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Post by Chris_Sav on Aug 13, 2010 20:34:13 GMT
A lot of work and testing has gone into this one!! A major restriction on posting data in columns (like league tables) was Proboards condensing strings of spaces into a single space and destroying columns layout. Various solutions cocked up the board's appearance, quoting, word wrapping and modifying posts, a combination of these and a bit of craftiness has allowed me to produce a compromise solution.
It is now possible to post data with multiple spaces between columns (tabs will not work). Code has been added to preserve multiple spaces.
The edit screens for composing posts have been changed to work on a font where the characters are all the same width so that what you see in the edit will be what you get in the post if you set courier or Lucida as the posting font, unlike at present where posted text bears little layout resemblance to the editing screen.
You need to paste your columned data as per BBWarrior's instructions, it's quite easy and they are below this post.
Please do not post images of result data or competition draws any longer. Those images on sites such as Photobucket & Tinypic WILL BE LOST after you stop using the forum and your history will be lost to us.
Install the font attached to this post for easier on the eye editing, your account will pick it up automatically if installed or use Lucida Console font if not.
I will look at converting tabs in a few days.
Sav
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Post by Chris_Sav on Aug 13, 2010 20:35:55 GMT
Clive, I've asked BBWarrior to try the slightly simplified method, but the default font remains an unsolved problem. Off for some London Pride now will post you the methos later. Chris. Apologies for the delay in putting it up Chris..... but here is the result of the test....... ;)
Pos Team Played Won Draw Lost For Against Bonus Points
1= Hurst Club 9 5 3 1 32 22 13 45 1= United Services Club 9 5 2 2 33 21 12 45 3 Greyhound "B&B's" 9 4 2 3 28 26 10 38 4 Eight Bells 9 3 1 5 25 29 7 32 5 Laughing Fish 9 3 1 5 22.5 31.5 7 29.5 6 Plough Plumpton 9 0 5 4 21.5 32.5 5 26.5
..... which looks okay to me and is very simple to do. 8-)
How to do it.....
1) Put all the information that you want to show on to an Excel Spreadsheet and save it in that format, that will enable you to update it if it is something that you are likely to use regularly.... such as League Tables or Player Averages. Tip - make the columns slightly wider than you think you will need, as they do seem to condense slightly.
2) Having done that (and saved it in Excel), then choose "Save As" (from the "File" drop down boxes) and select "Formatted Text (Space Delimited)" from the "Save as Type" drop down box at the bottom of the window. Tip - make sure you know where you saved it....! ::)
3) You should then get two Excel "warning" boxes, click "OK" to the first and "YES" on the second.
4) Open the new file you have created, using "Open with Notepad" if it doesn't automatically do this..... (my computer automatically does this now, but I can't remember if it did it the first time I used this method? :-/ )
5) Select all of the information that you want from the new file and copy this.
6) Paste the information that you want on to your post on the Forum, then select it all and choose "Lucida Console or Courier New" Font from the new Font drop down box shown above.
Hopefully, you will end up with an easy to read table without having to make any changes...... but if it does need to be adjusted for width it is easiest to go back to your original Excel Spreadsheet and make the changes there than try to put spaces in to the post on the Forum.
The method is very simple, although I am probably not the best at explaining it..... so apologies to those people that find computers really easy for "teaching their grandmothers to suck eggs"...... as a Technophobe I have tried to explain it as I would want somebody to explain it to me..... :-[
Give it a try in the testing area would be my suggestion...... after you have done it a couple of times you will find it really easy..... ;D 8-)
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Post by Chris_Sav on Aug 13, 2010 20:43:49 GMT
Font to be installed for easier on the eye editing.
Save the file (double click on the link) where you can find it.
Open up 'Control Panel' (start/settings under XP) double click fonts cick add new font and go to the folder where you saved it.
Sav
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Post by Chris_Sav on Aug 14, 2010 12:19:33 GMT
There is a slight problem with smilies.
To make smilies work make sure there is only one space before any smilie. If there is still a problem remove all spaces either side of the smilie and insert ONE space alone before and after it.
The routine for preserving the spaces actually inserts an invisible special character every other character in a line of spaces. The invisible special character is recognised as a letter by Proboards and thus not stripped out. The problem is that if the invisible special character is next to the smilie code Proboards thinks it's another letter and does not recognise the smilie code. :'(
This does not appear to affect spell-checkng.
Sorry for any inconvenience. ;)
Sav
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Post by Chris_Sav on Aug 15, 2010 9:03:43 GMT
I have also added some code to force the edit screen for posting text to expand to 100 chars wide (this is modifyable by me). This should also make posting results tables easier.
Give the edit screen a few seconds to settle and it will expand.
Sav
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Post by Chris_Sav on Aug 16, 2010 19:17:17 GMT
Tabs in text will now be converted into six spaces on posting and will space correctly if courier or lucida font is applied.
You can edit the post after and tidy up final alignment after as I cannot calculate how many spaces the tab actually covered (it varies)
Sav.
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