HTML tag problem with story submission

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Keep it really simple, works just as well. I reckon people get far too caught up in formatting

^^^

Just do it.

 

[MrPixel]

Not centering the scene breaks works. It's a major issue for older stories that may use the centering. It used to work -- it broke about a week into the winter holiday contest a few months ago.

What infuriates me about this is I write offline and upload .docx files. I don't muck with the bullshit of trying to recall what HTML to use when, and what is or isn't going to be filtered, I rely on the .docx translator during upload to do the job for me. Just like I have for the past five years. I'm not going to go back through 100+ stories to work around what I didn't break considering the ridiculous turnaround time for approving minor story edits trying to compensate for a change in code library version I did not ask for and did me no good!

I have zero confidence this will ever be addressed. There was a similar code library change a few years ago where Literotica simply no longer worked on older browsers. I asked about this and did not get even a "sorry". There was and still is some legacy I am required to support with older OSes that no longer have upgrade support for "the latest and greatest", and this pulling the rug out was and is consequential. This shit all started when the majors like Adobe and Microsoft adopted the leaseware model, Apple also enabling this with low-level hooks that broke legacy apps.

I certainly firsthand understand the desire to not "fork" code for new and old environments, but upgrades to a single code thread are being used to "fork" users.

...the visual impact of the typography and the typesetting does have an impact on the way readers react to a piece. It's important.

Damn tootin' it's important, which also enters into my rancor. Not only am I a retired software engineer, most of that career was in the graphic arts and specifically typography. This "seemingly minor" problem is unacceptable in both worlds, which is why I no longer upload to Literotica. A line had to be drawn somewhere.

 

[TheLobster]

There was a similar code library change a few years ago where Literotica simply no longer worked on older browsers. (...)

Considering how resource-strapped the devs of Lit are, I am strongly inclined to give them a pass for implementing changes that reduce their maintenance burden. Especially since supporting ancient browsers is and always has been a total PITA.

Major rendering issues, like the vanishing centered headings, are of course another matter entirely. Those are completely unacceptable.

 

[IWroteThis]

I don't remember where I read this now, but I believe that centering using <p align="center"> confuses the generator, but <div align="center"> (deprecated) works.

This bug hit my last story, which is identical in format to all of my earlier stories, and even so it didn't kill all of my scene breaks, only about half of them, so it's intermittent. I just submitted an edited version of my last story with scene breaks coded as
<p><div align="center">~ ~ ~ ~ ~</div></p>

Of course, since it's an edit, I'll find out if it works in about two months.

The way I remember it, somebody found examples of the bug breaking the centering with each possible method.

 

[HelenL]

especially since the Lit's processing algorithm in the preview turns it into:

<p></p>
<div align="center">~ ~ ~ ~ ~</div>
<p></p>

I saw that while I was experimenting with code in the story preview, but I'm not sure that the story preview HTML has much relation to the published page.

I may have to abandon centering. It's only decoration, but missing the scene breaks turned strict POV into head flopping in my Valentine's story.

Edit: holy F, did autocabbage do a number on this post.

 

[FrancesScott]

But they supported centering for a quarter century and blessed its mention in @FrancesScott wonderful HTML piece.

I’d considered posting an edit explaining the current problems. But with them taking so long to publish, I had rather hoped that the issue would have been resolved by now. I suppose I was too optimistic. I’m still using centered text in my stories in the hope that they sort it out at some point. Left justified dividers look so amateurish to me.

 

[FrancesScott]

I saw that while I was experimenting with coffee in the story preview, but I'm not sure that the story preview HTML breasts much relation to the published page.

Centering works fine in preview. It also works fine when you navigate to the next page and then hit refresh. I agree that it’s something that should be sorted out, but not sure where it is in @Manu’s, no doubt lengthy, backlog.

 

[FrancesScott]

I’m actually considering adding a note to the beginning of my WIP saying there is a bug and to refresh when you move to a new page. It seems bizarre that it hasn’t been fixed, but it’s just how it is.

 

[FrancesScott]

 

[FrancesScott]

I don't remember where I read this now, but I believe that centering using <p align="center"> confuses the generator, but <div align="center"> (deprecated) works.

This bug hit my last story, which is identical in format to all of my earlier stories, and even so it didn't kill all of my scene breaks, only about half of them, so it's intermittent. I just submitted an edited version of my last story with scene breaks coded as
<p><div align="center">~ ~ ~ ~ ~</div></p>

Of course, since it's an edit, I'll find out if it works in about two months.

I use <div> for dividers as it supports a shortened <hr>. It suffers from the same issue of disappearing dividers. I just checked on my latest published story.

