk is a CD?  Or it could be a flash drive, which doesn't require any built-in drive on the computer....

 

[Arcadia]

Oh, and Win8 won't let me access the emoticons pop up box either.  Good thing I've memorized a few ......

[Carol the Dabbler]

Dang, I'm going to have to switch computers, this one won't let me do multi-quote. I love multi-quote! Give me some, I need it!

 

What happens when you try to use it?

[Arcadia]

Nothing at all. Well, the screen jumps down to the reply box, but nothing's in it.

 

But the "Quote" button works.