comment box doesn't appear only for this thread

November 2, 2005 2:41 PM

I think I broke it because the comment box doesn't appear only for this thead.
posted by holloway to Bugs at 2:41 PM (34 comments total)

Doesn't appear for me either, Firefox/WinXP.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 2:42 PM on November 2, 2005

Seems like an unclosed tag?

The "please limit your anwers to" bit links to a giant URL (hope it survives preview and doesn't break MeTa):

http://www.citynamesportsteam.com/%22%20%22%3ECityNameSportsTeam%3C/a%3E?%3Cbr%3E%3Cspan%20class=%22smallcopy%22%3Eposted%20by%20%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.metafilter.com/user/1205%22%3Eholloway%3C/a%3E%20at%20%3Ca%20href=%22/mefi/26507#418252%22%3E2:27%20PM%3C/a%3E%20PST%20on%20November%202%20%20[%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.metafilter.com/contribute/flag.mefi?id=418252&site=askmefi_comment&up=26507%22%20title=%22Flag%20this%20post%22%20class=%22flag%22%3E!%3C/a%3E]%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Cdiv%20class=%22comments%22%3E%3Cspan%20class=%22whitesmallcopy%22%20style=%22font-size:11px;%22%3E%3Ca%20href=%22/mefi/26506%22%3E%C2%AB%20Older%3C/a%3E%20Ever%20since%20upgrading%20to%20QuickT...%C2%A0%C2%A0|%C2%A0%C2%A0I%20have%20a%20Nokia%20cell%20phone%20with...%3Ca%20href=%22/mefi/26508%22%3ENewer%20%C2%BB%3C/a%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Cform%20name=%22mefi%22%20action=%22http://ask.metafilter.com/contribute/post_comment_preview.mefi#comment%22%20method=%22POST%22%3E%3Ctable%20width=%2290%%22%20border=%220%22%3E%3Ctr%3E%3Ctd%20rowspan=%224%22%20width=%2250%22%3E%C2%A0%3C/td%3E%3Ctd%20align=%22right%22%20valign=%22top%22%20class=%22copy%22%3EPosting%20as:%3C/span%3E%3C/td%3E%3Ctd%20valign=%22top%22%20class=%22copy%22%3E%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.metafilter.com/user/20191%22%3Egoodnewsfortheinsane%3C/a%3E%20(%3Ca%20href=%22/index.cfm?delcookie=yes%22%3Elogout%3C/a%3E)%3C/span%3E%3C/td%3E%3C/tr%3E%3Ctr%3E%3Ctd%20align=%22right%22%20valign=%22top%22%20class=%22copy%22%3Ecomment:%3Cbr%3E%3C/td%3E%3Ctd%20valign=%22top%22%3E%3Ctextarea%20name=%22comment%22%20id=%22comment%22%20cols=%2260%22%20rows=%228%22%20wrap=%22VIRTUAL%22%20style=%22width:400px;height:200px;%22%20onfocus=%22this.style.background=
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 2:44 PM on November 2, 2005

Or the only for this thread, even. My new keyboard's a bit sticky so I'll be inadvertently testing your code over the next few weeks Matt!

The html causing it has single quotes and double and is a right mess,

<a href='http://www.citynamesportsteam.com/" ">CityNameSportsTeam</a>
posted by holloway at 2:47 PM on November 2, 2005

<a id='/> saves some typing
posted by andrew cooke at 2:55 PM on November 2, 2005

fixed now.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:58 PM on November 2, 2005

Fixed.
posted by jessamyn at 2:58 PM on November 2, 2005

doublefixed!!
posted by jonson at 3:22 PM on November 2, 2005

andrew cooke: you don't have an e-mail or I would have sent this to you via e-mail. But could you explain the <a id= thing. I always use the <a href=... thing because that is the only thing I know. I apologize I am a internet novice.
posted by dios at 3:36 PM on November 2, 2005

Oops. I hope I didn't just jack it it up by leaving those brackets open.
posted by dios at 3:37 PM on November 2, 2005

dios!
posted by cortex at 3:55 PM on November 2, 2005

cortex!
posted by dios at 4:36 PM on November 2, 2005

Uh oh, I feel a fundraiser coming up!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:38 PM on November 2, 2005

It's happened again! I was very careful and I don't think I had any typos this time.

