| |
I am very happy to announce three changes today to the LUGNET News web
interface:
- Fixed-width font now used for plain-text messages. Once upon a time, when LUGNET first served up messages via the web, messages were displayed in a fixed-width font. This was good, and held to tradition, but caused problems for people reading on low-end 640x480 screens (common at the time). We changed the font from Courier to Times Roman in order to compress the message display. Well, almost five years have passed since then, and the era of postage-stamp sized screens is long gone. So: it’s now changed back to Courier. (Note: if you prefer a fixed-width font other than Courier, you can configure this in your web browser preferences.)
- Quoted snippets now show in rainbow of colors. Each “level” of quoted reply now has its own color, instead of all levels having the same color. The color shifts are subtle, yet evident. Now you can visually pick apart layers of replies with ease.
- FTX content in messages. A picture is worth a thousand words. You can now post and view FTX messages through the web interface. This means you can do a lot of neat new things in your messages. (And you can still post messages in plain text too.) FTX messages show in a proportional-spaced font called Verdana.
The remainder of this announcement is a gentle introduction to FTX.
Basic FTX Overview
Formatted text (“FTX”) is an enhanced text format developed by LUGNET
originally for member pages. FTX offers many of the same great features as
HTML, but in a simpler and more direct way. Of particular benefit is that
FTX “plays well” with plain text. Here’s how it works:
Put text in curly braces to make italics or in square brackets to make
boldface. Put text between pairs of underscores to make underlined words or
between pairs of vertical bars to make computer words.
{italics} [boldface] _underlined_ |computer words|
To make a hyperlink, simply write a URL or page name between angle brackets
< > and optionally include text after the URL to make a labeled hyperlink.
<http://www.google.com/> or <http://www.google.com/ Search Google>
Special symbols in column 1 signify special paragraph types, such as bulleted
lists, automatically numbered lists, simple tables, and computer code listings.
* bulleted list
+ numbered list
~ table cells
| computer code
Lines of -’s or =’s below a line of text make section headings.
Large heading Small heading
============= -------------
Those are the basic features. Additional features are available for more
advanced use.
LEGO pictures
FTX has two LEGO picture features: LEGO sets and LEGO elements. By writing
<<LEGOSet(id)>> you can include any LEGO set that appears in the LUGNET
Guide.
And by writing <<LDrawPart(part:color)>> you can include a picture
of any LEGO element from LDraw.
  
 
  
 
Your own pictures
Simply by writing <<imageurl>>, you can include your own web-sized images
in your posts, provided that your images are already uploaded to a webserver
somewhere on the Internet. (LUGNET does not provide hosting space for your
images.)
Here are five photos I took earlier this year, arranged in a two-column table
with picture labels:
Harpsichord and Stegasaurus · Henry Lim
Victorian House · Susan Michon
1934 American LaFrance · Tom Duggan
| |
| | 
Space Station 2 · Rick Kujawa
Zolquith · Eric Sophie
Photographs ©2003 Todd Lehman.
All rights reserved.
|
Ready to learn more?
When you’re ready to learn more, please visit the
FTX Quick-start page
or the longer FTX User Guide
for more details.
--Todd
|
|
Message has 16 Replies:
 | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| Oh man ====== I think this might wind up being abused. It's funny, earlier today I was trying to find a picture link for the new "Built to Rule" transformer line on one of the Transformer news groups and I was thinking how glad I was that Lugnet was (...) (21 years ago, 28-May-03, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
| | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| Oh man ====== I think this might wind up being abused. It's funny, earlier today I was trying to find a picture link for the new "Built to Rule" transformer line on one of the Transformer news groups and I was thinking how glad I was that Lugnet was (...) (21 years ago, 28-May-03, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
| | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| (...) I am not a fan of the fixed-width text. It looks like what we used to do in high school to meet that 3 page requirment for english reports when we only had a tad more than 2 pages typed ;) But seriously, IMHO it is harder to read, and kinda (...) (21 years ago, 28-May-03, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
| | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| (...) My main concern is the extra time it takes to download messages containing in-line images rather than links to images. This is especially worrisome when using the Entire Thread on One Page or the This Message and its Replies on one Page (...) (21 years ago, 28-May-03, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
| | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| Todd Lehman wrote in message ... <a blank message with an attachment> Todd, are these FTX messages supposed to show in newsreaders? Because right now OE shows a blank message with an attachment. I REALLY, REALLY hate the idea of having to open an (...) (21 years ago, 28-May-03, to lugnet.publish)
| | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| Todd, I enounter an anomaly in Outlook Express (6.00.26) with FTX-formatted posts, as OE seems to think every such post has an attachment (showing the paper clip symbol in the thread view). This is not a serious problem, but a bit irritating, as (...) (21 years ago, 28-May-03, to lugnet.publish)
| | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| (...) I am also very happy, except for.... (...) this. At least on my computer, the rainbow of colors are all just a bit too light/faint. It is very difficult to read some of the text. I would like to blame it on my own moniter, but everything else (...) (21 years ago, 28-May-03, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
| | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| (...) SNIP (...) are the symbols to the left of the text window in 'reply' web interface mode part of the additions? I see ©, ®, & others, but we need the cent symbol! :) other letters for French/other names or words would be cool too just my (...) (21 years ago, 30-May-03, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
| | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| Yikes! I just posted a reply and all my text was moved to the bottom of the message! Oy! Sure it makes it easy to read when the only message you read, in a thread, is the last one. But if you read the replies as the come in then you're forced to (...) (21 years ago, 30-May-03, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
| | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| (...) I guess I don't see the advantage of this part, and I can't stand how when reading via the web it makes the listed posts look one way, and the posts themselves a completely different way. Plus, that fixed-width font is a killer on the eyes. (...) (21 years ago, 2-Jun-03, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
| | | Re: Announcing FTX for discussion groups
|
| It is summer time, not lego time (= winter time), so I haven't felt this before now. I haven't seen this in my newsreader, but I can imagine that it might look really funny/odd. But leaving that of, here is my first suggestion: I will only post (...) (21 years ago, 10-Jun-03, to lugnet.publish)
|
64 Messages in This Thread:
  
 
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
