Things Every Woman (and Man) Should Know About HTML and other techie questions answered

Since there were some questions on the Pet Pictures thread, I thought perhaps we should have a central location where some of these questions are answered. About how to do things in your posts, etc.

I'll give it a go.

Edited to add jumps to sections

1. Style
2. Hyperlinks I--The Basics
3. Hyperlinks II--Relative Links
4. Hyperlinks III--Linking to a Specific Post within a Thread
5. Hyperlinks IV--Permanent Links
6. Posting a Picture I--Getting the Picture Location
7. Posting a Picture II--Getting the Picture to Appear
8. Posting a Picture III--Adjusting the Picture
9. Using Pictures as Links
10. Using LT-Supported Cover Pictures
11. Special Characters
12. Making Your Own Reading Timeline (with Google Docs)

1. STYLE

To change the style of the font:
<i>italics</i>, italics
<b>bold</b>, bold
<u>underline</u>, underline
<strike>strikethrough</strike>, strikethrough

If you want to quote a passage from something, perhaps you want it inset?
<blockquote>quote</blockquote>

Michael was peacefully finishing his tea and wondering where Elizabeth was skiing, and what it would be like to be with her on the golden mountain slopes, when Caroline’s piercing shrieks shocked him out of his quiet visions. Sister Peckham’s efficient handling soon subdued Caroline’s screams into low, agonizing moans, but they were no less terrifying to Michael. He bore them for as long as he could before ringing his bell for an explanation.

2. HYPERLINKS I--THE BASICS

This is if you want to create a link without putting in the whole messy URL.

<a href="TARGET ADDRESS">your text here</a>
<a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>, Google
<a href="http://www.librarything.com/profile/christiguc">my profile</a>, my profile

That’s the basics.

Section 3 will go into more linkings.

3. HYPERLINKS II--RELATIVE LINKS

For language-friendly linking within LT.

Because LT has several different language domains, if you make the target address the .com site, you are forcing people away from their other language sites onto the main English site. To get around that, you can create a relative link. With a relative link, the .commies stay on the .com and the .fr-ers stay on .fr

<a href=/ANYTHING AFTER THE .COM>text</a>
<a href=/profile/christiguc>my profile</a>, my profile
<a href=/topic/55372>My 50 Book Challenge</a>, My 50 Book Challenge

An author page will be /author/lastfirst (e.g., <a href=/author/whiteantonia>Antonia White</a>, Antonia White)

A book page will be /isbn/XXXXXXXXXX (e.g., <a href=/isbn/0140447180>The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini</a>, The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini)
You can also just copy the /work/YYYYY off of the top address bar to create a link to the work if you don’t know the ISBN.

4. HYPERLINKS III--LINKING TO A SPECIFIC POST WITHIN A THREAD

If you want to reference a specific post, you can link directly to that post instead of saying “this thread, see post X”.

To do that, you will need to know the post number. To get the post number, hover your cursor over the “flag abuse” for that post (in FireFox) or right-click the “flag abuse” (in Internet Explorer). Along the bottom, you get javascript:showflagmessage(XXXXXX, YYYYY). The XXXXXX is the post number (and the YYYYY is the thread topic number).

<a href=/talktopic.php?topic=YYYYY#XXXXXX>Your text here</a>

<a href=/talktopic.php?topic=59214#1122794>Maren posts her lovely pet pictures</a> is, without spaces, Maren posts her lovely pet pictures.

------------

I've been told another way to do it, which some might find easier, is to attach

#messageheadpostnumber

after the topic number.

So, for example, if you want to link to Message 18 in this thread (this thread = /topic/59470), then you would type:

<a href=/topic/59470#messagehead18>Message 18 in the HTML thread</a>

Which is, without spaces, Message 18 in the HTML thread

5. HYPERLINKS IV--PERMANENT LINKS

You want to use these, for example, when you link to your review on a book page. If you simply link to the book page, your review may move off if there are many reviews. To get the permanent link, click on the paperclip-looking thing at the bottom of your review on the work page. (It should be beside your name and date). Then, treat it like you would any other link.

<a href=/work/AAAAA/reviews/BBBBBBB>Your text here</a>

<a href=/work/42250/reviews/17745729>My review of The Golden Spiders</a>, My review of The Golden Spiders

6. POSTING A PICTURE I—GETTING THE PICTURE LOCATION

First off, your photo needs to be online. You can either grab a photo that already exists online or you can upload a photo from your computer to online photo storage. There are many photo storage places right now where you can get an account for free. You might be limited with the amount of storage space you are allowed with a free account, but it will work for now for our purposes.

In order to put the picture into HTML code, you have to know the location of the picture. The URL needs to end in a picture suffix, e.g., .jpg or .gif.

In Flickr, you can select the picture, click on "all sizes" and then look at option 2 below the picture—"Grab the photo’s URL."

In PhotoBucket, you can move your cursor over the image and copy the HTML code (one of the four options that pops up below your picture).

In FireFox, you can simply right-click on the picture and "Copy Image Location" for most images. Again, make sure the copied location ends in a picture suffix. (Some webpages put in protections for their pictures).

In Internet Explorer, right-click on the picture and go to "Properties". There, it will give you "Address (URL)"—copy that. Again, make sure the copied location ends in a picture suffix. (Some webpages put in protections for their pictures).

7. POSTING A PICTURE II—GETTING THE PICTURE TO APPEAR

The code to get the image to appear is:
<img src="COPIED URL">

You copied the URL in the previous step. You just need to paste it in here.

So, let’s take ORPH!

If I follow the instructions from before and copy his URL, I get

http://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr182/rosesbleu/DSCN1424-1.jpg

If I want him to appear, I would say:

<img src="http://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr182/rosesbleu/DSCN1424-1.jpg">

8. POSTING A PICTURE III—ADJUSTING THE PICTURE

If the photo is too big or too small, you can simply adjust the size. You can define the height or the width of the image. If you specify only one, the other will automatically adjust to keep the proportion.

<img src="IMAGE URL" height=400> or <img src="IMAGE URL" width=400>

You can make the 400px smaller if you want a smaller photo, larger if you want a larger. Since people have different size screens, it’s usually good courtesy to keep the width no larger than 600px so that people don’t have to scroll to the side.

Using Briar this time, we would copy the image URL.

I get: http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn82/FleurFisher/Thankyou.jpg

So, if we want a tiny Briar:
<img src="http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn82/FleurFisher/Thankyou.jpg" height=50>:

9. USING PICTURES AS LINKS

Just as you can use text to create a hyperlink, so can you use a picture.

To refresh, a hyperlink is:
<a href="URL">text</a>

If you want a picture to act as the link instead of text, then you would do:
<a href="URL">picture</a>

And we know that to get a picture to appear, we use:
<img src="IMAGE URL">

Therefore, to get a picture to link, we would type:
<a href="URL"><img src="IMAGE URL"></a>

If I wanted Lily to link to Laura’s profile, I would first need to find the "IMAGE URL" for Lily.

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb221/lindsacl/Family/th_IMG_0808.jpg

Then, follow the format.

<a href=/profile/lindsacl><img src="http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb221/lindsacl/Family/th_IMG_0808.jpg"></a>



For another example, let’s work with Gravy.

