Suggestions

Again, just to tidy things up, there is a glitch at the moment which makes things posted very difficult to read.

This is the use of a 'colon'

If I type one e.g. : The colon disappears and a smiley face appears in it's place with a BR> following it.

I think, when I post this, an example will appear above.

Can this be put right please?

Thanks,

Dea x <-3 <-3

Ooooerr!!!

I think that you may have sorted this already??

Well done, - I will check again in the morning.

Dea x

possibly not Dea, I think it is a combination of :/ (colon & forward slash) If I am right there should be an emoticon before the brackets

edit - yes

"Please use the English language" say the board guidelines.
http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/content.page/message_board_guidelines

In spite of this, it now seems quite awkward to use a colon

Type a colon (:) now and that's what you get.
This also apples to any old posts that used a colon.

Wow, this this is a real problem, almost life threatening, even.....! Will it cause your PC to self-destruct after 15 minutes?

Cheeky boy, IGP! :-)

well at least the :/ problem is solved - my post above no longer contains an emoticon which it did when I posted it

This one needs addressing immediately.

It is very common for people to end a line in a colon -- for example, "Here is the family in 1901:" followed by two line spaces and then the census record.

The html tag for a hard line (to start a new paragraph) -- and note that I am using square brackets everywhere to represent pointy brackets, so as not to reproduce the problem -- is

[br]

When someone types a colon and then hits "enter" to create a hard line, i.e. start a new paragraph, what it creates is this:

: [br] (without the space after the colon -- apparently square brackets cause the same problem)

The colon followed by left-pointybracket is interpreted as the code for an emoticon.

So instead of a line ending in a colon followed by a line space, what we get is

:


followed by no space. It makes the text completely incoherent.

I've avoided this here by adding a space (as in a space between words, not between lines) after the colon at the end of my line up above.

But all of the existing posts on the boards have had their colons and hard lines converted into ridiculous emoticons.

I spent 10 minutes going through an old thread of mine the other day reconverting all the colon/hard lines from emoticons to what they were supposed to be, by adding spaces after the colons, just so someone I had referred to the thread could make sense of it.

There are other examples. Typing Windows X P without the space between the X and the P creates XP.

As I think has been mentioned, the colon and slash in a URL create an emoticon:

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk

-- ah, correct, that one's been fixed!

This remaining problem has got to be fixed, really.

>>> Whatever the codes for the emoticons are, they need to be changed to some other things that are not commonly used in text, so that people aren't inadvertently typing the code for emoticons.


Perhaps if InspectorGreenPen or anyone else doesn't think this is a problem, they can start their own thread lauding the ridiculous situation this has created.

It IS a problem for people trying to provide coherent information for others on the help boards, which other posters in this thread are.


I should just add that I fell madly in love with all the changes the instant I saw them. They are all exactly what I have been pleading for, for years.

Except for avatars, which I hate, but that's just me! ;)

And I've blocked 'em, so you can see mine and I can't see yours ... XP

I use :-


and that doesn't result in an emoticon appearing



but that hasn't meant a change for me, because I've always used :-



sylvia

The thing is, though, Sylvia, thee and me and a few others have figured out what this problem is and what causes it, but that does nothing for anybody who doesn't figure it out or see the explanation/fix offered -- and it does nothing for the large share of my 19,000+ posts in the past that are all messed up with these stupid emoticons now!


This :- business ... I've never seen it in one of your posts! but it isn't proper English and you'll have mgnv after you now.

I've only ever seen it in odd bits of old legislation, myself.

sorry Janey - I disagree there about :-

I was taught it meant 'the following (details)'

agree with all your other comments about the new version though

that's what I was taught as well, ann

Yoo hoo, powers that be!

One of the colon/emoticon problems was fixed (the http: one).

This one really, really needs fixing.

Thousands of posts on this board that were coherent when they were written are now incomprehensible dog's breakfasts.

Please make the clearly easy change that's needed so that the code for :[ is no longer what it is now -- i.e. a colon followed by a left pointy/square bracket.

ON 11/12/1936, EDWARD VIII ABDICATED.

Snork. I want to play.

BD

:D

So B+D = :+D ?

Learning from EXPERIENCE!

had to go to Mozilla to discover what mgnv had discovered


snork, indeed!




BUT, there are advantages to sticking with my out-of-date IE6!



sylvia

More on emozapping - seems like it's a western conspiracy.
You're OK if your pob=British Columbia, but not if your pob=Prince Edward Island - I hope I picked a real easy one for Sylvia.

ol!


so pob=Prince




had to come over to Mozilla to see


that you get sticky out tongue


is it with =P


or b=P



yes ............. =P is the signal!







sylvia

I've sent an email to "theteam" and I am expecting a reply any year now.

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.page/board/suggestions/thread/1268273

(my thread reviewing the problems and the causes)

My simple solution to this problem is to just get rid of emoticons. I think they are so childish, when someone uses one my opinion of that person goes down a notch.