FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) - The 4 Freedoms Library2024-03-28T16:01:04Zhttp://4freedoms.com/forum/topics/faq-frequently-asked-questions?groupUrl=admin&feed=yes&xn_auth=no12. How do I get around the c…tag:4freedoms.com,2014-06-07:3766518:Comment:1481472014-06-07T19:16:13.262ZAlan Lakehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/AlanLake
<p><strong>12. How do I get around the character limit for posting into forums and the wall?</strong></p>
<p>When you do a cut&paste from another website, you are generally picking up "rich text" which is full of HTML control markers and other gubbins. That is opposed to "flat/plain text" which is just letters + punctuation.</p>
<p>Sometimes there's masses of hidden HTML stuff embedded in the webpage you've copied, and its that lot that can push things over the limit. When I get that…</p>
<p><strong>12. How do I get around the character limit for posting into forums and the wall?</strong></p>
<p>When you do a cut&paste from another website, you are generally picking up "rich text" which is full of HTML control markers and other gubbins. That is opposed to "flat/plain text" which is just letters + punctuation.</p>
<p>Sometimes there's masses of hidden HTML stuff embedded in the webpage you've copied, and its that lot that can push things over the limit. When I get that message, I am sometimes amazed how small the thing I'm posting is. Obviously if there's loads of images in the post, that will bulk up the number of characters as well, so sometimes, reluctantly, I delete embedded images from the post, then try re-save it. There's 3 ways round this. </p>
<ul>
<li>The simplest way is to press on the little box with a capital "T" in it, in the Formatting Options Bar a the top of the input box, then paste your stuff into that. That box will strip out all the extra crap and give you plain old flat text. You then press the 'Paste' button, and it will magically appear in the input box and be savable. I've attached a screenshot of the Formatting Options Bar, and put a box around the button which switches on/off plain text.<br/> <br/>(One thing people may not know, is if you leave the mouse pointer to hover over an icon/button in the Formatting Options Bar for a few seconds, a little piece of text (a "tooltip") pops up to say what that button does.)</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/54805693?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/54805693?profile=original" width="643" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<ul>
<li><p>When I am copying in the whole text of an article, as I select the text on the other web page, if I see the selection is including e.g adverts or photos I don't want, I move the selection back to the point in the text before it selects the unwanted items. I have 4F open in another tab of my browser, and I paste in that sub-set of the original site's contents. I then go back to the original site, and select the text after the unwanted items.<br/><br/>Doing it in this piecemeal manner, I do not lose things like bold text, links, etc. from the original article (most of these will lose some of their formatting/information if posted into a Ning comment after pasting into Notepad, or [I think] if one uses the [T] button to make Ning use plain-text).</p>
<p>This way, I only paste into Ning what I want, but it requires me selecting/copying text from the other website about 4 times.<br/><br/>If the text being pasted into Ning is large, then even my technique might not work (hitting the stupid text limit imposed by Ning).</p>
</li>
<li>The 3rd way, which is harder, is to first paste it into the box, then, when saving it fails, click on the blue "HTML" button at the end of the Formatting Options Bar. That will reveal to you all the hidden embedded crap in what you posted. If you then learn a bit about HTML, you can unceremoniously cut out a lot of that crap, and try get it down to size, then try save it again.</li>
</ul> 11. Should I 'embed' videos,…tag:4freedoms.com,2011-10-15:3766518:Comment:848492011-10-15T05:31:21.410ZAlan Lakehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/AlanLake
<p><strong>11. Should I 'embed' videos, or post links to them?</strong></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Whenever possible, please embed videos and not post links. There are four </font>reasons.</p>
<p><br></br> (a) if you embed, the member can get an idea of whether he wants to watch it or not<br></br> (b) when re-browsing the blog, he can remember what the video is about by the photo and the caption<br></br> (c) there's a rule for websites, once somebody is on your site, don't send them off it, they may never…</p>
<p><strong>11. Should I 'embed' videos, or post links to them?</strong></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Whenever possible, please embed videos and not post links. There are four </font>reasons.</p>
<p><br/> (a) if you embed, the member can get an idea of whether he wants to watch it or not<br/> (b) when re-browsing the blog, he can remember what the video is about by the photo and the caption<br/> (c) there's a rule for websites, once somebody is on your site, don't send them off it, they may never come back!<br/> (d) you will encourage our other members to follow this good practice.</p>