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Although I suspect the author didn't write out those tags by hand, so how did they come to be used?

Of all the message you have to quote, it's the one posted YEARS ago about me making a little girl throw up you have to choose. What's up with that? ;o)

Anyhow, it's true, nobody typed those things out by hand. There's no such thing as a QUOTE tag in HTML--AQ converts it into a fieldset that has a "quote" class attached to it automatically.

Back in the old days, though, I used block quotes and italics instead. I changed to using fieldsets and style classes for the extra flexibility, though, since I can later change the CSS and still be able to alter the format of old posts without having to change the messages. Rather convenient, really.

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is there something else that could be safely and easily implemented for a prettier result? Maybe UL?

Actually, I've been working on some "new and improved" message board stuff. Like if you make a list by starting each line with an asterisk, it'll automatically turn it into an unordered list. I'm not sure exactly when I'll roll it out, but eventually there's going to be a lot more flexibility with what one can do with posts. =)

In the meantime, I've changed the old code to now allow blockquotes, so if you use that as a tag, it'll work fine.

-- Ryan

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Of all the message you have to quote, it's the one posted YEARS ago about me making a little girl throw up you have to choose. What's up with that? ;o)

The overt answer is that a search for "blockquote" didn't return many messages to examine, but quietly I was hoping in your eagerness to put the old embarrassment behind you, you would displace that energy into rushing to solve my problem. I should have known your carapace was tougher than that.

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I've been working on some "new and improved" message board stuff... eventually there's going to be a lot more flexibility with what one can do with posts

I'm very much looking forward to that!

In the meantime, I've changed the old code to now allow blockquotes, so if you use that as a tag, it'll work fine.

Aha! Very handy. But that tag still isn't honored in clues. Here's where I'd really like to be able to use it: http://www.atlasquest.com/lboxes/clue/index.html?gBoxId=13203. Previously, I've just had the clue hosted on LbNA where that tag does render, but I'd like to be able to use it in clues hosted here.

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But that tag still isn't honored in clues. Here's where I'd really like to be able to use it:

You had me going there for a bit. When I made the change, it was supposed to start working everywhere. The code to convert from typed in messages, clues, AQ mail, etc. to HTML all go through the same function, so if I make a change there, it should work everywhere. How it is possible it didn't work with clues?

So I looked at the clue. HA! You'd already saved the blockquote as part of the message itself before I changed the code. You just had to re-save the clue so it went through the conversion process. I did that and it saved exactly as expected. =) Clicked that "Edit Clue" button, then the "Save Clue" button, and it all looks great. *nodding* Didn't even have to change anything in the clue!

So it works fine. AQ just doesn't go through old posts, clues, and AQ mail to retroactively add blockquotes in, though.

-- Ryan

Now I like th look of these blockquotes. Will you also add the "how to" for it in your tutorial? [tiny voice saying, "Please."]

Now that you fixed it, I can't go back to that clue to see what was actually typed!

Thanks,
Mama Cache

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You'd already saved the blockquote as part of the message itself before I changed the code

Ah, OK. I figured it was getting interpreted at rendering time, but at edit time is of course the more efficient time.

Thanks!

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Will you also add the "how to" for it in your tutorial? [tiny voice saying, "Please."]

Not the tiny voice saying please! Anything but that! The guilty--it's just horrible! =)

I wasn't planning to add it to the help page since I didn't think most people would be interested in such a thing, but since you used the tiny please voice, I guess I have to now. *heavy sigh*

In any case, it works just like the quote tag does--except you use the word "blockquote" instead of "quote". It's also in the help page for the message boards as well in case you forget.

Happy trails!

-- Ryan

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I figured it was getting interpreted at rendering time, but at edit time is of course the more efficient time.

*nodding* At the edit time, I only have to render it once and it works for millions of page views. =) At rendering time.... well, I'd have to process it with every page view. Very inefficient. *nodding*

Admittedly, that's also a big reason I don't like making posts editable. To edit it, I have to "convert" the string back to what the person typed. That's not always terribly easy to do. Especially if I've changed the mapping like I did with quote blocks. Those quote boxes make editing very hard to do!

-- Ryan

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I wasn't planning to add it to the help page since I didn't think most people would be interested in such a thing

Thanks for implementing the blockquote feature. I'm all ready going over my clues to see where I could add the tag, to give the pages a better layout.

Lone R

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I can't go back to that clue to see what was actually typed

Works just like other elements with both start and end tags <blockquote> and </blockquote>.

Sorry, Ryan, I just noticed that &< and others don't make the round trip. That is, after I preview the post, the character rather than the directive appears in the edit box.

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Not the tiny voice saying please! Anything but that! The guilty--it's just horrible! =)

At least it's not the sad puppy dog eyes!

Funny how I can say "no" to my kids, no matter how sweetly they ask.
But all the dog has to do is just look cute and "bam" she gets whatever she wants!

