Long Posts / Review Posts

[mchess1]

I am getting ready to write out some review posts that I owe Meghan and was wondering how everyone writes long posts.

Is it easier to write the document in Microsoft Word and then cut/paste?

The few I have posted so far I have written right on the new post window and it sometimes makes it difficult. I use Word for documentation work in my job so I know it like the back of my hand. Any downsides to using Word?

I have seen Mike P insert holder posts along the way. Is this because of a word limit in posts?

[Mike Phillips]

I am getting ready to write out some review posts that I owe Meghan and was wondering how everyone writes long posts.

Great question!

Is it easier to write the document in Microsoft Word and then cut/paste?

It's much easier and SAFER!

Sometimes after you write a post, long or short, and then click on the [Submit Reply] button, wacky things might happen and for whatever reason you'll get the White Screen of Death and lose everything you posted.

That happened to me once in this last week during a write-up and I had to re-write everything I had written. So it's safer to write your article in a stable environment like MS Word and then copy and paste it into the forum BUT when you copy and paste, first switch your message over to the Editor Mode and get out of WYSIWYG Mode or SOME of the Hidden Code contained in MS Word will be quasi-formatted into your post and it will corrupt and mess up what you wrote.

To switch over to Editor Mode, click on the little button that looks like 2 letter A's in the upper right hand corner of your message box just above the Smilies, it looks like this,

Then after you copy and paste your text you can either format it in Editor Mode or switch back to WYSIWYG Mode and then do any formatting you want to do.

Check out this screenshot...



Does that make sense?

The few I have posted so far I have written right on the new post window and it sometimes makes it difficult. I use Word for documentation work in my job so I know it like the back of my hand. Any downsides to using Word?

Just the hidden code, when you copy and paste into the message box in vBulletin and probably just about any discussion forum software the discussion forum software will try to make make sense of and display portions of the hidden code and this will make what you wrote all wacky looking. Trust me on this, it's great to type in MS Word but switch to Editor Mode on the forum before pasting your text.

I have seen Mike P insert holder posts along the way. Is this because of a word limit in posts?

For myself, I try to write all my new article in a hidden forum called Rough Draft, then after I've Spell Checked, added all my pictures and finished the article I can either copy and paste it or simple "Move" it to the appropriate forum group.

I tend to actually like to type live in the public forums and sometimes when I do if I have a follow-up message that I want in the thread before someone adds a reply I'll post a message and simply write

***Placeholder***

And the hit the [Submit Reply] button which will create a place for me to add the next content. As an Admin I can also "Close" the thread and then simply re-open it when I'm ready to make my next post.

When I came to work for AG the word limit was something like 20,000 words and I overshot this the first week so we upped it to 30,000 words and I overshot that last week.



I think the limit for pictures in a single thread is 30 and that includes emoticons. I had Jason increase this too as it was somewhere in the 18 range when I first started her and I tend to be picture heavy as I know a picture tells a thousand words and people tend to be scanners on the Internet.

I think this thread has 94 photos on the first page and they are all 800 pixels wide.

How dirty is too dirty to safely use a rinseless wash?






And as an extra safety precaution, when I'm all done writing, inserting code, checking the spelling etc, I'll switch to Editor Mode, highlight, copy and paste all the raw text into Notepad and save it so if I do get the White Screen of Death or anything else goes wrong I have all my work in a format that can easily and quickly copied and pasted into a new message.

[Bunky]

There is a limit and I would suggest writing it up using a text editor first. You can save your work (nothing like accidentally losing everything).

[ScottB]

Cannot wait to see the reviews ....