Her image location is http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3662/3325541493_0a49fa28d5_b.jpg

If you go to her photo URL by putting her picture location in your address bar, you will see that it is a big picture. To fit her on the thread, I made her height 400px. So, the image I put in the thread was

<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3662/3325541493_0a49fa28d5_ b.jpg" height=400>

But, I want to use a smaller picture here and I want clicking on the picture to lead to the full-size image. Therefore, I want the image to link to the full image URL (i.e., my URL and IMAGE URL are the same).
<a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3662/3325541493_0a49fa28d5_b.jpg"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3662/3325541493_0a49fa28d5_b.jpg" height=200></a>
(click to enlarge)


(click to enlarge)

That's all I can think of for now. Anyone want to add anything?

If people have any techie questions, please do post them here and I (or others) will try to answer!

Thank you very much - and all in one place - you are a star.

Wow, Christina, you are AMAZING.
You should consider putting this in WikiThing. Some of the information is there, but yours is so well-organized and clear! Nicely done.

Christina, you are PRICELESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to have to bookmark this page!

Um, Christina...how do you bookmark a page? (Just kidding.)

Brilliant and helpful. This is wonderful, Christina.

Christina is always our technical fount of knowledge!

Christine, you get the Gold Star of Excellence...

Or rather, in this case, a Virago Green Star!!!

#'s 12-18 - agreed..Thank you Christina for giving so generously of your knowledge and time.. it is greatly appreciated by those of us you lead through the maze of posting pics and images...

Thank you Christina, this is really helpful. I was only pondering how to put links in tidily the other day.

Now I know - thanks again.

Oh my god.... :)

Oh, this is SO GOOD. Thanks. I had already learnt the bold and underline, but that was about my limit!

This is going to change my life. Thank you, thank you, a thousand times, thank you!

Christiguc

It's 6.30 in the morning, the house is still asleep and I am sitting here with my tea. Have to get up and let the dog out for a pee anyway.

A little background - I have been reading a lot about Alzheimers because of family issues and they now say you continue to produce new brain cells (till you are 100 if you live that long)- if you continue to learn. However, and it's a huge however, you have to learn out of your comfort zone. It is not enough to repeat what you already know, you have to learn something you don't want to learn.

So last year I began slowly to learn the computer (I stopped 15 years ago with Word Perfect) and to do sudoku puzzles. I went to night school and conquered Microsoft 2007 and did a 6 week course on Excel. I am now going to try very hard to learn what you have put on this thread but already I am flummoxed by your technical language. So be prepared for frequent and very annoying questions!

In the meantime - in order to keep the brain cells producing - I should be reading out of my comfort zone. No more Viragos, time to look at A History of the Workers' Strike in the Gdansk Shipyards. Or, god help me, the dreaded Toni Morrison.

But yes, this is going to be life changing because I am determined to do it. I thank you for your concern and your expertise.

thank you Christina

Lesson one! It works! Wow!

Good, I'm glad you all find it helpful. :)

Romain, don't hesitate to ask questions. I'm sure you can conquer this!

Christina, you're the best!!! I love this group!

romain, I really admire what you are doing! So many people won't try anything new - especially new techology. Don't be afraid of Toni Morrison, start with something short - I've heard her newest, A Mercy, is less dense than some previous novels.

>27 marise:: Yes, Marise, you're right -- A Mercy is a very accessible Morrison work.

No good ladies. I cannot be tempted. I am done with Morrison. I suffered through 4 of her books before saying No More!

Very quietly sitting beside romain as I just can't get into her either.

Oh dear friends, if you ever want to understand America, Toni Morrison is a path in -- to the pain, to the joy, to the depths. This from the descendant of late 19th c. Swedish immigrants who never experienced slavery -- but I did experience Jim Crow when I visited my aunt in Birmingham AL, and I remember the first integration of Little Rock, Arkansas schools, and my fifth grade classmate on the team of a championship Little League team who couldn't go to the playoffs in FL because the motels wouldn't let blacks in. To start, get an audiobook of Morrison reading JAZZ, and let the riffs seep into your consciousness like Charlie Parker's music.

Jane

It isn't the subject matter I object to or am resisting, it is Ms Morrison's style I can't stand.
I find her depressing and confusing. I have never found myself sinking into any of her books with that aaaaahhhh feeling one gets when a book is perfect - or even a good fit.

But what really put me off her was Paradise. I mean what was that about. (Hope the italics worked Christina :))

But Jane - last time we spoke on this site I believe you were off to read one of my favorites - Mary Webb. What did you think of her. (Gosh now I'm showing off with these italics!)

Continuing with the 'off topic', romain and Jane, I just read THIS article on Mary Webb in the Guardian today!

eta - I'm a big fan of Mary Webb as well!

I loved Precious Bane and I have Gone to Earth sitting on my TBR pile -- hopefully I'll get to it when the semester is over. Mary Webb is lovely, but Morrison is brilliant. I'll admit, Paradise is not her masterpiece, but it does have some really intriguing insights into how closed communities get twisted and not only turn in on themselves, but lash out at anything suspected of being threatening. And then there are Song of Solomon and Beloved and Jazz -- the language in these is absolutely amazing imho.

Very interesting especially because I hate Hardy (did him at High School) and love Cold Comfort Farm. It never dawned on me before reading comparisons on this site a month or so ago, that Gibbons was lampooning Webb. I just thought one an enormously funny book and the other a really romantic one.

Jane - you may or may not remember Oprah bantering back and forth with an audience member who did not like Morrison. Shades of you and me. You at least have Oprah and the Nobel Prize Committee on your side, while I am in a very lonely place when it comes to Ms M.

(Romain slopes off to bed with her Nero Wolfe novel)

Ah romain, you're not alone! I read Jazz at university and can't bring myself to try her others. Didn't like the style, the language, the subject matter, the characters, etc etc etc.

Christina, thank you, thank you, thank you! The only stuff I really knew how to do were the text altering stuff. I've starred this post because it is so helpful.

10. USING LT-SUPPORTED COVERS

I know some of you use book covers in your threads or on your profiles for "recently read" or "currently reading". The problem with using Amazon covers is that they can change to the newer edition. The problem with using LT covers is that they sometimes disappear after a while.

But there is a solution!

Use CoverThing as your cover source. This will only work on LibraryThing, not on your blog. It will let you display your specific cover, it won't disappear, and it won't change.

<img src="http://www.librarything.com/coverthing_dynamic.php?book=BOOK NUMBER&width=100">

You can find your book number on your book page, /work/XXXXX/book/YYYYYY (The YYYYYY is the book number).

For smaller, make the width smaller; for larger, make the width larger.

These covers are supported and don't need to regenerate.

So, if I want to display my cover for Iphigenia (/work/794033/book/41744370), I would make my BOOK NUMBER = 41744370.

<img src="http://www.librarything.com/coverthing_dynamic.php?book=41744370&width=100">

I've read that book! You and Laura and I are among the 15 LTers who have it in our libraries. Thanks for more extraordinarily helpful HTML tutoring!

>38 christiguc:,39: Iphigenia: The Diary... is next up in my queue !!