Same html produced too,

<a href='http://holloway.co.nz/docvert" ">Docvert</a>
posted by holloway at 5:00 PM on November 2, 2005

Sorry metafilter :(
posted by holloway at 5:10 PM on November 2, 2005

of course the same html produced it. the problem is that the html has a mess of quotation marks. you should enter:
<a href="http://holloway.co.nz/docvert">Docvert</a>
posted by andrew cooke at 5:35 PM on November 2, 2005

Holloway, how are you making those links? I've seen a few more like that today, more than usual. Are you using the toolbar or typing them by hand?
posted by jessamyn at 5:39 PM on November 2, 2005

dios - the id thing was just an example of something that would break mefi. it was the shortest fragment of (almost-valid) html that i could think of that showed the same problem (try cut+paste it into the comemnt box and click "preview", but please don't post it).

for links, continue to use href (id is an obscure piece of html that i used just because it was two letters shorter than href; sorry for the confusion) (id is irrelevant to the problem, which is caused by mis-matched quote marks).
posted by andrew cooke at 5:40 PM on November 2, 2005

Thanks Andrew Cooke. I know html, I am just an incompetent typist.

Jessamyn: by hand, I may well have just typed something that poorly with a ' on one side and a " on the other. Then some enterprising young htmltidy code tried its best to tidy up after me but just mangled it more.

I think I must have been hitler in a past life and this is my payback, and also that god really doesn't punish people that much for past life trangressions, he only messes with their posts to make them look foolish. Karma eh?
posted by holloway at 6:04 PM on November 2, 2005

Then why is God punishing all of us?
posted by underer at 6:15 PM on November 2, 2005

Quiet, hitler!
posted by holloway at 6:16 PM on November 2, 2005

Thanks holloway. You know if you hadn't posted a MeTa thread about this, most people wouldn't have known about your past-life Hitler escapades. You can always IM me or mathowie if something is really broken.
posted by jessamyn at 6:19 PM on November 2, 2005

holloway, I have a solution to this problem: type <a href=""> first. Then paste/type your url. It's much easier to double-bang that quotation key than it is to match crap up after the fact amidst a big ugly string of alphanumerics and such.
posted by cortex at 6:20 PM on November 2, 2005

Escapades? That's an odd way to describe it.

Thanks for the tip cortex.
posted by holloway at 6:35 PM on November 2, 2005

thanks jessamyn, for making this thread about my past-life Hitler escapades.
posted by holloway at 6:36 PM PST on November 2 [!]


MetaFilter: a big ugly string of alphanumerics and such
posted by If I Had An Anus at 6:37 PM on November 2, 2005

i am pretty certain by now that this is an obscure bug that occurs when firefox breaks urls in the comment box. i first noted it months ago and rather stupidly reposted the comment three times in a row (in my mind to demonstrate the problem, in the admins mind i was being a PITA) and the whole mess got deleted. anyway i knew i was posting correct html, and the site was munging it - but it seemed related to the fact that the url was precisely long enough to cause a horizontal scrollbar in the comment box in firefox, something i have never seen in IE. probably some weird intersection of CSS, firefox and the html tidying code and likely not worth trying to chase down.
posted by quonsar at 6:44 PM on November 2, 2005

At least get the font right if you're going to impersonate me.
posted by holloway at 6:49 PM on November 2, 2005

quonsar, I think it was simply the one single quote thing you did. If you post a link by doing the following code: [a href='http://foo.com]foo[/a] (brackets because it's faster) then you will break the code as hitler here has shown. If you do a couple of single quotes, it works fine, but the tag balancer thing tries to fix up the malformed html (which would break the layout anyway) by adding two quote marks, which also breaks the layout.

So try not to post malformed html hitler.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:29 PM on November 2, 2005

Will do
posted by holloway at 7:46 PM on November 2, 2005

"Try not to post malformed. H**l Hitler!" -mathowie

what a difference punctuation makes!
posted by jessamyn at 7:47 PM on November 2, 2005

dios: the id attribute is basically a hook for CSS and javascript and doesn't really have any meaning as html. You could go ahead and post it, the tidying which people have mentioned should take it out. Same thing with the class attribute, which is why I couldn't reproduce the 'posted by holloway' line exactly. href and title are all you need to know for anchor tags on metafilter.

apologies, holloway. I couldn't resist.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:47 PM on November 2, 2005

for holloway's sake I hope this doesn't become a long-running mefi in joke.

hitler.
posted by shmegegge at 8:04 PM on November 2, 2005

Todd Lokken.
posted by wakko at 9:09 PM on November 2, 2005

Leroy Jenkins!
posted by Balisong at 10:53 PM on November 2, 2005

i'm confused. does hitler have a vagina too?
posted by andrew cooke at 4:26 AM on November 3, 2005