Forum Rules, Help, Tips, Contact Info

[Steve Herschbach]

Sorry I missed your post earlier. This forum always runs the latest version of Invision. That means we are currently on 4.5.4. You can see the latest version changes at https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/

BBCode is obsolete and being phased out. It seems like you are fighting the system, which has been moving away from BBCode in favor of direct editing. If you want bold, highlight the item and use the controls on your device keyboard (the bold key, etc.) that make things bold. This requires your device to have to appropriate keyboard options. The editor box also has built in controls, but they vary by device. The bigger the screen, the more controls that will appear. As you discovered, just paste the link... it’s live. Or format elsewhere, like in Word, and just paste it in. Best bet is to just use plain text.

Here is what I see on my small iPad. There are editing functions up top. My secret weapon in the Source Code button in upper left on most menus. This flips the editor to direct html mode where you can edit the source code directly. Use html, not BBCode. CKEditor is a WYSIWYG html editor, very similar to basic rich text format editing

Again, different devices will have different menus, and in general, the larger screen sizes offer the most editing functions directly in the menu. 

I’ve been planning an expanded help section with editing tips. Looks like time to get to work on that.

 

One last note. Some people try to get fancy with real large text, crazy colors, and lots of added space. Please consider what the threads look like on a small cell phone screen. What looks good on a PC screen can be horrible on the small screen. Very often I will edit posts of that sort back to plain text. Just saying, simple is best.

[PimentoUK]

I've looked at the release notes for V 4.5, released in September 2020, and it states:

"Deprecated:

BBCode parsing support - upgrading users will be asked during upgrade if they wish to retain BBCode parsing support."

That was when there were a lot of cosmetic changes, like the 'Edit Post' moving to a drop-down menu, and evidently you chose not to retain BB code support.

 

There's no sign of the 'switch to html' button when I post, no matter how many times I "ctrl&-"  to zoom out. Likewise, I can't get the 'subscript' and 'superscript' options which CKeditor's website implies are standard options.

I can't even work out how to change that line I pasted from Invisions website into blue text, so it's clear it's not my writing. I chose 'blue', then pasted the text and it pasted black. I tried deleting the first D of deprecated, changing to 'blue', typing D in the anticipation the rest would change to blue.. but it didn't, just the first D was blue, the rest stayed black. Sigh.

[PimentoUK]

Is this the icon that appears as <> and says 'code' when you hover over it? I get that one appear when I shrink things down once.

It's not the same icon as Steve marked in red, the piece of paper with 'source' next to it. It gives me a blank screen, though? Shouldn't it show my text etc?

I'll have to read up on that, and experiment.

Years ago, eBay listings had that feature, you could just tab between plain text and html, I used it to put urls of externally-hosted images in my listings. That was when you only got 1 small image for free. But eBay dropped the feature, as clumsy html would mess up the page. They enclosed it in an i-frame for a while, to isolate it from all the other garbage they splatter all over your listing, but it still didn't work. They're too greedy. When people look at my listing, I want them to see my listing, not thousands of links to other peoples items. eBay was OK 15 years ago, not now.

[Gold Seeker]

Too change the color of text, I always type the text, highlight it and then click on the color option from the tools.

Test, test, test

[Steve Herschbach]

On 12/7/2020 at 10:32 AM, PimentoUK said:

That was when there were a lot of cosmetic changes, like the 'Edit Post' moving to a drop-down menu, and evidently you chose not to retain BB code support.

I did not choose anything. I simply apply updates when they become available, and in this case the default was probably for BBCode to go away, but I am fine with that. Staying with obsolete stuff like BBCode may be easier for a few, but it will lead to increasing problems as time goes by. A forum owner has two choices. Lock in the software and fall back in time, ending up like some forums now that have serious issues. Or move forward with the times.

"BBCode is a legacy markup language that was originally designed to allow users to submit rich content prior to the advancement of WYSIWYG editors. BBCode support is deprecated and may be removed in a future release, and we recommend leaving this option disabled for greater performance and reliability if your community does not rely on BBCode parsing to format posts."

It is true now that I looked into it that the editor button options changed from where I had them, and it appears some people have access to the old version, and some the newer version. I just jiggered the toolbars.

There are three sizes I can set. The toolbar options are limited by space, and so there are small, medium, and large versions. Here are the current versions just set. I try to use the most common buttons, and things like superscripts are not used often enough for dedicated buttons on the smaller versions. The catch all is the source code buttons.

The <> button opens a dialog that lets you add code snippets. The <>Source button puts the editor in full html mode. Modify the code, then press the button again to toggle back to view mode. The <>Source button was custom, and got lost on the last update. I added it back to a couple versions.

Hopefully this helps. People still may have different versions until in caches until they clear.

[PimentoUK]

Oh, cool, I now have the missing 'source' button to toggle between plain text and html.

And if I shrink down the page once, the sub & superscript buttons appear... though not in the 'edit post' mode, I have to shrink twice to get them then ??

But with html editing available, I think I can sort out all the trickier things.

And Goldseeker's tip re: colours seems to work. Cut some text, paste it into the post as black. Then select it all, then choose a new colour, and the whole lot changes colour.

A little test:

Susceptibility = 250 x 10^-6 units (cgs)

Steve said: "I just jiggered the toolbars."

..which is OK in the privacy of your own home. HeHe.

Time to try and edit some of my non-functional posts then...

[PimentoUK]

Steve: The 'Source' function has gone again, as have the 'subscript' / 'superscript' options.
I've just tried to type some maths in one of my posts, and stalled when I couldn't find how to type 'Q - squared' , even after shrinking down the screen size twice.
Any thoughts?

[PimentoUK]

To follow up:

Steve and I have conversed via PM about this.

To summarise:

The 'subscript' and 'superscript' options are no longer on the top menu. While there are keyboard shortcuts for italic ( 'ctrl+i' ), underline ( 'ctrl+u' ), bold ( 'ctrl+b' ) , there are no such shortcuts for subscript/superscript, so that workaround is not an option.

The 'Source' button is still present on the top menu. It's just my PC that doesn't show it, regardless of level of zoom in/out. Again, no keyboard shortcut exists for this function, because it's an editor plug-in, rather than a basic function.

 

 

[Palmer]

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