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LloydDobbler

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Hey, folks -

On rare occasions, I find some nugget of wisdom I want to save in a 43-page thread. To add this post to my bookmarks, the process is currently:

1) copy the 'in reply to' link associated with the post
2) paste that URL into my browser's address bar
3) go back to the post and get the post number by hovering over the 'Reply' or 'Quote' links
4) replace the post numbers in the URL I just posted into the address bar with the post number I just found
5) hit 'Enter' to load the page
6) Bookmark away.

I know my way around the web, and have enough experience with SOAP and APIs to be fairly good at hacking URLs. Still, this whole process is REALLY cumbersome.

(And that's me - most people don't even have a clue WTF I'm talking about).

Wouldn't it make more sense to add a button to the template for each post that reads 'Direct Link to this Post', or something of that nature? Or make the particular title of each post in a thread a clickable link back to that particular post? Shouldn't require too much PHP...and would help immensely, both with bookmarking and referencing posts in other posts.

(It facilitates conversation, and it's just good usability...heck, most blogs today even offer direct links to each of their comments)...
Signatures are the new black.

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Got to be a FireFox user... ;)

IE has an option to copy a shortcut to each post but for some reason the rest of the browsers do not have this. I brought this issue up a while ago and it would be really nice to have this option for all browsers not just IE.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

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Got to be a FireFox user... ;)

IE has an option to copy a shortcut to each post but for some reason the rest of the browsers do not have this. I brought this issue up a while ago and it would be really nice to have this option for all browsers not just IE.



Yup. Firefox mostly (web dev tools, etc)...but like you said, it doesn't work on Safari & Opera, either.

I'll take a look at the code and see what's going on...I don't have IE on this machine - is there an actual 'button' or link to copy a shortcut? Or does it just make the title of the post clickable?

I'm thinking maybe some IE hacks were used in the code to make the page look right (because IE doesn't play well with ANYTHING), and in so doing, those lines in the CSS blocked out the button display for other standards-compliant browsers. Which means the data is there, just hidden. Should be an easy fix.

Any chance you could attach a screenshot? I might be able to solve this problem myself.

In the meantime, looks like someone needs to be doing some cross-browser testing... ;)
Signatures are the new black.

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Well, bummer.

It's not an IE CSS hack - on non-IE browsers, the 'Copy Shortcut' link doesn't even appear in the HTML, which means either it's a browser-dependent script, or the PHP has been instructed to not serve it up. Looking at it in IE, it's a document.all javascript function called postShortcut. Which makes me wonder why they would use a browser-dependent javascript function to accomplish this, instead of using simple, cross-browser-compliant PHP.

In other words, they're going around their big toe to get from their nose to their ass. As a developer, I have no idea why they would have done it this way. Dumb. :|

Alright, powers-that-be - want to make a quick fix to help the rest of us who don't want to infect our computers with IE? It should be a simple matter of tweaking the javascript a bit.


PS - Sorry for all the geeky talk. I imagine most of you have zoned out. Just figured I'd at least identify the underlying cause of the problem, rather than just sitting back and hoping the admins decide to look into it. ;)

Signatures are the new black.

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My Firefox has an icon in the lower right hand corner (just above the standard Windows clock). If you click it, it switches to "IE mode". Then, the "copy shortcut" link is there. After you copy it, just switch back to "Firefox mode". Easy, few clicks.

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My Firefox has an icon in the lower right hand corner (just above the standard Windows clock). If you click it, it switches to "IE mode". Then, the "copy shortcut" link is there. After you copy it, just switch back to "Firefox mode". Easy, few clicks.



Nice add on, I had to go get it...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419
"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

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My Firefox has an icon in the lower right hand corner (just above the standard Windows clock). If you click it, it switches to "IE mode". Then, the "copy shortcut" link is there. After you copy it, just switch back to "Firefox mode". Easy, few clicks.



Yep. That's a decent workaround.

But from a web design standpoint, you want to make your site accessible to the most amount of people.

(In other words, people having to go out of their way to download an add-on in order to make a basic link show up = usability FAIL.)
Signatures are the new black.

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