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Be Aware of Irregularly Formatted Long Poems for Front Page Posts

Raymond Huffman

Raymond Huffman

Administrator
Editor
After working as an editor for awhile I have identified an issue with the software we use to create Front Page posts. It does not handle irregularly formatted poems well. By that, I mean poems with lots of indentation, or other non-traditional formats do not always copy into the FP editor software in their original format.

I have figured out how to manage most of those situations, though, by using a screen shot of the poem. This is an added step in the FP creation process, but it can be done.

In some cases, however, if your irregularly formatted poem is too long, it is not possible to take a single screen shot of the entire poem. Then, this requires taking more than one screen shot and somehow managing to align the multiple screen shots in the FP editor so that they look right. This is very tedious to do, and honestly often not worth the effort. Another way this can be corrected is by the editor manually adding (in the FP Editor sofware) the "indents" using the space bar or adding italics, etc, but in some cases of long complex poems, this is a little tedious and may not always perfectly reproduce the original format.

Basically, if you use "irregular" formatting in your poem (such as indenting, centering, etc- or even special characters or effects, such as italics), and if the poem is longer than a single viewable page on the computer screen, it may not be able to be posted on the Front Page in its original format. Thank you for your consideration of this. Ray
 
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One method I've found that helps is to copy the entire text to a blank Windows Text file.
This removes all the formatting a person has used to create the visual layout of their poem, including indents and line spacing.

Then, instead of using the Indent function, which often doesn't work, I use the simple expedient of placing however many ...'s are needed to place a line of the poem in the correct place, then I simply colour the ...'s white to match the background of the FP text area.

Effectively, the ...'s are still there, but for the purposes of the visual presentation, no one sees them.
This is a good mechanic to circumvent the problems we sometimes have with the FP Editor.
 
Jenn Zed said:
One method I've found that helps is to copy the entire text to a blank Windows Text file.
This removes all the formatting a person has used to create the visual layout of their poem, including indents and line spacing.

Then, instead of using the Indent function, which often doesn't work, I use the simple expedient of placing however many ...'s are needed to place a line of the poem in the correct place, then I simply colour the ...'s white to match the background of the FP text area.

Effectively, the ...'s are still there, but for the purposes of the visual presentation, no one sees them.
This is a good mechanic to circumvent the problems we sometimes have with the FP Editor.
Click to expand...
Thanks Jenn, That's interesting. I would never have thought of that. But wow - that's quite a bit of work, especially for very long poems. Actually, you can add the "..." directly into the FP Editor after you copy the poem there. I did that with a couple of poems. It's tedious too because you have match it with poem. I prefer the screen shot - if the poem is short enough. That's a pretty quick fix. Except one case I'm trying to figure out is one Nathalie's poems where she uses too small of a font size. A screen shot would have to be resized, which would pixelate it. I was just getting ready to try it though.
 
Raymond Huffman said:
Thanks Jenn, That's interesting. I would never have thought of that. But wow - that's quite a bit of work, especially for very long poems. Actually, you can add the "..." directly into the FP Editor after you copy the poem there. I did that with a couple of poems. It's tedious too because you have match it with poem. I prefer the screen shot - if the poem is short enough. That's a pretty quick fix. Except one case I'm trying to figure out is one Nathalie's poems where she uses too small of a font size. A screen shot would have to be resized, which would pixelate it. I was just getting ready to try it though.
Click to expand...


Yep, it is the longer way around the problem, but it does work.

The first step is removing all the formatting that is inherently embedded in the copy-and-paste function, that does really help to solve a lot of the basic problems with things like indents and line spacing.
It is some work, and more so when you're trying to find the exact position, which can shift even between the Editor and the Preview.

Yeh, taking a screenshot and using that as an image in the FP post is a good idea, for the shorter poems for sure.
I may have to try that :)

It's something I used to have to face when copying formatted text from one program to another, back when I was working .. as even basic Word Processing programs, like say from WordPerfect (Corel) to Word (Microsoft) use different programming languages and don't always translate basic text formatting in the same way.
So, my quick/slow fix was to remove all the formatting using a Text file, then put it all back in after .. and yep, that usually was the longest part of the process.


Raymond Huffman said:
Actually, you can add the "..." directly into the FP Editor after you copy the poem there.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's what I do .. I manually add the right amount of ...'s into the start of the line of text until it is in the right indented position.
 
Jenn Zed said:
Yep, it is the longer way around the problem, but it does work.

The first step is removing all the formatting that is inherently embedded in the copy-and-paste frunction, that does really help to solve a lot of the basic problems with things like indents and line spacing.
It is some work, and more so when you're trying to find the exact position, which can shift even between the Editor and the Preview.

Yeh, taking a screenshot and using that as an image in the FP post is a good idea, for the shorter poems for sure.
I may have to try that :)
Click to expand...
I would be interested to know the actual technical reason for this problem. That might help us solve it easier. I don't think Jay knows why. I did one long poem with the screen shot method one time. It took 3 screen shots and was so difficult to align the 3 images in the final piece that I said I would never try that again - and only do it if I can get away with only 1 screen shot. But I made it work. And to be honest, I usually don't understand why such formatting is needed in most poems anyway. For me the language should be dominant. The tricky formatting just borders on gimmicky. But that's me... :)
 
Raymond Huffman said:
I would be interested to know the actual technical reason for this problem. That might help us solve it easier. I don't think Jay knows why.
Click to expand...