Thanks, Christi. I do have a few LT covers on my book review thread. This is MOST helpful info.

Thank you dear Christina and how generous of you to help us all!

How timely as I have just noted some of my covers have disappeared from my 999 thread which was very annoying bearing in mind the time it took me to get them there in the first place!!

Many of my covers have disappeared from my 75 books challenge thread and I was wondering why. I'm not sure I have the patience to do them over, though!

Exactly marise!!!

Oh dear, oh dear, ohdear! I'm not about to get into trying pictures yet, sad to say, but I've hit something (!) that has totally messed up my library, and I can't find where to fix it, and I can't think of anybody else to ask. (Ohdearohdearohdear)
WHY is my library now organized by publication date? I don't want that. My first choice would be alpha by author, and failing that, alpha by title.
Will some good sister or brother have pity on a poor, old, incipiently senile woman. (This will have the effect that Romain was going for in post 24.)

LizzieD, click on the heading of the column that you want to sort on. You can sort on most of the columns - if the heading is in blue, it is sortable; if the heading is black, you can't sort on it.

If you want to sort by author, click on Author at the top of the author column to get alpha order, if you click on Author a second time, you will get reverse alpha order.

I hope this makes sense!

Hi Lizzie,

Do you see those column headers up top? They read (in order across):

Author | Title | Date | Tags | Rating | Google Books | Shared

All of those should be in bold-faced and blue-colored except for Google Books which should be black-colored. The blue-colored ones are clickable links and when you move your mouse over one of them it should turn into a little pointing-finger.

Whenever you click one of those links, it sorts your library based upon the column that the link represents. You must have clicked the Date link. Just try clicking the Author link and you should be in good shape. If you find that your authors are sorted in reverse-alpha order, just click the Author link again and that should put them in A-to-Z order.

And note that the appearance of these links may differ slightly for you. I'm using Firefox and currently using Windows Vista on a laptop. Appearances may differ slightly depending on browser and operating system.

Oh thank you! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!! Add a star to your crown.

Help: At top of profile page I used to have a link to my list of tags. It disappeared a few days ago. Can anyone help me find it? Maybe I clicked on something by mistake!

Nothing you did--they took it away. To get to your tags (englishrose60) now, you can click on "see all tags" on your profile after the list of your top tags. Or click on "organize" when you are in your library.

Thank you Christina! Note to self ... must pay more attention to what's going on (or off) on LT.

We can use HTML in posts? Heyyah!

Edit: apparently not CSS :(

Super, (and everybody else), here's the latest wrinkle. I'm logged in; I type a book I want to look at into the search on my home page, my library page, AND the Search page, and I get ....

You don't have permission to access /catalogsearch.php on this server

I'll try logging out and back in, but what's up with this????

>53 LizzieD:: When weird things like that happen to me, the first place I look is the Bug Collectors group. Sometimes another member has already reported the problem and the LT team are working on a fix. I've also had to log a problem occasionally. Some significant catalog changes were implemented recently, so "side effects" would not be surprising.

Thank you, Laura. This morning all is well, but I'll remember the Bug Collectors.

Why doesn't paragraphs work for me? I have tried simply leaving an empty line between paragraphs, two empty lines, , and nothing helps. See http://www.librarything.com/review/44301452 .

It seems to help with these messages, though. Oddly enough.

Have you tried <br><br> ? If that doesn't work, perhaps try putting a space between the two breaks (so there isn't an empty line but instead a line of a space?), like <br> <br>.

Edited to say: Apparently, it is a bug from when you enter your review from the "Review" screen. If you use the "Edit book" screen, your line breaks will be preserved. So, I would recommend you edit that book and simply re-add your empty lines from there and then save. (courtesy of klarusu and carport)

to christiguc

glitter-graphics.com
Is there a way to use the tab key in a message or do you have to use a blockquote?

Unfortunately, you can't use the tab key in a message. The simplest way to indent a paragraph (that I know) involves using the "style" attribute--something which isn't allowed on LT's talk forums because it can be abused (e.g., to create a huge invisible link where anywhere you click will lead you to a spammy outside page).

Your other option would be to use &nbsp; &nbsp; - which basically just is a lot of typing for you to space over a few spaces.

I've recently found - thanks to aethercowboy - that you can use tabs. However, it's not simple, because you have to enclose the text with the tab in it in <pre></pre>, which itself forces a particular font and puts a new line before and after the text. Also, tab is &#09;. So it's not as simple as it might be.

Here's an example:

tab times two: end of tabs

which is <pre>tab times two:&#09;&#09;end of tabs</pre>

ETA - told you it wasn't easy - that took me three goes!

Okay, here's my question. A number of people have the actual book covers of books they are currently reading neatly lined up in columns and rows on their PM page. Has does one accomplish this miraculous feat of magic?

Ah, Mary, that is an excellent question. You simply want covers of your books, no links, etc., correct?

First, get the picture location for your cover.

Then, go to your profile and edit your profile settings. You can choose to do this in either the "about me" field or the "about my library" field.

To get the picture to appear, you would use the display code: <img src="PICTURE URL">

Since you want all your covers to be the same size, you would want to adjust the height so that the height stays constant. Add a height-style tag at the end of your image code: <img src="PICTURE URL" height=100px>

To add another picture side-by-side on the same line, you would just repeat the code:
<img src="PICTURE URL" height=100><img src="PICTURE URL" height=100>

If you want to add a bit of space between them, you can add a "margin" on either the right or left side:
<img src="PICTURE URL" height=100; style="margin-right: 10px"><img src="PICTURE URL" height=100; style="margin-right: 10px">

Once you have the code in place, you only have to swap out the "PICTURE URL" as a simple copy-paste while your reading changes.

TO ILLUSTRATE

Say I want to display three of my "Currently Reading" on my profile. The code is:

<img src="PICTURE URL" height=200; style="margin-right: 10px"><img src="PICTURE URL" height=200; style="margin-right: 10px"><img src="PICTURE URL" height=200; style="margin-right: 10px">

I'll pick three books out of my "Currently Reading" collection:
Margaret Storm Jameson: a life, cover url = http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/e8/40/e840eebef84ebff592b68685667434d414f4541.jpg (Do you see how I got that? Do you get the same thing?)
Complete Poems of Hart Crane, cover url = http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/0b/e7/0be7f30411c531b592b39685667434d414f4541.jpg
Love on the Dole, cover url = http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/a5/0a/a50a61614437207592f56685667434d414f4541.jpg

Inserting the cover urls for the "PICTURE URL" in the code, I get:
<img src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/e8/40/e840eebef84ebff592b68685667434d414f4541.jpg" height=200; style="margin-right: 10px"><img src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/0b/e7/0be7f30411c531b592b39685667434d414f4541.jpg" height=200; style="margin-right: 10px"><img src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/a5/0a/a50a61614437207592f56685667434d414f4541.jpg" height=200; style="margin-right: 10px">



***NB: "style" tags do not work in Talk but they will work on Profile. So, you won't see your margins here in Talk.***

Say I change out some Currently Reading:
For example, I finish Ms. Jameson and Crane's poetry. But I add in:
Olive Kitteridge, cover url = http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/9f/95/9f958a65cfab50359312f395567434d414f4541.jpg (once again, do you see how I got that?)
Mephisto, cover url = http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/73/56/735614c35d21b4f592f66725467434d414f4541.jpg
The Death of the Heart, cover url = http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/12/41/124192430ba113c597939695667434d414f4541.jpg

Then, I substitute out the ones I've finished and add the new ones
<img src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/a5/0a/a50a61614437207592f56685667434d414f4541.jpg" height=200; style="margin-right: 10px"><img src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/9f/95/9f958a65cfab50359312f395567434d414f4541.jpg" height=200; style="margin-right: 10px"><img src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/73/56/735614c35d21b4f592f66725467434d414f4541.jpg" height=200; style="margin-right: 10px"><img src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/12/41/124192430ba113c597939695667434d414f4541.jpg" height=200; style="margin-right: 10px">

(and keep in mind that the margin style parameters won't work in Talk)

Thank you again Christina - and Mary for asking! Not sure I will be able to master it just yet .... I simply loved that you chose Ms Jameson as an example!!

