# Mouseover Test **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [April 22, 2008, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435 "2008-04-22T19:09:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/1 "2008-04-22T19:09:24Z")
The idea is to have this paragraph, which skips the backstory of why I’m posting and instead gets straight to the what, will be the text displayed in mousover despite being the second paragraph in the OP. It would be useful to know roughly how many chararacters mouseover preview displays, so I’m adding extra text here. First let me begin with some backstory about why I’m asking this question. You see, it all started with some irrelevant minutia from way back when, which planted an idea in my head. And now, when my intro finally starts to sound like I might get to the point, the mouseover preview runs out. The idea is to have this paragraph, which skips the backstory of why I’m posting and instead gets straight to the what, will be the text displayed in mousover despite being the second paragraph in the OP. It would be useful to know roughly how many chararacters mouseover preview displays, so I’m adding extra text here. Note to **Tuba** : Please try to resist the compulsion to close this thread, as one of the main reasons I posted [the original one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=416877) was to have an easy-to-find reference for getting the color code of the background here. Since you closed the original for no particular reason, the half-dozen or so times I’ve dug it up to get the color code since then have been very frustrating. I search, open it, hit Reply on the OP, and then get that annoying “this thread is closed” message. Not very helpful. It’s also much less taxing to do a search for threads started by Ellis Dee in ATMB than it is to do a search of the entire boards for the word “fnord” in a post. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/2 "2008-04-22T19:58:42Z")
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee] Note to **Tuba** : Please try to resist the compulsion to close this thread, as one of the main reasons I posted [the original one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=416877) was to have an easy-to-find reference for getting the color code of the background here. Since you closed the original for no particular reason, the half-dozen or so times I’ve dug it up to get the color code since then have been very frustrating. I search, open it, hit Reply on the OP, and then get that annoying “this thread is closed” message. Not very helpful. [/QUOTE] Tuba did have a reason, which she gave in the other thread. It wasn’t about your OP, but about an over-clever reply to it (which was crafted to look like two replies by different posters). ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/3 "2008-04-22T23:58:20Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] Tuba did have a reason, which she gave in the other thread. It wasn’t about your OP, but about an over-clever reply to it (which was crafted to look like two replies by different posters). [/QUOTE] That’s not a reason to close it, unless every single warning merits closing the thread where it’s issued. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/4 "2008-04-23T15:08:52Z")
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee] That’s not a reason to close it, unless every single warning merits closing the thread where it’s issued. [/QUOTE] Yes, it may not have been a **good** reason, but **TubaDiva** did have a reason. I suspect that part of her reason may have been to make it harder for others to copy the coding of the reply, since you can no longer reply to a message in a closed thread and so find out the coding of the message that way. If that was the concern, she could have just deleted the reply, but I understand that the mods and admins very rarely delete replies in this forum. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/5 "2008-04-23T15:57:54Z")
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee] That’s not a reason to close it, unless every single warning merits closing the thread where it’s issued. [/QUOTE] It looked like it was closed for two reasons: The first, because your test seemed to be over; secondly, because the thread had turned into hijack about the “sock” posting. Of course, none of that takes away from the point that you shouldn’t expect to use **ATMB** as your own personal notepad. Threads frequently get locked in this forum, so if you’re relying on replying to a post just to get the code, you’re probably going to end up disappointed. A simpler solution is to keep a list of codes at your computer, or in a webmail account (to be accessed from any computer). At the very least, you could have posted the color code to your thread so wouldn’t have to go through the reply-to-post motions, and it wouldn’t matter if the thread were closed or not. But, taking a year to complain about the closing of the last thread seems silly. Especially when you could have fixed your problem by writing the color code down somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/6 "2008-04-23T16:05:10Z")
[if you’re really interested in keeping the initial portion of your post out of the mouseover, just enclose it in brackets, like this part] The next part of your post will be the first part to show in the mouseover. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/7 "2008-04-23T22:14:12Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] I suspect that part of her reason may have been to make it harder for others to copy the coding of the reply, since you can no longer reply to a message in a closed thread and so find out the coding of the message that way. If that was the concern, she could have just deleted the reply, but I understand that the mods and admins very rarely delete replies in this forum. [/QUOTE] Fair enough. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/8 "2008-04-23T22:16:26Z")
[QUOTE=SkipMagic] Of course, none of that takes away from the point that you shouldn’t expect to use **ATMB** as your own personal notepad. [/QUOTE] In general, of course not. But I see no good reason whatsoever why we shoudn’t be able to use **ATMB** as our own personal notepad for posting techniques unique to the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/9 "2008-04-23T22:23:51Z")
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee] Note to **Tuba** : Please try to resist the compulsion to close this thread, as one of the main reasons I posted [the original one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=416877) was to have an easy-to-find reference for getting the color code of the background here. Since you closed the original for no particular reason, the half-dozen or so times I’ve dug it up to get the color code since then have been very frustrating. I search, open it, hit Reply on the OP, and then get that annoying “this thread is closed” message. [/QUOTE] I’m confused. Why do you need to hit reply to get a color code? Why not just post it in the thread, like this? color=#f8f8f8 Like that you don’t have to hit Reply to find it out, and it doesn’t matter if the thread is closed. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/10 "2008-04-23T23:04:02Z")
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried] I’m confused. Why do you need to hit reply to get a color code? Why not just post it in the thread, like this? color=#f8f8f8 Like that you don’t have to hit Reply to find it out, and it doesn’t matter if the thread is closed. [/QUOTE] That is certainly one way to go about it. As a programmer, I’ll always prefer pieces of functional code over notes on how to do something. And for the record, apologies to **Tuba** for any rudeness I have shown to you in this thread. The logic behind the closing proposed by **Giles** is compelling. And great tip **USCDiver**. Does that really work? ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/11 "2008-04-23T23:25:13Z")
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee] And great tip **USCDiver**. Does that really work? [/QUOTE] Yes, I’ll start a new thread to show you. It is difficult to test, since you have to actually post the thread to see it. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/12 "2008-04-23T23:57:37Z")
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee] That is certainly one way to go about it. As a programmer, I’ll always prefer pieces of functional code over notes on how to do something. [/QUOTE] Ok then, how about this: insert text here will appear like this: insert text here ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/13 "2008-04-24T00:13:00Z")
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried] Ok then, how about this: insert text here will appear like this: insert text here [/QUOTE] I don’t know how to do that. (Obviously, heh.) ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mouseover-test/446435/14 "2008-04-24T00:23:51Z")
Type this in your post [color=#f8f8f8]insert text here[/color] and it will appear like this insert text here