Problems w/ New Comment Box

Hi Mathew,
 

I'm using:

AOL v 9.1 revision 4334.5003,

AOL Browser 2.1.28.1, which I understand links to my

IE v7.0.5730.1

Windows XP Professional 5.1 Service Pack 3, Build 2600

Because my comments can sometimes be lengthy, and I like to use spellcheck,  I usually compose them in Word 2003 first, then copy them to the comment box.  The problem is when I post them, HTML marks for fonts are displayed along with the message, and I can't delete them.  Even when I clear all formatting from the message before I post it, the HTML marks are displayed.  Can you help with this?

Best,

David

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Hi David,

What happens if you copy/paste from a plain text editor instead of word?  Actually, you can compose in Word to spellcheck, if you want, then paste into a plain text editor and copy/paste from there…

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Hi Mathew,

You're right.  If I compose in Word, then copy to a Text.doc, then recopy to the new comment box, it seems all format has been stripped, and then I can reformat with the limited tools for Bold, Italics, or URL links.

This is a plausible workaround, but it seems laborious.  Must everyone go through this multiple step process to comment unless they type right in the box?

One other thing, once I type in the box and hit enter, the little circle keeps on spinning and never stops to reveal the message in the box.  I have to close the window, and reopen the page to see the blog plus comments with mine added.  Does this sound right?

Happy holidays, Mathew and I appreciate your help.
David

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

David, about the laborious process: Not sure about IE7 (i'll test and get back to you) but most new browsers have options or plugins for automatic spellcheck in textareas, so you'd arguably be able to type in wordpad or notepad, and paste from there into the comment box and do spellcheck in the browser. although i think wordpad would probably be able to do spellcheck too, without the microsoft markup you get from word.

about the continious spinning icon, that is most certainly not expected, i'll do some tests in IE7 on my windows machine and see if i can reproduce it. thanks for bringing this to my attention!

happy yule

:f

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

A quck work-around for the spinning circle (I use IE7 and have the problem, too) is to just refresh the page, and when it refreshes, the post will be there.  Just to be on the safe side, as with all posts on Gaia, highlight what you've typed and do a Control C, just in case you get a hiccup on the post.

Cheers!
Gem (who is learning how to type without using my left index finger because it is busted - who knew getting ready to eat Christmas dessert could be so dangerous!!! The pain meds are starting to take hold.) 

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

I was just going to post that even before the newest changes I’ve been having trouble with IE7 and the spinner locking up.  I usually do the “I like this” and give the blog a seed and that completes my post.
 
I agree that laborious is not desirable and some will be dis-motivated to make the effort.
 
Deb
 
PS the box I am typing in now has no borders and looks “corrupted”.  Sigh … these things will also pass …

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

I have mentioned this problem of the ever-spinning circle, and also discovered (or read somewhere else) the refresh “solution.” I too use IE7, completely up-to-date. But the spinning circle problem is intermittent.

And the incredible slowness of text appearing in the box after being typed, that I have mentioned elsewhere, is still happening, but not always. Generally it is after the first sentence or two.

And the awful problem of the “scripted window” way of doing hyperlinks in those comment boxes is still with me too, that my computer is not responding to telling it not to continue to display script error messages. Every single page I close in Gaia makes me have to click on that dialog box before it closes. And the “line” and “charactr” cited in the box are still the same as the original, the first hyperlink I tried.

Chris tried to help me with that, but somehow my computer is not responding properly to the 3 scripting-related checkboxes under Advanced Internet Options…..

I know this is more than one problem per post, but they are all about the new comment box text editor thingy.

Blessings, OM Bastet

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

I guess I should also mentioned I experienced that incredible slowness too, especially before I left for a month-long journey just after this post and now I haven’t been back long enough to tell if there is still that problem.  I just thought something was wrong with MY computer.  My postings for the last month have been limited in the extreme.
 
Deb

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Thanks  :franc and Gemstar for the helpful tips, and of course, Mathew.  Like 1Vector3, I also get the slowness if I copy directly from Word, and then continue to type in the box.

Mathew, if it helps, here's an example of a text box where the HTML marks for fonts wouldn't go away for me.

Thanks

David

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

My complaint is simply that the comments box is verrrry slow.  I type a few words and then can wait 30 seconds to a minute for the sentence to even appear in the box.  I didn't have this problem with the earlier comments box on my blog. 

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Exactly the same for me as for Balder. But I've noticed it starts at about the third sentence. The first two are nearly normal in speed of showing up.
 
But the timing gets so bad I have just stopped making long comments.

And this is NOT about copy-pasting. I do all my comment composing in the textbox.

IE7, Windows XP

Blessings, OM Bastet

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

After sitting and waiting… and waiting… and waiting… (get it!!!) for up to two lines of type at a time to become visible after I've typed them into a comment box, I have decided that from this point forward, until this problem is addressed, I am going to do several comments in a row.  I'm sure my friends will love this, as it will hike their blog posts up the line.  I sometimes do several paragraphs on a comment box, and, as the others above here have noticed, after about the third line of type, the thing bogs down something terrible.  I just don't have the time or patience to be waiting 30 seconds for a line to appear before starting my next sentence, or part thereof, especially in a longer posting!  By the time it finishes, I've lost my train of thought, for crying out loud!

So I'm hoping it'll either get fixed, go back to the other box (which, frankly, I liked a LOT better), or the number of comments is going to increase on quite a few blogs.

Gem

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

OK, I'll relay your newest comments to franc.  He's working on fixing it so it's better than the old editor.  I mean, that was the whole point in bringing it out, anyway.

Regards,
~M

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Well, more power to franc !! I am getting really discouraged about the slowness of writing comments to blogs, and have simply cut down. Was thinking maybe I would compose in my own word processing, then copy the whole thing in and then go do some [MORE, haha] dishes while it loads into the textbox here.
 
