Posting links w/out HTML

[Omniscient]

Other than the automatic URL feature in UBB, and using the {url}http://www.your link here.com{/url} UBB code, how can I still put links in posts. Manny did it in the gun sizes post, so I assume there is a way to use the old < a href="http://www.your link here.com >Click Here< /a >, or some variation there of.

Test:
<a href="http://espn.go.com">ESPN homepage</a>

[Omniscient]

This may become important in the case that one wants to link to a long convoluted URL that may otherwise bastardize the screensize. As most probably can see.

[manhattan]

Here is the complete UBB guide to hyperlinking. Or, you can cheat by hitting "Reply with Quote" on my post here and peeking at the code.

Hope this helps.


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Change Your Password, Please and don't use HTML, as it has been disabled

[Omniscient]

OK, didn't know there was that new feature in the upgrade.


Any odds on how many times I'll screw it up by putting quotes in?

[Louie]

Just checking something, don't mind me...

< blah >

[Louie]

How funny, they say HTML is disabled, yet the HTML special symbols codes still work.

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Louie: young guy, possibly a bit green, but smart as paint. - Greg Charles
Have some fun (even though it's now disabled)

[Louie]

And if you're too lazy to go to the site manhattan linked to, here's the code :

[url=address of site]words to describe site[/url]

[Jois]

<font=color red>the lazy blue cat did jump over the yellow dog</font>

[Jois]

Originally posted by Jois:
<font color=red>the lazy blue cat did jump over the yellow dog</font>

Dang

[Jois]

Originally posted by Jois:
<font color=red>the lazy blue cat did jump over the yellow dog</font>

Dang

[RTFirefly]

I've brought this up only a zillion times since the Great Hack, but the HTML hyperlink code

<a href="web address goes here">words to click on</a>

can handle much longer URLs than its UBB equivalent

{url=web address goes here}words to click on{/url}

so with a long URL, there's no longer a way to keep the URL from stretching out the page.

Is it possible that the UBB code will be upgraded to be able to handle longer URLs? Do our tech people know why UBB code has problems with URLs over a given length in the above format? And do they know how long a URL can be without causing problems in the above format?
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I'm going to keep asking this $%&#@! question until I get an answer.

[manhattan]

Here’s about as close as I think you’re likely to get to an answer from our side.

We bought the software. Yep. Just went to Infopop and bought it off the shelf, much like I bought Microsoft Office. We did not write it. We don’t care to rewrite it. The people who did write it have a UBB discussion forum here . Have at them, and let us know what they say.


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Change Your Password, Please and don't use HTML, as it has been disabled

[RTFirefly]

Thanks, Manny. I've posted here at the UBB site you linked to, and I'll let y'all know if they tell me anything.

[Louie]

Here's the reply to RTFirefly question :

The UBB automagically splits any string over a certain number of characters in length to prevent extreme table distortion. Besides manually changing the files to raise the limit, there's nothing that can be done.

So it's automagic! that's doing that.

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Louie: young guy, possibly a bit green, but smart as paint. - Greg Charles
Have some fun (even though it's now disabled)

[Holly]

blah

[Holly]

cool! I'm easily amused.

[RTFirefly]

I posted some followup questions - basically, (1) exactly how many characters would UBB allow before splitting the string, and (2) is info on how to manually raise the limit available to our techs? We'll see what they say.

I spose I should have also asked for clarification on the reasons not to raise the limit - I don't know what 'extreme table distortion' is, or whether it's something we'd have to worry about on this site.

[RTFirefly]

Testing:
testing

[RTFirefly]

More tests:
Narrow Road

[RTFirefly]

And another:
uncertainty principle

[RTFirefly]

Ha! That one fucked their page, too - right after they told me,

The best thing to do though is to use the UBB code [ url] (space added for display
purposes).
With the use of the right UBB code you can make a 6 mile long URL and it would appear only as long as what you insert between the tags.

Yeah, suuure.

[RTFirefly]

Yes, I've asked how the 'right' UBB code differs from what I did, now that they can see exactly what I typed.

[RTFirefly]

The final word from the two guys on the UBB board who tried to answer my question is:

1) There's a pre-set limit, in the UBB software, on the number of characters
you can put in a URL before it chops it up.
2) That limit, based on personal experimentation, seems to be
enough characters to fill up four lines of the 'your reply' box, including the '[url=' itself.
3) There's a way to go in and find the limit in the UBB software, and change it.
That's the only way to fix it.
4) It sounds a bit beyond my ken, but they imply that it's not too difficult
for more technically savvy types.

At this point, it seems like it's time for me to punt this one back to the Straight Dope admins.
They're the ones who have to decide if this is worth dealing with, after all.
And they'll need to talk with the techs, who would hopefully have some idea
about whether this would be easy or hard for them to do. If they think it's do-able,
then the techs can get further advice, if they need it, from the people
who advised me on the UBB board.

But I'm in over my head at this point, and the admins have to balance this against
their need to get the residual problems with the board, left over from the Great Hack,
fixed. It would be really good to up the limit on URL length by about 50%,
but I'm not an admin; I don't know what other problems and needs come ahead of this.

Manny, thanks again for pointing me to the UBB board.
TubaDiva, I'll shut up about this now, and leave it in your lap.

[RTFirefly]

Charles Capps of the UBB board just posted the following:

It's sub Truncate in ubb_library.pl...

[TubaDiva]

Thanks for the good work, folks, we appreciate it.

I'll forward this on to the techs.

your humble TubaDiva
Adminstrator
The Straight Dope


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"Life isn't what should be, it's what is."-- Lenny Bruce