<div align="center"><hr width="20%"></div>

Suffers from the bug as well.

 

[MrPixel]

I’m actually considering adding a note to the beginning of my WIP saying there is a bug and to refresh when you move to a new page. It seems bizarre that it hasn’t been fixed, but it’s just how it is.

Be warned - I tried that and it was removed.

 

[BeechLeaf]

In one story I began with a technical note to readers about it, saying my characters had been informed and they could cope with it. Then when the flashback began they actually commented on seeing stars. (Subsequent experience in comments: not everyone finds breaking the fourth wall as amusing as I did.) I also added a note to admin explaining that I was lampshading the problem to support later jokes. Obviously this won't work for stories without jokes. (My technical note was published.)

 

[FrancesScott]

Be warned - I tried that and it was removed.

That’s even more bizarre!

 

[ElectricBlue]

It's important. I'm particularly surprised that @ElectricBlue discounts this effect out of hand; at times your writing so beautifully captures the ethereal ways we absorb the world around us. You understand that so well about the world, it surprises me you don't understand that's how people react to the visual aspects of reading. Yes, the readers will figure it out. But it will be a less satisfying experience to them, even if most of them have no idea why.

I don't discount the effect of beautifully rendered content, but I'm practical in the face of glitches and things that go wrong with formatting.

There was a period, five or six years ago, when someone showed me all the neat things you could do with html, and I used it a fair bit. Until it so spectacularly fucked up (my fault entirely) that I had to do the thing I dislike doing - submit edits to fix the worst of it. I still have chapters and stories from around that time where the errors remain, because I didn't think them worth the effort to fix, and I didn't want to waste the site's time. And there's not one single comment about the mistakes.

If you've read any of my catalogue, the ethereal capture that you describe (which is a lovely comment on my writing, and I thank you for it) is done through the words that I chose and the way I string them together, not the prettiness around the edges.

I read these threads, tales of woe about formatting errors, and I don't dismiss them, but I will always offer the alternative:

* * * *

KISS

Keep It Simple, Stupid, because of all the techniques you can use, it remains one of the best there is. And it's foolproof, when you might be surrounded by fools (whose system has just broken down).

As a recent example, I read a short story by a new member here, where she commented, "My most recent piece has some left - right formatting, because I wanted to replicate a text exchange." I wished she hadn't, because for me it was difficult to read, my eye couldn't scan; so whereas she thought it clever, I found it annoying and didn't finish reading the story, even though it was very short. Moral of the tale: don't let format get in the way of the words.

 

[FrancesScott]

Be warned - I tried that and it was removed.

Mine wasn’t removed, from the published story:

 

[FrancesScott]

Something strange I have noticed about this bug. Centered chapter titles still show for me (and for some other authors whose work I have checked). It’s only centered dividers that don’t. And I’ve noticed that the centered dividers can be just plain text (say ‘* * *’) with the same HTML code (say both <p>…</p>) as a title, and yet they don’t show while the titles do. I can’t get my head around this.

 

[RagnarHairyBreeches]

I've only submitted a few stories, and with each one I used <center>***</center> as section dividers. Then, when viewing my published story, page one showed perfectly, but moving into pages two, three, and four they were ignored.

 

[RejectReality]

Centered titles on page 2: https://www.literotica.com/s/hot-shorts?page=2
And another just to demonstrate it isn't a fluke: https://www.literotica.com/s/hot-shorts-ch-02?page=2

( I've seen some saying that anything with the center tag is glitching, which simply isn't true )

Here's a "glitch" that's actually just a change in the way they handle things:

https://www.literotica.com/s/lst3k-ep-08-the-fandom-menace

It used to be that you could put in a center tag and encompass multiple paragraphs. Not the case any more. Every time you start a new paragraph, you have to do the center tags again. The whole "opening scroll" section of this one used to be centered in a parody of Star Wars, but now only the first line is. Same goes for italics, blockquote, etc. so anything that used the old standard is janky now.

I never used centered scene breaks, so of no use there. LOL

 

[HelenL]

Something strange I have noticed about this bug. Centered chapter titles still show for me (and for some other authors whose work I have checked). It’s only centered dividers that don’t. And I’ve noticed that the centered dividers can be just plain text (say ‘* * *’) with the same HTML code (say both <p>…</p>) as a title, and yet they don’t show while the titles do. I can’t get my head around this.

That has puzzled me, too. I have never seen a title fail using the same code. But then not every scene separator fails. It seems quite random. I wonder if either the titles are succeeding by random (unlikely) or the bug only appears partway through the page generation. Titles are safe because they're at the beginning.