It's been frustrating to the point of tears….

What IS more speedy and robust is the time between Send and the actual posting. When it doesn't get hung up, anyway. That is still happening. The wheels on the bus go round and round, never stopping, but upon page refresh, the comment has been posted.

Blessings, OM Bastet

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

man, this sucks.

the older editor (the one i'm typing in now) is a source of a lot of slowness throughout the site, so we are trying to replace with with a nice lightweight alternative.

this new comment editor is supposed to be really nice, and from my dev perspective it is. It is very new tech though and obviously as you pointed out it is still pretty frustrating to use. I'm digging deep and trying to figure out how to speed things up, i'll let you guys know when i think i've made some tangible changes to get your feedback. we're making ready for a pretty big update and this comment box will have to be sorted out by then.

thanks for hanging in there and providing this feedback. i'll stay positive and on it and figure it out.

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

BTW, Welcome back, ~Matthew, I hope your vacation was awesome !!

Feedback for you, franc: When I compose a long blog comment in my Open Office Writer document, and then copy-paste into the waiting comment textbox, it pastes quickly, and I can immediately hit Post and it posts immediately. So far so good.

However, the font HTML commands show up in the post. For each paragraph. So they look like this.

<font><font> lalalalalalalala.  Talking talking talking. </font></font>

<font><font> next paragraphlalalalalalalala </font></font>


I assume I could figure out which font the textbox uses, and see whether I can select that in OOW, and that would solve the problem. But I ain't gonna.

THANK YOU for your creative work on this matter !!!

Hugs, OM Bastet

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

OM,

if you want to go the route of pasting in text, (which i think is probably the best workaround at the moment for the editor slowness) then it is best to use plain text when posting. So, on windows you could use wordpad or notepad and on mac osx you can use text (or any plain text editor).

that being said, open office creates much nicer html than microsoft!

hopefully this should be an issue of the past pretty soon!

regards,

:f

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Thanks for the tip, franc, and I have every confidence in your abilities to figure out this slowness problem !!!

Don't get me started on what I don't like about Open Office Writer. I am using it only because it's free and all I have. I find it extremely awkward and hard to use, like Firefox !! Despite the “Help” section.

But that is offtopic !!

Best wishes to you and yours for a fabulous 2009 !!

OM

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

ok guys, after some grueling days of digging into the deep dark corners of Javascript and IE issues i think i've got it to a manageable point.

please test the commenting and let me know. if it is still too unresponsive i'll tweak some more.

Thanks for the understanding patience!

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Pom-poms waving from both hands, dancing up and down, chanting:

YAY, :franc, YAY YAY, :franc :franc !!!!!!!!!!

Wow, what a relief !! Yes, you phrased it precisely “manageable point.” The maximum delay today was about 7 seconds, for half a sentence, and not every half-sentence was delayed, some went right onto the screen pronto pronto !!!!!!!!!!

Someday if you have nothing better to do and feel like tweaking more, you could, but IMHO the situation is now tolerable !!!

EXTREME GRATITUDE,
OM Bastet

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

that's great to hear! i'll tweak it some more and get it live with the next big release (some exciting changes heading this way).

keep me posted if you see more annoyances with this.

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Hi, I had found the new comment box faster and easier (with Firefox and XP), and am not having serious problems, but suddenly today a funny thing, it posts the comment but then seems to be in the process of posting a duplicate. When I go back to check all is well, so I guess it's just a little glitch.

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

I just noticed I can’t copy and paste to comment on someone’s blog.

i.e. a newbie just blogged and asked for directions and I couldn’t post my

usual greeting with a link to Jessica’s blog on exploring Gaia.



I could leave the URL link, but I can’t copy and paste the note that goes with it.

Thanks!

 Love, Lb    XOX

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Where are you pasting from, Lb?  (Or that is, where are you copying from?) Posting from other (existing) site content seems to be buggy still, but posting from a text file should be okay…

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Thanks, Siona.

From Apple’s text edit, using FF 3.5

XOX

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

I assume you tried the apple-c / apple-v method?

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

I did now & it worked! hehehehe, see you can teach old dogs

new tricks! problem is they have to remember to use it!   :-)

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

If we had a prize for the most appropriate humor on Gaia *Ladybear~ your fluffy dog on training wheels wins head over heels. Thanks for the fun!!!

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

rose is this still happening?
could you not fix one of your posts and point me to it?

what browser are you using?

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Hoping I’m not doubling up here… I’m finally back online now and was just going through the Diving Deeper thread on the new layout. Ayla posted a comment which mirrors some of my experiences and seems to be referred to in this thread. Is this something still being worked on? : -

————–

New complaint … ever try to run back in and edit a little something
after you posted?  That annoying little circle thingie that says the
page is loading goes around and around and around and 9 times out of 10
editing is not possible.  Or how about all of the ERROR! (another
circle thingie!) msgs when trying to post a comment that you just
worked long and hard on, trying to be thoughtful about it, then it’s
just GONE!

————-

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Hi Sandra,

I think this is a different issue than the one this thread is about (so, it’s best to start a new thread for it).  But to answer your question, this new text editor replaced the old one precisely for that reason.  It should be less buggy, and those vanishing posts should be a thing of the past.  If this is becoming an actual issue with this text editor, then please start a new thread (labeled properly) regarding this, and I’ll make sure a developer gives it some needed attention!!

Thanks!
~Matthew

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Re: Problems w/ New Comment Box

Hi Rosy!

So, hopefully your browser has a “help” menu.  If so, click that, then click the “about” option.  You should see the name of the browser, as well as its version.  For example, mine says “Firefox version 3.0.5”

Yours,
~M