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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 01/20/2012 : 21:30:10
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How about a TinyURL button here to help with pesky pasted URLs that don't work here? (Especially Wiki URLs that contain parentheses.) TinyURL has code to paste on their front page, but it may just link to their front page.
Or, even better, an automatic converting tool that creates URL code that SFN software can use?
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2012 : 07:16:36 [Permalink]
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It would have been nice if the designers of Snitz Forums had left some comments as to why they forbade the use of parentheses in URLs, when per RFC 1738 they are perfectly acceptable, neither reserved nor unsafe with respect to HTML. The authors of our software may have just made a mistake, or they may have known of some exploit involving parentheses allowing hackers to do nasty things of which I am unaware. Since encoding parentheses isn't difficult (left-paren is %28 and right-paren is %29) and the latter possibility above represents an unacceptable risk, I am unwilling to change the code to allow them (which would be the easiest solution).
But that's just parentheses. The next most-common problem I run into when pasting URLs into posts here is with URLs that contain other URLs. Snitz tries to automatically convert the embedded URLs to links, but because it has already converted the full URL to a link by that point, the result is just a mess. Snitz auto-converts when it finds "http://" or "www." not preceded immediately by the HTML link code, leading to situations like the link you'll find in the following:Eeeeuuuuwww.... The solution is again encoding. One can change one of the Ws to a %77 within a URL, and one of the Ts to a %74, giving "ht%74p://" and "ww%77." when used inside of URLs (to foil the automatic link-maker when not making a link, just stick a do-nothing tag, "[]" into your text, like so: "Eeeeuuuuw[]ww....").
The automatic link-maker could certainly be smarter, and we could eliminate this problem, but that code is rather complex.
Or, TinyURL works for both issues. It might be possible for an HTML guru to create a space for one to paste a URL, click a button and have the results of TinyURL automatically pasted into a post here (or at least displayed in a new window for copying-and-pasting), but I am not an HTML guru. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2012 : 08:26:26 [Permalink]
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Thanks for taking the idea seriously.
Coming up with the formless idea itself is sort of like the scientist who proves some breakthrough technology like laser-boosted starship sails is not physically impossible, and then asserts, "The rest is merely engineering." But the devil's always in the "mere engineering" details. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2012 : 17:47:45 [Permalink]
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Would it be unsafe to insert a subroutine which converts parenthesis to their encoded counterpart, before the link is processed by the Snitz-software?
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2012 : 17:54:35 [Permalink]
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For coding characters, please have a look at my article in the Q & A section,
HOWTO: Fix broken links due to exotic characters.
It's a sticky so you should find the article at the top of the list of threads if you go there without following the link above.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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TinyURL tool