FYI, I just came across the fact that the contents of our "Currently Reading" collections display on our profile pages. Discussion in the new features group (see this thread) has requested ability to display this more towards the top of the page, and also display covers. So the LT boffins may take care of this for us at some stage!

If you want to copy the 'Recently added' images from your Home page (complete with links to the works), there's a (pretty convoluted) way of doing it given on my profile page. The only benefit is that you don't need to play around with HTML. Warning, though. I don't keep mine up to date, and the code for the Home page seems to change fairly frequently, so I don't guarantee that my instructions are up to date.

Christina - a query for when you have the time and inclination.
I am doing housework and tidying up my library.
I add The Lost Traveller by Antonia White and get this page http://www.librarything.com/work/375846/book/51641654

with author and cover pictures completely wrong.

(Christina, thank you! Thank You! for the illustrated instructions. Now when I feel brave, I'll give it a go.) (Right now I feel pretty insecure.)

>68 juliette07: Julie, your book had been improperly and interestingly combined with The Life and Times of Little Richard. I separated it and combined your lost traveller with the others of The Lost Traveller. It should be good now.

>69 LizzieD: You are very welcome! Just play around with it--no need to be afraid or insecure. :)

Well thank you dear Christina - I kinda felt I should tell *somebody * in case someone was up to mischief.
The Lost Traveller is no longer lost!

OK - so now I am being either a real pain or geeky! I went to http://www.librarything.com/work/171293/book/51642117

and instead of 'streets' the title on the work page says 'street' and on my profile page the name of the authouress is missing. I would like to fiddle with this but don't understand this combining and separating.

You're not a pain at all Julie.

I went and looked at your catalogue and the problem seems to be with your entry (that is to say, the data that came from Amazon is incorrect), it's not a combining problem. If you click on "edit book" when you're on the work page, you can correct the title and add the author for your copy. Don't forget to click save! :)

(Note: you can also edit in your catalogue, but I almost always do it from the edit book page, so I tend to think of that method first.)

Thank you - I've done it!

Christina, you are amazing.

Help!!! A very special character?

How do I insert a square brackets in the text when I mean ithem to be square brackets instead of the code that marks a title, for example if I wish to denote a word insertion or change I have made in a quotation? I am quite at a loss, alas, alack.

> 76 Mary, you use &#91; for [ and you use &#93; for ].

Edited to say: However, you cannot edit your message without retyping the code for the brackets each time.

>77 christiguc: Christina to I need to enclose it in angled brackets or anything else?

[weather]

Got it!

Thanks!

[Gosh you're a clever puss, Christina]!

Is there any way to post a link to the Collection Tracker on our group page?

Sure! Paola will have to do it since she's the group owner. I'll send her the URL by email.

[That will be helpful]

Tee hee. There you go, just waving those brackets around everywhere!

The first time it did not work but now it is fixed and voila`! you have the link on the group page!!!
:-))

Thank you Paola!!! This is very helpful and I so appreciate it!

Anything for you, my dear!
:-))

Eek, how do I do an acute accent over an e? It'll be a symbol thingy...

hold the alt key and hit 130 on the number pad, release, voilà (à = alt 133).

Tui, thanks!

hmm didn't work. I was trying to write a smart-alec reply.

If you are using Windows, then the Character Map accessory will work fine. (XP - Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools)

If you want to use the character encoding, then &#x00E9; = é; &#x00E1; = á

(Encodings are interpreted within postings, so you will need to reconstruct them if you edit your posting.)

I have a query regarding how to divide what appears as a single book into the two book volume that I own. In fact, from conversations I am wondering if these works do in fact exist as a single book. I know that each book is a separate entity whilst being 'connected' as volume 1 and volume 2. Please could anyone advise? I don't want to go ahead and do anything terminal!

The two books in question are Journey From The North Vol 1 and Journey From The North Vol 2 by Margaret Storm Jameson.

Oh dear the touchstones are not working for me. ETA the page link http://www.librarything.com/work/book/53101885

ETA OK I have found both volumes now - sorry. However as a foot note I cannot change my cover for Volume 1. aghhhh

>95 juliette07: Julie, that's because you have a single entry in your library as Volumes 1 & 2. You could enter them separately as two different entries of Volume 1 and Volume 2, but that is your decision of how you want to enter it in your library.

The combining there is all mixed up anyways. Give me a minute to try to fix it. . .

Edited to say: PS: Five of you all have Cloudless May--they just weren't combined.

Thank you so very much Christina. You are so kind. I certainly would like to enter each book separately and have done so for Volume 1. When Volume 2 arrives I will do likewise!

However, being a bit pedantic, the ISBN number and the edition number still do not match.
ISBN 0860685012
Published by Virago 1984

Anyway, I now have the correct beautiful Virago cover of boats entering Whitby in a storm.

Thank you too for the Cloudless May issue. Now I may see who else has the treasure.

>97 juliette07: Julie, the ISBN and edition number are data that you import from whichever source you select (in this case, you chose amazon.co.uk). If the data is wrong, you can edit the ISBN and the publishing information of your edition by clicking on the pencil on the far right of that entry.

>98 christiguc: Christina thank you. You are an angel.

Hi, Christi. I learned about this thread through jimroberts on "Reviews Reviewed." The problems I'm having, however, are on another thread.

I'm having serious coding issues: (1) I'm getting extra spaces between list items; (2) nested list is not displaying correctly; and (3) non-breaking space commands are being ignored.

Also, in the Touchstones area, LT shows one of my authors in red. What does this mean? Thanks.

The javascript for my specific post displays a little differently from the prototype in your instsructions. I hope this links to the post I'm having a problem with.

If not, what about this?

I just clicked the links; and neither of them work.

One last try.

Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

>100 sacredstacks:

Hi, sacredstacks. I think you mean this thread.

Your questions:

1) As to the extra space between list items, there are easy ways to change that. However, all of the solutions I know involve using the "style" attribute to set the spacing in various parts of the list. Because of potential for abuse, the "style" tag has been blocked from use on LT talk forums. (see here). So, unfortunately, that's how all <li> lists I've seen appear in Talk.

