This page is intended as a supplement to comment sections that accept html but do not provide a previewer and basic editing functionality. It differs from a standard
html editor/previewer in that, like any comment system, it processes the input before it's passed to the browser for rendering. Most importantly, paragraphs are preserved, making the output more readable and errors easier to spot.
The 'Number of cr/lf(s) to create paragraph' option indicates the number of times Enter must be pressed to create a new paragraph in the Output. The default is 2. If 0 ('Off') is selected, no paragraphs will be created in the Output.
Input is never sent to the server; it always exists only locally. Option values are saved locally in cookies (if cookies are enabled), and cookie values
are sent to the server automatically with the page request, but this application does no processing on the server.
If
the 'Load previous input when the page loads' option is selected, the page is loaded with the same input that was present when the page was last unloaded. (A page is "unloaded" when its tab is closed, or the browser is closed, or the page is refreshed, or a different page is accessed in the same tab.) The input is saved to
local storage, similar to a cookie, but is never sent to the server. This feature is intended mainly as protection against lost input caused by inadvertent unloading of the page. If previous input is loaded by this page, it will be possible to clear it by clicking the Undo button or pressing Ctrl-Z. If Undo is unavailable, it means that the input was loaded by the browser, not the page.
There is unlimited Undo and Redo using
the '↶' and '↷' buttons or Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y. (Programming was required because the browser's undo/redo feature doesn't handle changes made programmatically, for example, the insertion of tags. The context menu (right-click) should not be used for undo or redo.) The 'Undo/Redo programmatic changes only' option was added to address a Safari 5.1.7 bug. If this option is selected, any number of consecutive programmatic changes can be undone or redone before a non-programmatic change is made to the Input; Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y can be used for all non-programmatic changes.
Click
the '&' button (with no text selected) to insert characters from a (partial) unicode table (€ ™ ♫ ✰). If '&' is clicked when text is selected, all characters in the selection above #127 (non-typeable characters) will be encoded. If '&' is clicked when a single character is selected, the character will be encoded. (A more complete unicode table is
here.)
The input field in
'Resources' defaults to text selected in the input area, if any (with tags stripped). For example, to quickly look up a word in one of the five sites listed, doubleclick the word (to select it), then click
.
To quickly remove a pair of tags, click anywhere within, or immediately outside, the opening and closing tags, then click
the '≮' button. The innermost pair of tags that's touching the cursor will be removed. For example, to remove the <em> and </em> in –
bold italics – click (⇐ in the input ) to the left of the first character of <em>, or to the right of the last character of </em>, or anywhere between, then click the '≮' button. If the cursor is touching a tag when the '≮' button is clicked, and no corresponding tag is found, the single tag will be removed.
If text is selected, and it contains no straight double quotes ("), clicking
the '“' or '‘' button encloses the text in angled quotes. Quotes contained in the selection are converted
accordingly. For example, if the selection is – He said, “She said, ‘The joke’s on you,’ and laughed.” – clicking '“' will produce “He said, ‘She said, “The joke’s on you,” and laughed.’” Apostrophes (') are ignored. This feature is intended mainly for quoting text that has been copied and pasted and contains quotes. If the selection contains one or more straight double quotes, and no angled double quotes, clicking the '“' or '‘' button converts them to angled quotes.
If local storage is enabled and available, a 'signature' of up to 5000 characters can be saved. Select text, then Shift-click
the button to save a signature. Click the button to insert a saved signature at the end of Input.
The Tab key can be used to insert or remove (with Shift-Tab) a blockquote. With text selected, pressing Tab is equivalent to clicking the button. With no text selected, pressing Tab will blockquote the paragraph that contains the cursor.
If text is selected, pressing
the Ctrl key twice quickly (like a double click) encloses the selection in <em></em> (italic) tags (equivalent to clicking 'I'). If no text is selected, all characters on either side of the cursor up to the first space or tag will be enclosed by the tags (usually a single word). If there are no such characters, and the cursor is inside or adjoins a tag, the tag or tag pair will be enclosed. Otherwise, the tags are inserted empty. If the tags to be inserted are already present at the cursor location, they will be deleted.
The Shift key works the same way with <strong></strong> (bold) tags, and
the Caps Lock key with <a></a> tags. This feature is intended mainly to be used immediately after typing a word (to quickly enclose the word in tags), or after typing a space at the end of a paragraph (to insert an empty tag pair).
Pressing (and releasing)
the Alt key with no text selected performs the same selection described in the previous paragraph. Pressing the Alt key with text selected selects the paragraph, or tag pair, that contains the selection. (Note: paragraphs are bounded by block elements such as <blockquote>.)
Pressing the following hotkeys is equivalent to clicking the corresponding menu items:
Alt-A (link/anchor), Alt-B, Alt-I, Alt-S, Alt-U, Alt-Q (blockquote), Alt-* (image), Alt-Del (remove tags), Alt-“, Ctrl-‘, Ctrl-Space, Alt-&.
Regarding
the '#' (Stats) button, a "word" is meant as a series of non-whitespace characters that contains at least one letter or number. HTML tags are excluded. The counts are based on the Input, not the rendered output.
When
the 'Use b/i/s/u tags' option setting is changed, the input is checked for tags that are inconsistent with the new setting. If any are found,
the 'Convert' button is displayed. The conversion must be performed before the input is changed again. Whenever text is pasted into the input, the input is checked for <p> and <br> tags, and, optionally, <div> tags and (html) comments, in addition to tags that are inconsistent with the 'Use b/i/s/u tags' option setting. If any are found, the 'Convert' button is displayed. The <p> and <br> tags are converted. Optionally, the <div> tags and comments are stripped. This feature may be useful to a user who knows how to get the html of a previously posted comment.
If cookies are disabled, options can be made to persist by including them in the
query string of the page's URL. For example, to load the page with a font size of 14px, and the 'Use b/s/i/u tags' option selected, the URL would be:
?fontSize=14&useOldTags=1. These are the option names in the order they are listed in the Options window:
. The 'pageWidth' option can be any number (0=Max). 'fontSize' can be any number (0=Browser default). 'convertCrLfs' has a value of 0, 1, or 2. All other options have a value of 0 or 1. If cookies are enabled, option values in the URL override (but do not overwrite) the cookie values.
The <del> and <ins> tags are new in HTML5 and may not be supported in some comment sections. No tags are stripped by this app; it's up to the user to know which tags are permitted by the system that will process the comment. There is an option to use the b/i/s/u tags instead of strong/em/del/ins.
Ctrl-> / Ctrl-< moves the cursor to the next/previous beginning or end of a tag.
Shift-Ctrl-> / Shift-Ctrl-< selects the next/previous tag. This can be useful for locating a tag that lacks a closing angle bracket (>). (Such a tag will consume (hide) all text until the next > is encountered, or input ends.)
Optionally,
the Left and Right Arrow keys skip over tags that have no attributes (e.g., <strong>).
Optionally, and by default,
URL's are converted to links: http://google.com, www.yahoo.com. Results may differ from other "linkifiers".
By design, links in the output will open in a new tab, and
a link with a blank href will not open.
If
the '?' button is clicked with input present, the Overview will load above the input, preserving the input.
Internet Explorer 8 and below are not supported.