So, I’m posting and I want to address a Doper. Being too lazy to type out the Doper’s name (it’s a long one), I scroll down to the post where the Doper posted and right-click on the name so I can Copy and Paste. A box comes up labeled “Person Actions” and asks me if I want to find this person on Facebook, Flickr, etc.
How new is this? I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Right click on the poster’s name? I don’t get that. What browser are you using?
Unless she’s got her mouse flipped, it’s actually a left click. It works in Firefox, but not it IE6, which I have to use on my old computer.
I’m not seeing it in Firefox or IE. Just the usual “Public profile, send PM, send email, find all posts and add to contacts” stuff.
It’s not the usual click on username to PM, look at profile, etc.
Open up a Reply box. Then scroll down (outside the Reply box) to earlier posts and highlight on someone’s name. Right click.
Wait.
I just tried it and dammit, it won’t do it now. All I’m getting is the pulldown menu.
I’ll get back to ya, see if I can get it to work so I can explain it better.
Hmm. It would be possible to use javascript to do that, but, if it was that, it would be working for everyone. I would suspect it was some extension on your computer, but you’re saying it doesn’t work now, so that doesn’t make sense either.
Wait. Maybe it only works with Dopers that have emails or something else. If you can remember which poster you tried it on, try it on them again.
The Doper was Eleanor of Aquitaine, in the Cafe Society thread about Master and Commander. I just tried it again using her name and it worked.
If someone else would try it, that’d be great. It’s not working on anyone in this thread.
I just tried it, no joy. IE 8 on a Vista Home Premium machine. I didn’t get anything with a left click, and the right click just gave the usual IE context menu.
I’m using Firefox, not sure which edition.
I’ve done this several times before, cut & paste names, but today’s the first time that this new box popped up.
If anyone still wants to play, try it like this. Using the left mouse button, highlight Eleanor’s name and let up on the mouse button. The box that pops up (very briefly) is a rectangle, maybe one inch high and two inches wide. The words in this box are “Text: Eleanor of Aquitaine”. An inner box (green) says “Person Actions”.
When I click on the green box, a popup pops up. “Hi auntiepam” in the upper right corner. Eleanor’s name in large text at the top, and the words “Person Action”. The options are Find profile on Facebook, Find person on Google, Find blog on Technorati, and Find photo on Flickr. When I click those options, it gives me a list of possible Eleanors.
Oh, and it worked with Johnny L.A. too.
I haven’t added them as Doper Friends, so there’s nothing special about them (outside of their innate specialness, of course).
ETA: Remember this is highlighting in regular text, not highlighting or clicking like you do to check e-mail and PMs.
I’m not seeing it. Not in IE, not in Firefox, not in Chrome.
Very, very weird. Do you think maybe it’s a Firefox feature? It couldn’t be a Facebook thing, could it? I haven’t done any updating or add-ons in recent memory (I always ignore requests to try new stuff), and like I said, the first time I noticed it was today.
Try checking your Addons. It could be that one of your Firefox Addons has updated itself and that this is one of the new features.
I’m going to also guess that it’s one of your Firefox Addons.
Also worth noting, the posters in question all have actual names in their username. Try going to a different website, and clicking on somebody’s name, and see if that works.
I looked at my Addons – it must be the Glue Addon. Maybe it worked for Eleanor and Johnny because they’re active on one of the sites that Glue connects with.
Mystery solved, I guess!
This doesn’t appear to be an add-on thing at all. I’ve been using it in both Firefox and Safari, although I can’t remember when I first discovered it.
Don’t highlight anything. Don’t touch the right mouse button. Just click on a name in the thread. Doing so on AuntiePam’s name in the post before this one gives me this if I’m not logged in:
AuntiePam
View Public Profile
And this if I am logged in:
AuntiePam
View Public Profile
Send a private message to AuntiePam
Send email to AuntiePam
Find all posts by AuntiePam
Add AuntiePam to Your Contacts
That’s not it though.
The new thing that I described (very poorly, I admit) brings up a pull-down menu asking if you want to track the person on Facebook, Flickr, etc.
ETA: It didn’t work on your name.
Sorry - I didn’t read closely enough. I’ve never seen the one you’re describing. Perhaps it doesn’t work for me on other sites because I mostly use my real name everywhere but here, and just changed to something halfway in-between here recently.