2) How are you intending for your nested list to display? If I know what you're aiming for, perhaps I can tell you where you may have gone wrong. :)

3)        I looked in the source code and         didn't see where you tried to use &nbsp; (It appears to be working for me). Just so you know--when you edit your post, all the special characters in html have to be redone. That might be where you're getting your error.

For example, I type "&amp;nbsp;" to have "&nbsp;" display when I enter this message. If I were to edit this message, the &amp;s would be already changed in my text and the code would disappear one more step down the line each time I edited and reentered. (So, if I type &amp;amp;amp;nbsp;, it will be &amp;amp;nbsp; after I edit it once, &amp;nbsp; after I edit it twice, &nbsp; on my third edit. A non-breaking space will enter for my fourth edit. And, if I edit that non-breaking space, I'll just have a regular space that won't build for message-formatting).

4) When the author shows up in red, it means there an error. It's a bug that's been around a while. The most recent report appears to be here.

Christina - I am trying to scan some missing covers into my library but after the scan the cover is very spotty and looks as if it has the measles - my scanner is reasonably good quality - is there any way I can overcome this problem?

I have tried various settings but it still happens with some covers.

>102 mrspenny: Patricia,

My first question, the obvious--are you sure the glass is clean?

Then, when you say you have tried various settings--have you tried adjusting the resolution, the brightness, and the color-depth individually? And none of those makes a noticeable difference?

Christina - have done all of the above - I have scanned and changed the cover of The Other Woman by Collette and this illustrates the problem - I can get rid of the spots if I opt to have the scanned image as a BMP but when I try to change the cover in LT, I receive an alert message and am told the file is too big for LT.

Can you tell me why this is happening, please? and how can I overcome this?

Printed items - books, magazines etc - need to be descreened when they are scanned to get rid of the moiré effect. On my scanning software there is a box to tick to select this. I don't know if this is your problem but the moiré effect can look like spots.

CDVicarage - This problem doesn't happen with every item I scan. If it was the problem you referred to, wouldn't it happen with every item scanned?

I can get rid of the spots if I opt to have the scanned image as a BMP but when I try to change the cover in LT, I receive an alert message and am told the file is too big for LT.

Do you have an online picture storage? When I get that message, I just upload my image to Flickr and then import the image to LT. (Note that while there is a size limit for pictures you upload from your computer, it does not hold for pictures you grab from another online site).

So, you could simply scan as a bmp, upload to Flickr, and then import into LT. One extra step, but it gets you around the image-size problem. And that's how I would do it, short of figuring out what the root of the problem is.

For those that want to see and might be able to provide a direct answer, here is mrspenny's image:



Does anyone recognize the problem?

Maybe try scanning as .jpg or saving as/converting to .jpg? I'm no expert but the cover scans I have done were saved as jpeg with no problems, also I can set the quality to control file size, per the 2mb limit on LT. I do have a mac so maybe the jpeg quality setting isn't obviously accessible on windows. My logic being that running the file through some sort of filter might eliminate an obvious file error.

Also, I have learned likely everything I'll ever need to know about HTML from this thread and heartily thank christiguc for the actual effort and also to jimroberts for answering an early question about an incorrect isbn number after I found LT, and for having a link to this thread on his profile page.

>105 CDVicarage:/107/108 - thanks for the suggestions - not yet successful but I will keep trying until I get it right - The spotty Other Woman looks most unsightly!!

It does look a bit like a moiré effect from your example, though it's hard to tell from a small picture. The effect does vary depending on the picture so it may not always be as obvious as on this one. But apart from that I can think of no other suggestion, I'm afraid.

Hurrah - success at last!! Christina I followed your suggestion and uploaded it to picasa and then posted it..no spots!!

Is there a way to make text appear in a different colour? I'm a member of Book Group Online and over there I keep a list of the books I've read each year, along with my 1-5 star system. On BGO I can make my stars yellow, but I'm not sure if LT's coding will alllow that. Does anyone know?

I don't think you can do coloured text, but
<img src="http://static.librarything.com/pics/s-s.gif"> will get you
and
<img src="http://static.librarything.com/pics/s-f.gif"> will get you

Do the hexadecimal code thingees work with HTML in any way? Those are the ones where you use a string like '$1122FF' to change text color, I recently used it for an online sailing game to make my screen name appear orange. The $ is an identifier and the digits represent gradients of red, green and blue.

>113 Noisy: Thank you, Noisy! That will work for me!

>112 miss_read:, 114 You can change the text color of html using hexadecimal code, etc., but not on LT. The "style" tag has been disallowed because it allowed spammers and other evil-doers to create hidden links, and the text color is a style attribute.

Noisy's workaround in #113 is excellent, though!

Hi,

All of my book heights on my profile page used to be even and I had a slight space between them. Both of these details vanished about a week ago. Now the pictures of my books are different heights and there is no space between them. What happened?

Mary, "style" which was disallowed in Talk has now been banned from profiles (as of about a week or so ago) as well. To fix the height control of your images, change the code to:

<img src="IMG URL" height=200>

Since the margin was a style attribute, there isn't a good way to code for that anymore.

Probably the easiest way to get a margin is to add a space between the img tags. If you plan on repeatedly editing your profile to change out the picture, you will only be able to keep one space in between. But that should be enough to make your margins neater.

So, instead of doing: <img src="IMG URL" height=200><img src="IMG URL" height=200>

Use: <img src="IMG URL" height=200> <img src="IMG URL" height=200>

To get the space between the covers as on my profile page, I just took a small image of a white space (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2742/4249998502_ceae510065_o.jpg) and put a code for that between each of my covers. So, on my profile, the code is:

<img src="IMG1 URL" height=200><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2742/4249998502_ceae510065_o.jpg" width=15><img src="IMG2 URL" height=200><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2742/4249998502_ceae510065_o.jpg" width=15><img src="IMG3 URL" height=200>

11. Special Characters

[ = left bracket = &#91;
] = right bracket = &#93;
\ = backlash, reverse solidus = &#92;

¢ = cent = &cent;
£ = pound = &pound;
€ = euro = &euro;
¥ = yen = &yen;

© = copyright = &copy;
® = registered = &reg;
™ = trademark = &trade;

÷ = divide = &divide;
± = plus/minus = &plusmn;
< = less than = &lt;
> = greater than = &gt;
≤ = less than or equal to = &le;
≥ = greater than or equal to = &ge;
° = degree = &deg;
³ = superscript number (works for 1, 2, and 3) = &sup3;
¼ = fraction (works for 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4) = &frac14;
∧ = logical and = &and;
∠ = angle = &ang;
≈ = asymptotically equal to = &asymp;
∞ = infinity = &infin;

§ = section = &sect;
µ = micron = &micro;
¶ = paragraph sign = &para;
¿ = inverse question = &iquest;
¡ = inverse exclamation = &iexcl;
« = left accent quote = &laquo;
» = right accent quote = &raquo;

· = middle dot = &middot;
† = dagger (cross) = &dagger;
♥ = heart = &hearts;
♠ = spades = &spades;
♣ = clubs = &clubs;
♦ = diamonds = &diams;
↓ = down arrow = &darr;
↑ = up arrow = &uarr;
← = left arrow = &larr;
→ = right arrow = &rarr;
↔ = horizontal arrow = &harr;
⇓ = double down arrow = &dArr;
⇑ = double up arrow = &uArr;
⇐ = double left arrow = &lArr;
⇒ = double right arrow = &rArr;
⇔ = double horizontal arrow = &hArr;

