Recent Changes @ FreeRepublic

[John Robinson]

A few changes have been made to the forum over the past couple days.

• All replies, and for consistency all articles, are now wrapped in HTML <BLOCKQUOTE>s. This indents the text on both left and right margins. It should no longer be possible to convincingly spoof replies.

• An HTML filter has been installed into the forum software. The primary job of this filter is to remove unsafe HTML constructs. As a side-effect and benefit, it closes open tags. No more HTML shotguns.

• Due to the above mentioned filter, the STYLE attribute has been disabled. Though it has many legit uses, it was used to position text and images at the top of a thread, or in other unsavory places. The STYLE attribute will make a comeback once a style filter is written.

• Since the STYLE attribute was disabled, the use of <SPAN STYLE="background-color: xxxx"> to highlight portions of text was also disabled. To compensate, the <EM> tag has be enhanced for highlighting purposes. At a later time the HTML sequence used to highlight text may change.

• <BLOCKQUOTE> has been enhanced for it's intended purpose: quoting blocks of text. Unfortunately, <BLOCKQUOTE> is often used to indent text without implying a quote, and therefore at a later time the HTML sequence used to quote text may change.

• A quick-and-dirty program now exists allowing you to customize the appearance of Free Republic articles. To use a custom style sheet, use your favorite style sheet editor (or plain text editor) to create a style sheet, save the file to your hard drive, and then follow this link to upload your style sheet to Free Republic.

  This is a technological preview and is geared for a technical audience. At a later date a kinder gentler interface will be created.

A sample customized style sheet:

BODY
{
    BACKGROUND-COLOR: ivory
}
EM
{
    FONT-STYLE: normal;
    BACKGROUND-COLOR: #eeee00
}
BLOCKQUOTE
{
    FONT-FAMILY: "Bookman Old Style"
}
BLOCKQUOTE BLOCKQUOTE
{
    BORDER-TOP: black thin solid;
    PADDING-BOTTOM: 1%;
    PADDING-TOP: 1%;
    BORDER-BOTTOM: black thin solid;
    FONT-STYLE: italic
}

[.30Carbine]

At a later date a kinder gentler interface will be created.

Bumping you, Rikateacha! I eagerly await the "kinder, gentler" instructions! Mr. Robinson, this is all over my head, and so I rely on your expertise alone, trusting that you are making FR safer for sandbox kids like me!

Perhaps you can sift all this through your patient, kind, and knowledgable hands for me, dear Rika. I have been "homeschooling" for the past week, and have a legitimate "note" to bring into WFTD class today to excuse my absence! ( :

[John Robinson]

I forgot to mention:

• The ALIGN attribute had been temporarily disabled on IMG and TABLE tags due to text flowing into replies below. This problem has been fixed. ALIGN has been re-enabled for IMG and TABLE tags.

[Ron C.]

"As a side-effect and benefit, it closes open tags."

THAT is the greatest and most welcome news of all, John.

But.. just think - we don't HAVE to close anything now. I can just see people doing that as a general rule here, and then wondering what happened when they try the same thing on one of their own webpages when the habit is well entrenched .. LOL.

[Inspector Harry Callahan]

The blockquote thing sucks. What was the problem with "rouge" quotes anyhow?

[John Robinson]

Oh. The customizable articles are only for the viewer -- that is, each viewer will be able to customize the appearance of articles for themselves only. However, they can share their style sheets with others. IOW, it will be client-side.

[John Robinson]

If you really hate the blockquotes I think there is a work around. Give me a couple minutes.

[TroutStalker]

Although not a HTML question, I used to search for articles using source:"*" and author:"*". Now when I do that I get No posts found in 0.184 seconds.

Is this search feature no longer available?

[LurkerNoMore!]

Thanks, John.

Sync, what are you doing up so early/late?

[anguish]

Personally, I think the changes in design are great, but I hear a lot of people complaining about the use of blockquote to prevent reply spoofs. My HCI (human computer interface) teacher would suffer a heart attack if I suggested an unregular margin as standard :)

[Movemout]

I use a web access tool to do a partial view source to copy articles into the post article block. I'm getting an error code most of the time when I hit the post article button.

Is it possible that these recent changes are associated with this problem?

[Brian Allen]

Thank you, John. God bless!

[JudyB1938]

I really like the indents. It makes it easier for me to read.

I don't quite understand the style sheet though. Does that apply to the threads or to the profile page?

One specialty item you haven't seen to though ... < /ignorant creep> LOL

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

I don't know what you said, but it sounds good...I think.

[snodog]

Just a heads-up: I've stumbled across a technical glitch of some sort. Occasionally when loading http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/latest?ao=1

Try it this way, http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/latest.htm

Always works for me, and you only get the latest posts.

[packrat01]

Can you put a short blurb on the "post" page? I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out why I couldn't close the < BLOCKQUOTE > thingie.

[Joe Brower]

So MARQUEE has been disabled, eh? I just tried it and this appears to be so. Bummer.

[Joe Brower]

JuleiRNR21 = JulieRNR21. Need coffee...

MARQUEE no longer works. Darn.

[RedWing9]

I don't know if mine is the same, but I get an error often now when I press the Preview button. This happens almost every time I hit the button. If I go "back" and then hit it again it works. There is also a considerable lag in the response time. Here is the error text:

ERROR

The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: N/A

The following error was encountered:

     Connection Lifetime Expired

Squid has terminated the request because it has exceeded the maximum connection lifetime.

Your cache administrator is root.

Generated Fri, 28 Sep 2001 11:10:32 GMT by www.FreeRepublic.com (Squid/2.3.STABLE4)

End of error message.

Thanks for doing everything else though John. And I would just like to say, I guess I'm in the minority around here. I love the choice of page colors etc. IOW - I like your style! :)

[truthkeeper]

I haven't the foggiest idea what any of this means, but good job. Thanks!
(That was a test.)

[George W. Bush]

Very cool. Me like.

Can you publish a list of forbidden tags for us? Any chance you'll ever let <IFRAME>'s come back? There are some threads that really could benefit from it.

Can we use all tags in our custom style sheets or only the ones you've listed? Can you tell us more about <p class=thisclass> tags? When we upload a style sheet, does it become our default style sheet? It looks like you're planning to let us use other people's style sheets too. Are you going to give us a list of them to choose from? Are we going to be able to select a default style sheet when we post a thread?

Gee, I've got too many questions. I'll just wait until you tell us more. This is all very cool, John Rob. Nice work.