Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Paragraph breaks in quotes.

EzzyB 🚫
Updated:

I know Laz and I recently went through something like this on the blog system (that he fixed nicely and quickly). This is quite the opposite, instead of adding lines, the forum seems to take one away when quoting.

Today I pasted in a quote from an interesting book I read. In the text there was the normal line break and paragraphs were spaced correctly.

The output, however, pressed the paragraphs together so that the next paragraph started on the next line without a break. It was easy to fix, I just edited the post and put another line in there, but I'd hope that wouldn't be needed.

Text came via a copy from the Calibre e-book viewer (Windows) if that helps. (Always there's a chance of GIGO)

Replies: Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@EzzyB

Today I pasted in a quote from an interesting book I read. In the text there was the normal line break and paragraphs were spaced correctly.

What you see in other applications may be misleading. There are many ways to show space between paragraphs. Some software use one return and set the style to big space after the break. Some software uses two returns and normal spacing between the paragraphs.

The text that you copied had one return between paragraphs. So when you pasted it, it showed no space.

There isn't much for me to fix.

Replies: Vincent Berg Ezzy

Vincent Berg 🚫
Updated:

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

The text that you copied had one return between paragraphs. So when you pasted it, it showed no space.

There isn't much for me to fix.

Typically, for most epigraphs (external quotes within stories), the lines are broken with a line-break (a "< br>" html) character.

However, according to Lazeez's posting guidelines, single linebreaks are ignored (i.e. they're interpreted as 'internal spacing' and aren't maintained inside SOL).

I resolve this by replacing the single line-breaks by making single lines (of parts of sentences) into full incomplete sentence paragraphs. (i.e. I'll make "on this fresh morning" a separate paragraph, rather than a separate line). However, I'd also alert the admin posting the story what you're doing when you do it, otherwise they'll never know. :(

Note: That seems incredibly confusing. For an example, check out my "Zombie Leza", chapter 13 to see how I deal with partial-line epigraphs.

Ezzy 🚫
Updated:

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

What you see in other applications may be misleading. There are many ways to show space between paragraphs. Some software use one return and set the style to big space after the break. Some software uses two returns and normal spacing between the paragraphs.

The text that you copied had one return between paragraphs. So when you pasted it, it showed no space.

There isn't much for me to fix.

I'll take your word for it. What I saw when I went back to edit was a br code between paragraphs, which I normally take for a paragraph break. No idea what the Calibre reader is using, nor what exactly it picks up on a cut-and-paste (seems to pick up only the single br obviously)

For the others, I was JUST referring to the forum here, not anything else on SOL.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

I believe there are three different system used on the site.

1. How you code for the inclusion of text and quotes within a story submission.

2. How you include a quote in the blog submission system.

3. How you include a quote in the forum system.

From my experiences they all handle cut and paste quotes slightly different. However, it's possible the issue you see may be more basic.

When you copy multiple lines of text from a web page it may have an End of Line character or a Carriage Return character or a Paragraph End character.

Quite often when you simply use the cut and paste to go from a web page into a text entry box like the blog text box or the forum text box you will often find it has the odd Carriage Return character which is like an 'L' lying on its back. Since it's a background format code character you don't see it, unless you paste that same text into a word processor. This character is a totally different command to that represented by the < br > or < p > commands. You most often see the Carriage Return symbol where the web page has been created using some other scripting code other than HTML. The issue is because the Carriage Return doesn't include a line feed command as part of its action.

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Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Paragraph breaks in quotes.

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