Story formatting

[BBMikeNJ]

This might seem like a stupid question, but when I post a story, all my paragraph indents disappear. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

[arpeejay]

When you compose a story in Word or whatever program you're using, you’re invoking a particular set of formatting routines that don’t automatically carry over into the MGS reader.

Your best bet is to make it as simple as possible, e.g.:

Single space your text blocks.

Put an extra line of space between your paragraphs.

So long as each separate paragraph is separated by a line of blank space, your text should be plenty readable (i.e., no need for indents.)

Hope this helps.

Richard

[RPM]

Forums don't typically allow more than one space in a row. It's how HTML has always been; removing redundant characters like that. There are ways to force it, but most forums don't have special support for it. There are "code" tags, that allow characters to be pasted as-is in a fixed-width font, which means you can keep as many spaces as you like, but all word-wrapping will be manual. You could either post links to online documents if the indents are that important, otherwise you're best off going without and leaving double-spaces between paragraphs.

[BBMikeNJ]

Thanks. That seems simple enough, even for me.

I actually wrote the last scene right on here, to see if that worked, but still, indents disappeared...also, had to write and post story in one sitting...too much pressure!

Will try this approach next time, thanks again....


Mike

[nypup2train]

My latest Firefox extension object-of-drooling-lust that's got me weak in the knees (I believe the 28th add-on in my current ffox setup -- I'm a freak who loves knobs, and I swoon a lot) is called the Text Formatting Toolbar.

As the name implies, it adds a toolbar which gives you shortcuts for marking text up for formatting, like the bar at the top of the edit box when you're posting here (which lessens the utility a bit). This one, tho, is an actual browser toolbar. It can format for HTML, BBCode (forums like this) or Wiki pages.

..It's nice and all, but not orgasmic, and like I mentioned kinda redundant for this site. Most of the time I keep the toolbar itself shut off -- I don't want to sacrifice the vertical space it eats up.

But what the extension *DOES* also give me, that I think is absolutely AWESOME, is the Format Toolbar Composer. That's a pop-up window accessible from the toolbar itself or the Tools menu. In it you have an edit interface (including toolbar) providing a big text area where you can write long posts. With site-markup for formatting, via the toolbar. Working on more than one document at a time in tabs, if you want! AND you can save partially completed compositions, and load them back for more editing later! (Or, write a post in the composer and save it, for posting to more than one site!)

It keeps everything right inside Firefox, which is convenient. (You don't have to deal with actual TXT files on disk or anything. Though you can also import/export to file whenever you like.)

For info, screenshots, and a download link:
http://codefisher.org/format_toolbar/

It's not on the official addons site, which I know is scary for a lot of people (sensibly so!) -- if you're wary of trusting code from an unknown source without some sort of review/approval then you shouldn't download. I can say that the author (Michael Buckley, codefisher.org) is a well-known browser developer, not some random unknown. I've had the extension installed for 3+ weeks now and it has exhibited exactly 0 signs that it's trying to steal my bank accounts, mail pr0n to my mom, and get me onto Homeland Security's watchlist. (Computers are my field, generally I look for even far less aggressive misbehavior as reasons to dump an extension. This one's very well-behaved, and doesn't consume resources (that I can tell) except when you're actively using its features, unlike many poorly designed extensions.)