It is a 'language' translation problem, no doubt.

Even though the Forum and the website, as a whole, use the same software and, therefore the same 'language', the Editor is different.

The Forum uses software called Xenforo, and the Editor is built by WordPress .. therein lies the occasional problems with 'translating' formatted data from one platform to another.

Xenforo is built on the PHP programming language.

WordPress uses multiple programming languages - PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript.


Raymond Huffman said:
I did one long poem with the screen shot method one time. It took 3 screen shots and was so difficult to align the 3 images in the final piece that I said I would never try that again - and only do it if I can get away with only 1 screen shot. But I made it work. And to be honest, I usually don't understand why such formatting is needed in most poems anyway. For me the language should be dominant. The tricky formatting just borders on gimmicky. But that's me... :)
Click to expand...

Yeh, I did think of the multiple screenshot approach to longer poems too, but every screenshot would have to be exactly the same dimensions for absolute accuracy.

.. and well, I have been known to use a few indents here and there in my poetry, I honestly don't mind re-formatting the text in the Editor, it does take a bit longer, but I feel I've solved the problem and got the thing to look good :)
 
Jenn Zed said:
Ok, finished editing my reply, lol ..
Click to expand...
Wow. I'm impressed. You have computer programming background. I do too but it's very old and goes back to Fortran. That is interesting. Thanks. Is there anything you don't know? :D I will usually make it all work if I think the poem is worth it. I just did that with the "problem" Nathalie poem....sort of. It's not perfect, but as perfect as it gets here.
 
Raymond Huffman said:
Wow. I'm impressed. You have computer programming background. I do too but it's very old and goes back to Fortran. That is interesting. Thanks. Is there anything you don't know? :D I will usually make it all work if I think the poem is worth it. I just did that with the "problem" Nathalie poem....sort of. It's not perfect, but as perfect as it gets here.
Click to expand...

Hah, no .. I have no coding background, but I am aware of these things, and I do know that problems happen when getting one language to speak to another, so, people prefer the surface of things to all seem the same .. underneath is another matter entirely!

I have a few techy friends who can code, and we've spoken about why different coding languages exist .. it'd be easier if it were all a 'unified' code, right? .. and the efforts made to create that 'familiar' space, but in a unique way.

Coders can be artists, and like all artists, they want to create something new, something that isn't homogeneous and boring, but all this does is create ghettos and enclaves or difficult-to-use software .. and when you want to sell your product to as many people as possible, then homogeneous and boring is a good selling point for things like Word Processing programs.

I did add this bit to an earlier reply I made to you, when dealing with different software I can and often do customise my programs and Operating Systems, when there are functions to do that, but really, that's about as deep as I go with software :)

**
It's something I used to have to face when copying formatted text from one program to another, back when I was working .. as even basic Word Processing programs, like say from WordPerfect (Corel) to Word (Microsoft) use different programming languages and don't always translate basic text formatting in the same way.
So, my quick/slow fix was to remove all the formatting using a Text file, then put it all back in after .. and yep, that usually was the longest part of the process.
 
There's a microscopic world working below the surface of our normal lives these days, like worms in the garden. It's been astonishing to watch technology advance as fast as it has in my lifetime. It seems to keep getting better, but at the same time is breaking. I just want my Windows 11 and my newest laptop to work and I'm happy. I used to care what the worms in the soil were doing, but now I just can't care. Things have changed. :cool:
 
Raymond Huffman said:
There's a microscopic world working below the surface of our normal lives these days, like worms in the garden. It's been astonishing to watch technology advance as fast as it has in my lifetime. It seems to keep getting better, but at the same time is breaking. I just want my Windows 11 and my newest laptop to work and I'm happy. I used to care what the worms in the soil were doing, but now I just can't care. Things have changed. :cool:
Click to expand...


Even in my time, things have certainly changed .. but, oddly, to a point I've always wanted and expected them to be.

Good tech that's easy to use, and if you have some experience with finding workarounds and even building your own computers, you get to know some of the workings under the hood.

I started with Windows 3.11 (pre-Win95) on a computer that would now be in a museum, and that's only from the early 1990s!
Building a computer back then was a proper trial, these days, it's all 'Plug and Play' .. as it should be.

I couldn't make a circuit board, a motherboard or such like .. but, I can appreciate the intelligence behind it. The artistry.

.. and yep, I'm where you are now, I have a very good computer, and I like to update parts of it from time to time, but, all I want is for it to work, and work well.

The next great leap will be domestic-grade Quantum (Qbit) computers .. ones we can have in our homes, and well, we might not be around to see that, but the development of what's being made right now is incredible.

This will make the computers we are using now equivalent to smacking two rocks together to create a spark to start a fire outside our caves :)
 
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