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&<

Oops, && doesn't stop the directive in & l t ;

OK, I'm gonna stop messing with this for a while. I hope it's not already too late to avoid seriously annoying you.

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I just noticed that &< and others don't make the round trip. That is, after I preview the post, the character rather than the directive appears in the edit box.

That's okay--that shouldn't be a problem. The edit box can handle it. =) If there a specific case where something isn't happening correctly, point me to it. If you just use & by itself, for instance, you can type it in as & or &amp; -- it'll work either way. (And to get &amp; to show up, I actually type to type "&amp;amp;"--see if THAT gets confusing!)

-- Ryan

Robust voice saying, "Thank you." (I reserve tiny voice for rare occasions.)

I use this one all the time:

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quote tag

So fun to play and play . . .

Mama Cache (off to her duties)

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to get & to show up, I actually type to type "&"

Right. But, after I preview a message in which I've written out "& l t ;" (no spaces), the edit box now contains "<" instead of "& l t ;". Now I know that "<" is fine to use instead of "& l t ;", but in this case I wanted to show a tag without it get interpreted. In my message I had written "& l t ;blockquote& g t;" which shows just what I want in preview and just what I want if I submit it without previewing it, but if I preview it first, I have change the "<" back to "& l t ;" in the message edit field before submitting it. Of course there is, in this case, the simple work around of including an extra space in the tag.

Didn't I say I'd drop this? Sorry.

type "&"</type>

Case in point. I was OK until I previewed that, then the first "& amp;" got interpreted and I forgot to edit it back.

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I was OK until I previewed that, then the first "& amp;" got interpreted and I forgot to edit it back.

Ah, I see. You're trying to be tricky. Don't do that. ;o)

If you want to type tags so people see the actual tag rather their effect, I'd copy the message first, preview it, then paste the copied message into the edit box. AQ really doesn't work well when you want it to show actual tags rather than their effects which is why most people add spaces somewhere in the tag so it won't get interpreted.

But if you want to show a tag instead of the effects of a tag, you have to encode the & itself. So instead of typing "&lt;", you really want to type "&amp;lt;". It's ugly, but it works. =) And heaven forbid, don't preview it first! Or at least copy the message to repaste it before you post it. *nodding*

-- Ryan

Ok we upgraded to a new pc ,VISTA opperating system ! Allot of my programs do not work with this system ,I have had to apply patches to my digital camera ,mp3 player ,digital movie camera ,printer,scanner,and dvd player in pc.Well some of the patches will not be available till the end of Febuary or march .I was also informed that some web sites will not work with this operating system.My point is .i am wondering how that will effect atlas quest and letterboxing sites !Mainly the pda down loads !I was told by Micro soft that on my other pc ,that is xp operating system ! That with in the year my xp will be not enough to run the sites i get to now ! I know this is not the forum place to do this but ,If we all are aware of this early we can prepare for changes.

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My point is .i am wondering how that will effect atlas quest and letterboxing sites !Mainly the pda down loads

Assuming your PDA can interface with the PC, you are at the mercy of the program you are using to download. If it works without needing a patch, you will be fine. If not, there is nothing that the websites themselves can do to "fix" it.

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I was told by Micro soft that on my other pc ,that is xp operating system ! That with in the year my xp will be not enough to run the sites i get to now

This makes zero sense. I think someone was just trying to convince you to upgrade it to Vista as well. XP is just software, it can't "be not enough". The only thing that could be lacking is hardware on the other computer so unless you put XP onto a 10 year old machine, you have nothing to worry about.

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I was also informed that some web sites will not work with this operating system.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. Most websites will continue working just fine, and places like LbNA and AQ shouldn't have any problem at all. As for PDA downloads, it's possible the software you use to download clues to your PDA may not work with Vista, but that's outside of our control. The websites will keep on working, though, regardless of the operating system being used.

-- Ryan

Thank you all ! And the patch for pda file for my mp3 player not available at this time ! got at x mass so its 2007 ,microsoft says there will be a patch soon. The new printer that came with pc also needs a patch .But was more concerned with the atlas quest site and you all answered that . thanks

Would it be possible to have the most recent find show up in my log book. I know it shows the date I found it, but I like to see if the box has been found since I did (especially if I left a HH there) Hope that makes since. It's probably a bit of trivia that interests no one but me!!

Also - could the most recent find / attempt show up when you print out a list of boxes and clues. Now we go back and write that information in so that when we're out looking for it we know it has x number of attempts since the last find or was found last week or whatever. It would be helpful to us (and maybe others) if that information was printed along with the icons and clues. This information has been very uesful to us when we have to prioritize out on the trail (the park closes in 1/2 an hour - let's skip box a beacuse it has 2 attempts since the last find and instead focus on box b which was found on Tuesday)

Thanks!
Galaxy4

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Would it be possible to have the most recent find show up in my log book.

