Open Office

[Leanthar]

"....Notepad on the other hand should have no such problems which is sort of confusing me if that is indeed the case....."

Yeah, I agree it shouldn't but it does. I used to be able to type something in MS Word then copy/paste it in to Notepad then copy that notepad text and put in in to a post (at the old forum). It would keep the formatting and cut out the junk that MS Word puts in to it. That is how it worked at the old forums. Now I can not use Word at all as that trick does not work at these forums. For whatever reason these forums are far too picky about things and text just gets lost, even after copy/pasting in to notepad and then back out of notepad in to a post. I know there isn't much you guys can do but I just want to make sure everybody knows that it no longer works that way with these forums. Which means we have to use some outside product which kind of sucks heh.

I tend to make lengthy posts in replies to people and I know a lot of people use outside editors because of our character submission rules (requiring details). Many even use them when they want to rant on us and are creating a lenghty reply. I think that is the problem we are running in to here, we actually have people using these external editors because of post lengths and they are more than normal.

Like this post here, it is plain jane and a quick reply so I am not using an editor but I would bet about 30% of the time I do.

[Witch Hunter]

Isn't it possible to add all the characters word uses to the fourm?

[Leanthar]

@Witch Hunter,
Possible? Yeah, probably.

Do we have the manpower and time to do it? That is the real question. These guys are doing FAR FAR more than just forum stuff--I could go down a huge list of "responsibilities" that they have every day, day in and day out.

It is not as simple as you stated. I am quite sure they will do the best that they can with the time and manpower they have. But yes, I think that is the eventual goal.

[orth]

Isn't it possible to add all the characters word uses to the fourm?

I am not trying to come off as snarky here, but if it was just possible don't you think I would have simply done it? The fun realms of utf8, win-1252, mysql and php are not as trivial as one may think. I've spent quite a lot of hours on trying to support this to no avail.

The easiest way for this problem to be solved is for you the user to take a little time to change your habits.  Either install OpenOffice as suggested here or disable SmartQuotes in your Word Processor.

Here's an article that is somewhat related though it's referring to newsletters.
Microsoft Word Smart Quotes and Article Marketers Don't Mix

-orth

[Witch Hunter]

Woah woah woah... I didn't mean that as a demand rather as a question - It's not like I asked it to be done in the next few days mind you.
 
 

The easiest way for this problem to be solved is for you the user to take a little time to change your habits. Either install OpenOffice as suggested here or disable SmartQuotes in your Word Processor.

 
 *points to the thread he made*

[orth]

Woah woah woah... I didn't mean that as a demand rather as a question - It's not like I asked it to be done in the next few days mind you.
 
 *points to the thread he made*

I understand it wasn't a demand Witch, I just wanted it to be known that the complexities behind this were more then just clicking a box "Allow crazy Word characters"  And yes I appreciate the thread and just wanted to reiterate my point to the community, not to you.

[Witch Hunter]

(: no harm done

[Talan Va'lash]

In Dante's Inferno character encoding is it's own layer of hell.

Edit: I'm a fan of open office as well and not just because it's free, but that sure doesn't hurt. I find that when I use word I spend most of my time fighting with auto-bullets, auto-correct, auto-replace... ad nauseum. In OO it's easier to turn these things of for your section, document or permanantly (and they actually stay off rather than turning on again as soon as they feel like it.)

I reccomend Open Office to people at work (IT at the college I'm taking classes at.)

I also carry it around on my flash drive on campus when I'm going from lab computer to work computer to classroom computer. I like having it with me because it keeps my work environment consistent regardless of the fact that I've used 7 different computers in a day (running windows from 2000 to vista.)

For an absolutely painless portable install of open office for flash drives check out PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives | Your Digital Life, Anywhere™

Other stuff I have on my flashdrive from that site and others:
xChat - chat from wherever)
Firefox - I always have my bookmarks and encrypted passwords for sites
Thunderbird - checkkin' da email
CodeBlocks - for programming on the run
FileZilla - FTP client
Gimp - image editing
WinRar - compression/decompression
7Zip - for when winrar isn't enough
MinGW - compiling on the run
MSys - for doing stuff I probably shouldn't be doing on other peoples computers, er, I mean for make support on windows.

Cost of 1gb flashdrive: $20
Value of being able to work efficiently or waste time properly at any computer I'm at: Priceless

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Have I ever told you I love you, Talan? In a totally platonic way. Totally.

I nearly gave away my 1gb little flash drive... No longer.

You are my hero.

On an unrelated(?) note, the new Dells running Linux(!) may end up with OpenOffice instead of MSOffice. Then, perhaps, with the stupid-high costs for all the MS junk gone, you might actually be paying for what you get from Dell (and this is coming from someone who would have previously rather built a computer in a cardboard box than buy a Dell).