Acute accent:
á (&aacute;), Á (&Aacute;), é (&eacute;), É (&Eacute;), í (&iacute;), Í (&Iacute;), ó (&oacute;), Ó (&Oacute;), ú (&uacute;), Ú (&Uacute;)

Grave accent:
à (&agrave;), À (&Agrave;), è (&egrave;), È (&Egrave;), ì (&igrave;), Ì (&Igrave;), ò (&ograve;), Ò (&Ograve;), ù (&ugrave;), Ù (&Ugrave;)

Circumflex accent:
â (&acirc;), Â (&Acirc;), ê (&ecirc;), Ê (&Ecirc;), î (&icirc;), Î (&Icirc;), ô (&ocirc;), Ô (&Ocirc;), û (&ucirc;), Û (&Ucirc;)

Ring accent:
å (&aring;), Å (&Aring;)

Tilde accent:
ã (&atilde;), Ã (&Atilde;), ñ (&ntilde;), Ñ (&Ntilde;), õ (&otilde;), Õ (&Otilde;)

Umlaut accent:
ä (&auml;), Ä (&Auml;), ë (&euml;), Ë (&Euml;), ï (&iuml;), Ï (&Iuml;), ö (&ouml;), Ö (&Ouml;), ü (&uuml;), Ü (&Uuml;), ÿ (&yuml;)

Cedilla accent:
ç (&ccedil;), Ç (&Ccedil;)

Slash accent:
ø (&oslash;), Ø (&Oslash;)

Ligature accent:
æ (&aelig;), Æ (&AElig;), œ (&oelig;), Œ (&OElig;)

α = alpha = &alpha;, β = beta = &beta;, etc.

That is great, Christina! I will print it and keep it handy. Thanks!

I have just done that very thing!!!! Thank you, Christina------ I've always wanted to say that teaching for ∞ would be a † to the &heart; !

>121 LizzieD: Be sure to add the semicolon after the code--that's what makes it work. :)

teaching for ∞ would be a † to the ♥!

And it is hearts :)

OH....I see. Thanks again!!

For our own amazing Christina.....

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!!!!!

I need to bump this thread to the top...
I just love you christiguc!

And I added it to my favourites!!! ♥ ♥

Just to let you all, especially Cristina, that I have incorporated sections 6, 7, 8 and 9 into WikiHelp.

When in Talk, you can click on the 'Help' icon at the top right of every page to see this wonderful information made available to the wider LT community.

Thanks, cristiguc, thanks a lot for this wonderful set of tips.

ps. Don't mind the changes/edits, I'm using this post to confirm stuff from the WikiHelp!

126> Thanks for taking the time to do that, justjim!

Christina, when you have a moment, could you help me with something?

I put a post into the Letters to Santa thread (it's #20) and followed your instructions for putting a hyperlink to my Bookmooch wishlist without showing the whole URL. It looks OK, but when I test it, it doesn't take me to the wishlist. I don't know what I've done wrong!

Thank you.

Nicky

128> I'm not Christina, but I can see that it appears your href was blank. What you should be putting in should look like this:

<a href="http://bookmooch.com/m/wishlist/your_username_here">Bookmooch Wishlist</a>

brightcopy:

I've finally worked out what I was doing wrong: I was using two single quotation marks (twice) instead of a double one (twice). The link is working now!

Thanks for your help!

So, in honor of the end of another year, let’s look at how to make our own reading timeline! :)

Since this is going to rely on a Google Doc feature, and since many people don’t have Excel (or have varying versions of Excel), I’m going to talk about how to edit this in Google Spreadsheet. If you want, you can edit it in Excel and then just upload the finished product—that’s what I did, so there’s nothing wrong with that.

This may look long and arduous but that is only because I’m going through, literally step-by-step. Seriously.

STEP ONE: Get a Google Docs Account

This is going to make use of the Simile Timeline (like LT used for its aborted attempt at a timeline). To get a Google Account, go to google.com. In your upper right, there is a "Sign In" option. Mid right, there’s a link that says "Don’t have a Google Account—create one now!" Well, create one now. ;)

Once you sign in, you can access Google Docs from the regular Google page. Top navigation bar, More—about two-thirds of the way down, you find "Documents". On the left side, you see the option for a drop down of "Create new". Select Spreadsheet.

STEP TWO: The Theory Behind It

For the timeline to work, you need a specific set of parameters on your spreadsheet—across the top, you want (in any order, but case sensitive) title, start, end, image, link, description in a block as column headers.



Of those, only ‘title’ and ‘end’ really need to have data entries for this to work.

If you want to start entering by hand or want to import your own spreadsheet, go ahead and skip to Step Six. What immediately follows is how to import your LibraryThing data into your spreadsheet.

STEP THREE: Getting Your LibraryThing Data into the Spreadsheet

Go here and export your data as tab-delimited text (note that the CSV doesn’t export dates—I tried). Open With notepad or somesuch and then save where you can find it.

On your open Spreadsheet, select File—Import. Browse to where you saved the file, selecting create new spreadsheet, and then Import.

Et voila! There is your data.

STEP FOUR: Weeding Out the Messy Extras

By right-clicking on the top letter of the column (or by clicking on the drop down arrow that pops up on the right of the letter), you can select to "Delete column".

You can take out all the unnecessaries, keeping only:
-book id (which we’ll use to auto-populate the cover image—if you want to do that, otherwise you can delete it too)
-title
-ISBNs (which we’ll use to auto-populate the link column—if you want that, etc.)
-date started
-date ended
-review (which you can use as the description field, if you write nice reviews)

Now isn’t that much more manageable?



STEP FIVE: Getting It All In Order

Remember the title headings we need? (title, start, end, image, link, description) And that we need them all in one block, i.e., side-by-side?

Well, let’s move the ‘title’ column over to the right one—click on the letter at the top and drag and drop. Simple as that!

Change the "date started" to "start", the "date ended" to "end", the "review" to "description".

And we still need "link" and "image", right? Click on the top letter of your last column and select "Insert 1 right". Do that again. Add your missing headings and we have:



Click on the column ‘end’ (E in the example) and sort sheet, either A to Z or Z to A.

STEP SIX: Getting Your Graph

Right now, you have all you need for the timeline to work. It won’t be fancy with all the pictures and links, but you can stop here and feel extravagantly proud of yourself. :)

Highlight your block of columns (on our example, click on C and pull through H). Go to Insert—Gadget. Go to "Timeline Gadget", currently the sixth one down on the list. (If it's not there, you can find it under 'Charts').

You should get a pop-up like this:



Name it what you will. Choose what colors you want. (You can get hex codes here for colors, for example).

So beautiful! (Yes, it may take a few moments to load initially).

If you want to make it fancier, read on. If you want to leave it as is but share it with others, skip to Step Nine.