I don't think that would a particularly useful option for most people. Even if you just want to see because you left a hitchhiker there, it doesn't necessarily tell you anything. Most people don't log finds, so chances are, the hitchhiker would already be long gone before the box gets a find listed.

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could the most recent find / attempt show up when you print out a list of boxes and clues.

The "list" of boxes and clues you can print out is meant to save as much paper and ink as possible--it's the absolute bare bones needed to find a box. Knowing the most recent find or attempt isn't going to help you find a box, so it won't be added to that page. If you want all the extra information about a box that isn't necessary to find it (hike length, elevation gain, last found date, etc.), don't use the "print friendly" version of the clues. Print the clues directly from the clue page.

-- Ryan

I noticed the box that shows the date the box was last found shows both the date it was found as well as the date you found it. If it's a box you planted, you don't need a box indicating when you found it. A little nit-picky, I know, but is it needed?

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If it's a box you planted, you don't need a box indicating when you found it. A little nit-picky, I know, but is it needed?

Hmmm...I use it all the time. When I receive updates on letterboxes we planted from visitors who don't use AQ I add the latest status to AQ using the 'found it' function knowing full well we weren't the actual visitors to the box. For example--we recently found one of our boxes on the big island of Hawaii knowing full well we haven't left the East Coast in 6 months nor have we been back to Hawaii in almost 4 years! It's the only way to add an updated status on a box of ours that hadn't been 'found' in a year or two without constantly updating the clues themselves. Comes in handy for folks who may not seek out a box that appears 'stagnant' because it's located in an off the beaten path location. We also use the function to record the latest times we had actually personally checked on boxes we'd planted--although now that we're almost 3,000 miles from most of our boxes we're not using it in that manner all that much anymore. :(

daelphinus

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If it's a box you planted, you don't need a box indicating when you found it. A little nit-picky, I know, but is it needed?

Not really, I suppose, but it doesn't hurt anything either. There *are* times people record finds for their own box--such as when they've done maintenance on it or checked up on it themselves and they want the last found date to reflect the fact--so it's not like your own last found date will always be "Never"--even for boxes you planted.

-- Ryan

Hello,
I don't know if this is one issues or two or more issues. But currently, the sequence number of the participants and the sequence number of the planted boxes for the postal ring are different.
The found chart is very confusing because it is not a matrix. It displays the sequence number of planted boxes on the top horizontally and it displays the sequence number of the participants vertically. The two sequence numbers are sometimes different for the same person. So one could show up at the first position horizontally and show up at the third position vertically.
The way to fix it is to just use participant's number for both horizontal and vertical display of the found chart.
After fixing that issue, we need the ability to re-order the participant's number. This is often needed if we want to reorder it according to the order of mailing the letter boxes. One way to fix it is to add a button by the Tracker Participants says Reorder Participants, then the numbers in front of participants would turn into editable fields so we can enter the order number desired and then a submit button to submit the changes.
I think probably all the postal letter box ring leaders have already noticed this problem, some of them had to manually drop everyone and reenter them in the order desired.
Thanks
three headed dragon

The idea of an easier way to reorder the postal trackers has been brought up before, and I believe Ryan said that he was working on this.

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The found chart is very confusing because it is not a matrix. It displays the sequence number of planted boxes on the top horizontally and it displays the sequence number of the participants vertically. The two sequence numbers are sometimes different for the same person. So one could show up at the first position horizontally and show up at the third position vertically.
The way to fix it is to just use participant's number for both horizontal and vertical display of the found chart.

This wouldn't work if someone had more than one postal listed on the tracker, which does happen.

TG

If that's the case, It would be nice if box number is associated with participant's number such 1.1, 1.2 ..
I understand it takes time to change things. The site rightnow is wonderful and it is amazing so many people are using it.
Thanks for the good work.
three headed dragon.

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It would be nice if box number is associated with participant's number such 1.1, 1.2 ..

What if a postal box is used that was created by someone who's not a participant?

I do plant to make the list sortable at some point, but I don't see that associating the box number with the participant's number is going to happen. It's nice in concept, but there are too many exceptions that would require odd numbering systems. The list of boxes that say "Owner" I think is plenty. Well, for most people, at least. =)

-- Ryan

this request Is just purely a time saver for me and I am sure others. and I am sure it could be done easily. Would it be possible to add either a "mark all as read" or just a "delete new mail" (as they might just sit in the inbox until they get deleted anyways) button/link in the mail section of "my page". Often times with tracker announcments or virtual box announcements it is immediatley noticible that you are not interested in the rings listed (pms ring for an example ( no offense to any females in the ring)) and it would be nice to do a quick click to have them dissapear. much like there is mark all as read buttons for the message boards. Eh? what do ya say Ryan?

chadams