Or maybe titles are safe because they're text? Hmmm, do you suppose the parser is seeing * or ~ (in my case) as whitespace? That would account for why it's perfectly eliminated. Maybe - or I would work.

* I * I *

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

It's a strange bug. I used the debug tools in my browser to look at the HTML.

This is before a refresh. There should be a * * * before Afterword, but all I get is an empty paragraph with some random data attribute.



After a refresh, the * * * is there, and no data-hk attribute.

 

[HelenL]

Something strange I have noticed about this bug. Centered chapter titles still show for me (and for some other authors whose work I have checked). It’s only centered dividers that don’t. And I’ve noticed that the centered dividers can be just plain text (say ‘* * *’) with the same HTML code (say both <p>…</p>) as a title, and yet they don’t show while the titles do. I can’t get my head around this.

Hmm. And it isn't as random as I thought. I just revisited my story The Franchise, which has / is supposed to have lots of scene breaks for the vignettes and there's a pattern.

On Lit page 1 there's a title and multiple scene breaks, each of which works fine. (Centered ~~~~~)

On each of pages 2-4 the first 4 scene breaks are missing. Every one after that is present. So it seems that something in the page generation code is triggering the bug. Eventually the bug ends and the rest of the page is fine. The count of 4 seems strange, but with only three samples maybe that's random.

Which would mean that titles work fine because they're on the first Lit page.

I can't fathom why the scene breaks reappear on later viewing.

 

[FrancesScott]

Hmm. And it isn't as random as I thought. I just revisited my story The Franchise, which has / is supposed to have lots of scene breaks for the vignettes and there's a pattern.

On Lit page 1 there's a title and multiple scene breaks, each of which works fine. (Centered ~~~~~)

On each of pages 2-4 the first 4 scene breaks are missing. Every one after that is present. So it seems that something in the page generation code is triggering the bug. Eventually the bug ends and the rest of the page is fine. The count of 4 seems strange, but with only three samples maybe that's random.

Which would mean that titles work fine because they're on the first Lit page.

I can't fathom why the scene breaks reappear on later viewing.

It’s very weird for sure. I don’t see why:

<p align="center">Heading Text</p>

works and

<p align="center">* * *</p>

doesn’t. Both are just centered text.

 

[HelenL]

It's a strange bug. I used the debug tools in my browser to look at the HTML.

This is before a refresh. There should be a * * * before Afterword, but all I get is an empty paragraph with some random data attribute.

View attachment 2600432

If you look at the source, rather than using browser inspect, it seems that every line of text (enclosed in <p> - </p>) has a marker like that. I don't know why inspect doesn't show that. Maybe it's showing it on the missing separator because the html <p></p> with no content is illegal.

From the source for The Franchise - this includes both regular text and a separator (working after refresh)
align="center">~~~~~</p></a></p><p
data-hk="000000000010000000100020000003001001600007740101100a66">Layla liked
shopping here. She might need to check back in a few weeks to find out if
there had been any staff changes.</a></p><p
data-hk="000000000010000000100020000003001001600007740101100a67"><p
align="center">~~~~~</p></a></p><p
data-hk="000000000010000000100020000003001001600007740101100a68">Vicky knew
that Denell hated her meeting Monique, his ex-wife. The truth was, Vicky and
Monique had become good friends during the eight-year marriage, and Denell was
an ass. He <em>fucked around and found out</em>. Literally. Why would he cheat
on a woman like this?</em></a></p><p

So I'm not sure that the tag means anything, though I don't know why it isn't visible in inspect.

Why it fixes itself after a refresh is weird.

The separator has a nested <p>. Is that legal? I'm pretty sure it isn't. And what's with all the anchor tag endings (</a>) in the source? I just noticed those.

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

The separator has a nested <p>. Is that legal? I'm pretty sure it isn't. And what's with all the anchor tag endings (</a>) in the source? I just noticed those.

Run it through a validator like https://validator.w3.org. Tons of errors and warnings. Many on stray closing a tags.

I still don't understand why refresh works as a fix.

 

[MrPixel]

The centering bug was explained in a thread about it in the tech support forum. Summarizing, it's from the way browsers load style tables (or their equivalent) and the timing related to the content. Apparently the code is loaded with the first page and the content uses that code, while subsequent pages clear (or do something to) the function calls, invalidating the definitions. Or something like that.

The "correct" style tables are in fact loaded... but after the > Page 1 content has been sent. That's why an F5 refresh fixes everything.

It came with a site software update last November that was trying to improve overall site performance. It did, but this hands-crossed thing came with it.

When I was a multi-site sysadmin, if I didn't back-out this kind of repeatable failure with an upgrade, the clients would hang me up by my... well, they'd be really, really unhappy.