STEP SEVEN: Auto-Fill Links

So you want the pop-up title to link back to the LibraryThing book page like I have? In the box where we have "link" (G1 in the example) type exactly:

="http://www.librarything.com/book//work/" & A1

(We’re using column A if that is where you still have the Book ID. If Book ID is in a different column, use B1, C1, wherever.)

Now, highlight that column by clicking on the top letter (G here). Hit control-D and you should have special-pasted that formula all the way down your spreadsheet! Check it out!

Now, you can change the column heading back to "link" in cell G1 (or whatever column).

**Perhaps you want to put your timeline on your blog with a link to Amazon with your associate number attached? Then you would use the formula:
="http://www.amazon.com/dp/" & MID(B1,2,LEN(B1)-2) & "/?tag=assoc-id-20"
(Of course, replace assoc-id with your ID. We do all that fancy stuff in the middle because the export has brackets around the ISBNs to preserve the leading zeros. All that odd language just takes the middle, stripping away two. Just like before, after entering the formula, highlight the column, type control-D, and then change the header back to "link".)

STEP EIGHT: Auto-Filling the Image Column

First off, if we want to use LibraryThing images, get your developer key. (Come on, you know you want one! And it’s free! ;) )

Then, on the first row of the "image" column, type:

="http://covers.librarything.com/devkey/**YOUR DEV KEY**/medium/isbn/" & MID(B1,2,LEN(B1)-2)

(This is presuming that you have ISBNs in column B, with brackets around them, as found in the export. Same as before, highlight the column, type control-D, and then edit the first row back to "image".)

Ta-da!

STEP NINE: Admire Your Beautiful Finished Product

Go back to Step Six, create your gadget, and look at it now, isn’t it lovely?

On your Gadget, in its upper left drop-down, choose to "Move to new sheet" to admire in full view.

STEP TEN: Letting Others Admire Too

First, you want to lock your data so nobody else can edit it once we share your graph. Bottom left, click on the name of your data sheet and choose the option to "Protect sheet". Who can edit? (I chose "Only Me")

But you want others—even those without Google Accounts—to be able to see your finished product, right? Above the sheet, you should see a lock with a "private only to me" label. Click on that. And then edit. I chose "Public on the Web" and selected the check box saying anyone can edit. (My data is safely locked, edited by "Only Me" but this will allow others to scroll around my timeline).

There you have it!

And now that it’s taken me at least ten times longer to type this than it did to make it in the first place, you might ask—since all the data is in LibraryThing, why doesn’t LibraryThing have this as a feature? I don’t know. . .

See. . . . this is what happens when I try to go to bed an hour ago yet still can’t sleep. . . ;)

Christina, you are blessed not only with with beauty but with absolute brilliance!

Now, do you have a 24/7 hotline?

~133 Ditto!

At one point I could get something from LT which showed me when I added books etc - I will look it up and make a link :))

Here it is http://www.librarything.com/lttl/?view=juliette07
As I thought I remembered - it has been depopulated. Did anyone else have this? I found it once when I was 'playing around' on LT!

WOW! I am speechless!!!!

>134 juliette07:

Juliette - change your dates for Roller Skates and that may fix the problem.

Noisy - thank you so very much - you are a genius!! Unlike myself of course who had written in the reading date of aforementioned book as 2030 or something similar .....

However, as my dear Keith says, any programme will only work as well as the person inputting the data.... garbage in = garbage out aka GIGO effect! (that's me)

In the immortal words of Rosanna Rosanna Dana.....never mind

And just because I keep coming to this thread, thinking it's where I should find it:

&#92; = \ (backslash, reverse solidus)

>139 brightcopy: Yes, thank you, so true. I'll add it above. :)

Awesome. This thread has come in so handy. I keep thinking I should also put it in the wiki, but this thread feels more "homey".

I'm trying to use covers for "Recently read" on my profile page, so I copied the code Christina so kindly provided in post #63. It didn't turn out - the covers are different heights and there's no space between them. Any ideas on how I can fix this? I'd appreciate it.

>142 Leseratte2:: did you include the html code for height (i.e.; height=100) for every image?
I've never tried the margin code suggested, but sometimes I just type a space between each image.

I did. I pasted Christina's code three times and just changed the cover info. I have a sinking feeling that I'm going to be forced to choose between a new laptop and a trip to Paris.

Get a cheaper laptop, go to Paris.

144> I looked at the source for your profile - I don't see the height= bit in the place for either cover. Nor margins, nor spaces (the space goes after the > sign after the first cover). Did you use the last version in 63, or the first one in 64? It looks like you used the most basic one, the first one in 63.

146> I used the code in post 64, just copied and pasted. I looked at the source and you're right about height/margins/spaces being missing, but when I go to "edit profile", it's all there.

Ok, that's _weird_. mmmaybe they locked down some of the code? But...why height and margins...That's really strange. Well, you can make space between them by putting in a space between the tags...Oh, try width= instead. It should get it closer to the same size, if it works.

Hmmph - nope, neither width nor height makes any difference. And just putting a space doesn't help - but &nbsp; does. But it goes away (at least to the eye) when you re-edit the profile - sheesh!

Y'know, that might be worth a bug entry.

More fiddling - aha! Width and height both work - if you put the number into quotes. height="200", not height=200. I wonder if LT switched to a stricter HTML renderer? But neither style=margin-right, border=, or hspace= works to put space between them, only nbsp and that goes away on re-editing. I'm going to bug that.

So the new form of the code is
<img src="PICTURE URL" height="200">&nbsp; <img src="PICTURE URL" height="200">

The HTML attribute 'style' is banned on LT.

And that (style being banned) was actually mentioned in 118...which I didn't see until now. But that one doesn't have the numbers in quotes - so that change happened since then.

What I bugged was &nbsp; disappearing on edit (complained about the rest, but that's the only bug) - it's the same thing as used to happen in Talk, which got fixed. So hopefully it's an easy fix.

That works! Thank you so much!

I've noticed people using a quarter notes paired up as a symbol for listening to an audiobook.... wondering if you know the html for that? Also for a checkmark. I don't seem them here......

More pic info - Tim went in and fiddled stuff in response to my bug, so now the proper code is:

<img src="PICTURE URL" height=200 hspace=5> <img src="PICTURE URL" height=200 hspace=5>

hspace puts that many pixels on _either_side_ of the picture - so this will have 5 pixels to the left, 10 between the pictures, and 5 to the right. vspace also works, for adjusting height (putting in vertical padding). And the code now works with or without quotes around the numbers, so leave them out for that much less typing.

>153 jjmcgaffey:: thanks so much for the update!

This thread should never go dormant.... it is too important.

Thank you so much for the information here....

>155 skittles:: you are so right! I marked the first message as a favorite so I can always find it that way.

Does anyone know of a way of using blockquotes in reviews? Most of the html code I use works but not that -- or is there a workaround anyone else can suggest?

@#24:
romain;
BARBARA, BARBARA, BARBARA; What is this "no more Viragos?" Take your temperature quickly woman!~! I think you have a fever or something. If not: STRAIGHT-A-WAY OFF TO THE NAUGHTY ROOM WITH YOU!~!

Christina, is there a code for a check mark? Could it be &check;? Nope. That would be too easy. I thank you!

