Making Vertical Spacing of Nested Lists Work

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End of postEdited by Percy, : No reason given.

Thank you. Such examples are always welcome, but could you please include a bit of explanation for this one?It appears that you inserting HTML comments -- at least they're the same syntax, though I commonly add a space between the comment tags and the text being commented out -- , though your example appears to start with a close-comment tag right after the first list dBCode.So part of the questions that come to mind for me would be:

• Can I still assume that, in general, HTML comment tags would still be used to comment out text? Ie, does the same rule of being able to include HTML tags still work?
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• Does this mean that there are some special comments which provide special functionality?
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• If comments are still comments, special or not, when what's the business about starting this sequence with a close-comment tag?

Thanks again.

Oh, don't pay any attention to him, dwise1. He's just showing off.

I'm in the middle of fixing a long standing bug where the spacing around the beginning and end of lists is not consistent. Not sure what you're referring to because there are no HTML comment tags in my message. Did you perhaps see the pre-edit version where a bug let some malformed HTML comment tags creep through?Here's an example of the bug showing inconsistent vertical spacing, using the unmodified code on this server. It was originally this: But when translated the vertical spacing becomes uneven: I'm fixing the bug over on the cloud server that we'll be moving to soon, but I've got the cloud server using the database here, which is why you're seeing the messages I'm using for debugging. While you'll be able to see my testing, you won't be able to take advantage of any of my fixes until I complete them and install them here in the current software. I originally planned just to get the cloud server going, but then decided I'd just fix this one teensy bug only to discover that it's a little more complicated than I originally projected.You're right about the code that translates the dBCodes into HTML taking advantage of HTML comments. That's so the original form of the message can be restored for editing purposes. For instance, "[list]" gets translated to this when composing a message or when it's stored in the database: When a message is edited the original form must be restored. I could have instead stored the entire original message in the database, but I thought that since in most messages the dBCodes are only a small portion that HTML comments added to the original message would take up much less database space. When restoring the message as originally composed with dBCodes the text between UB and UE comments disappears while text embedded in the UB comment is restored, then the comments are removed. A CBR comment is translated to a line break,
, which helps restore the original vertical formatting.When messages are presented as part of a thread all the HTML comments are filtered out in the interests of efficiency by transmitting fewer characters. This decision was made around 17 years ago, but with today's Internet speeds I'm not sure it matters anymore. But it means if you do "View Page Source" that you should see no HTML comments in the messages. However, while composing a message the HTML comments are left in place and you can use "View Source Code" to get a better idea of how it works. But it's pretty boring stuff, actually. I'm just glad I was able to make it work. dBoard software performs better formatting of messages than other discussion board offerings, like vBulletin.--Percy

I simply followed SOP for seeing how something was formatted by clicking on the Peek button on your Message 1. What I found was dBCodes with HTML comments mixed in -- I tried to post that with PRE tags, but the comments got commented out except for the mismatched close-comment tags. In order to see what I saw, please click on that Peek button yourself. So then what are you actually doing? Showing us the codes for formatting our lists? Or just running a test for some tinkering you're doing with the forum software? Or something else? Shouldn't you have informed us of the purpose of your Message 1?When I was in the war (USAF-speak), I maintained a communications system (phased out of service and replaced decades ago). To test the live system, we would send test messages in this format:

quote:

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test
test
test

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This is a test message.

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test
test
test

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Something to consider for the future.

Oh ho! You've found a bug I already fixed on the cloud server that goes along with the improved formatting I'm adding for LIST. I fixed it for a different reason and didn't realize it also affects peek. I added the bug fix to this server's version of the code, so you won't see any broken commenting with peek now. I'm debugging the code changes for improved list formatting, but I'm making those changes over on the cloud server but using the database over here because I get better testing that way. I'll have the code all debugged before switching the website over to the cloud server. In retrospect, yes. I figured no one pays serious attention to threads in Practice Makes Perfect, but should have realized that might not be the case when I post there. I considered switching the cloud server back over to its own database while I made the software changes (meaning my messages wouldn't appear here), but I liked the idea of the additional testing I would get by using the database over here. You're right, of course. Back in the good old days software companies had release engineering departments, and woe to the programmer who violated protocols and just shoved code out directly to customers. My release engineering department (me) has chastised the developer responsible (me), and his boss (me) now has him on a tight leash. --Percy

Beginning of postEnd of postEdited by Percy, : Add horizontal white space.

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...test post

blasé