159> Let me jump in, Lizzie. Check out HTML Codes -- T’N’T Luoma for a nice chart full of special-character codes. The code for ✔ is

ampersand & followed by hash # followed by the number-semicolon 10004;

which I can't put in all together or else you won't see the code, just the ✔, when I post this message.

✔

omigosh, it works

° or °
65°

That's a great site. I've been looking for a way to make degrees.

Isn't option-shift-8 easier for a degree sign than looking up some obscure code? Maybe it's only a mac keyboard thing though.

That website in #160 looks pretty handy for typing physics equations and whatnot. It is in the 'handy stuff' bookmark folder.

Actually pasting in characters that aren't part of the common characters rather than using their html entities can cause bad results when people using other languages view the page.

No mac keyboard here, no option button.

#160 very handy, thanks (I'm a non-HTML user)

What a useful site! Thank you CurrerBell!

For some reason, my response from a few days ago of 'That's a very good point' to #164 vanished, and it is still a good point today. Out of curiosity, somebody out there should try the alt-shift-8 for me. It ought to make a ° instead of the basic *. I'm pretty sure the option (mac) and alt (pc) are the same thing, maybe not. I get poison ivy from windows keyboards.

#168 by DirtPriest> Nah, windows doesn't do alt-keys like that. How it works there is you can use Alt+numpad (not just the top row numbers) keys. So alt-0176 would do the degree sign mentioned above.

65° the alt-0176 works
65 nothing happened with the alt-shift-8

65°

YAY!!!

*happy dance*

now I just have to remember it for longer than 5 minutes.

That's why this topic is here and starred. I have no doubt this lovely bit of information is leaking from my brain even as I write.

OK then. Thanks for the bonus info.

Mike, thank you very very very much!!!
✔ ✔ ✔

ampersand & followed by hash # followed by the number-semicolon 10004;

✔

It's been so long, I had to try it again.

Bump

I have a map that is NOT a picture; instead, the site provides a string of HTML code to be embedded. Any way to add it?

>178 Gypsy_Boy:

If it's a counter map then you should be able to add it on your profile, but likely not in a post.

Not a counter map but a "countries visited" kind of map (29travels.com, the GeoChart). It emphasizes that the map provided is not an image and states that it requires that the code be embedded in an HTML doc. Since the profile is not an HTML doc, is it possible to create a "frame" within which to insert the code?

The way I got my statistics counter maps to show on my profile page was to include the code provided by the sites in the 'About my library' section.

Oh, you've done it already.

No, the map I'm trying to add is a NEW map. The one that is there now is not the problem. (Sorry for all the bother.) The "29travels" is the bit of HTML that shows after I simply pasted the HTML into the "About My Library" section. Obviously, the code isn't working there.

Just paste it here, removing all the < signs and we can probably tell you quicker.

iframe width="650" height="325" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://www.29travels.com/geochart/getgeochart.php?j=DZAOBWCMCVCIEGETGMGHGNKELSLYMWMLMUMAMZNGSNSLSOZASDUGZWCNINIDJPMYNPPKTWAUNZALATBEBABGHRCZDKEEFRDEGRHUISITLTNLNOPLPTRORURSSKESSECHTRGBIRIQILSASYCACUDMMXPRUSARBOBRCLCOECGTPYPEUYVE&c=&c2=9efac3&c3=8f8ffc&w=650&h=325">/iframe>
div style="width:650px;padding-left:10px;text-align:left;font-size:10px;position:relative;top:-25px;">small>a href="http://www.29travels.com" target="_new">29travels/a>/small>/div>

Thanks.

Yeah, sorry, no can do. Iframe isn't allowed on LT profiles.

Damn! Thanks for the prompt response, though. I appreciate it.

Anytime. You could do it, if they offered a URL that just produced an image that you could put in your profile with the IMG tag.

Don't worry I sorted my problem out.

I tried to import four pictures. Two turned out just fine and the other two keep showing up upside down. Any way to invert them inside LT? I even tried rotating and saving them upside down on my desktop and within photos hoping they would then show up right side up but they still imported upside down. Help!

I've encountered this trouble and I have had to go back into I-photo and make the correction there. What a pain!

How do you post a survey (Do you like BOOK X, yes or no?) into a talk thread?
Thanks

>191 wcarter:

Using html angle brackets, type in "vote" INSERT TEXT HERE "/vote" (with the angle brackets in place of the double quotation marks).

>191 wcarter: <vote>Can you vote here?</vote>

becomes:

>192 elenchus: >193 SylviaC:
Thank you!!

On my profile page, I have a counter for each year that I have belonged to LT, plus a link to a list of books read for that year. It is getting a little crowded, so I wanted to separate each year with a line to make it easier to read. So I used the horizontal line command <hr> . Using this command causes everything between the horizontal lines to shift to the left almost to the edge of the screen - see https://www.librarything.com/profile/rretzler.

Does anyone have any idea how I can stop this from happening or an HTML command that will shift things back to the right?

Thanks!

>195 rretzler: The problem is that the way the profile is set up is by putting things in boxes (I'm not sure whether it's a table or a span that makes things sit to the right of the labels). The HR tag breaks that, and leaves things at the left edge.

Two possibilities: View Source and go through the code line by line until you figure out what keeps stuff over to the left, then add that in after your HR to put it back where it should be. It's a pain - but at least you'd only have to do it once, then copy and paste what you figure out for each new HR.

The other way - it doesn't look quite as good, but it's a _lot_ simpler - instead of using HR, just type a row of dashes or underscores. It won't adjust to screen size, you'll have to figure out what length you want it to be and just type that many (but again, once you've got one line that works you can copy-and-paste for the rest) - but it makes a line without breaking the structure of the page.

I would try putting center align around the tickers to see if that works. <center> </center>

>196 jjmcgaffey: >197 benuathanasia: Both good suggestions - many thanks! I guess I'll have to tinker a bit and see how it goes.

ETA
As an FYI, the center align does not overcome the HR command, everything still sits over to the left between the center align. I tried to look through the code, but nothing was really jumping out to me, plus as I know we are limited to the HTML that can be used, I figured anything I tried to do when editing my profile would likely not work anyway. So, I guess for now I'll settle for the unsophisticated underscores, unless anyone else has any other ideas.

bumpily bump bump

another bump

Hmm. Things going BUMP in the night...?? 😁

There are also lots of technical tips and advice on the Folio Society Devotees wiki here.

Now that Photobucket charges for its services, I know longer use it. Is there an alternate way to post images?

>203 urania1:, I upload them to my profile here on LT and then point to them.

>204 Cecrow:, how brilliant.

>203 urania1:
To post pictures with a much higher resolution, use Postimage here.

>204 Cecrow:, >205 urania1: There is a limit - 1000 pictures, I think - that you can upload to your profile on LT. Which means that you may have to delete some, eventually - but it's still better than the mess with Photobucket and a few others that suddenly removed all the pictures.

TESTING...

>208 Soupdragon: Looks like it worked.

>208 Soupdragon: Beautiful! I love seeing those Persephone editions there.....

>209 Citizenjoyce: >210 EBT1002: Yes and thank you! I'm getting back to LT now I've got some free time and thought I might start a 75 challenge thread again for the first time in about eight years. Wanted to make sure I still knew what to do!