Standard, ancient, forgotten useful tips

Topic

New Reply

Maybe this can be a collection point for simple—really simple!—tips that just work. What may be second nature to experienced users may not have occurred to others who could benefit.

 

Use right-click + “Open link in new tab” (or pushing down on the center mouse scroll button) to open a new link from the list on the right (or anywhere else, for that matter). The usual left click replaces the page you are on with a new one, but it’s often convenient keep it immediately available in the original tab.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Ricard, Chris

Reply | Quote

Replies

When I insert a link into one of my posts, I click on the Link options gear and put a tick in the “Open link in new tab” checkbox.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do to our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

Reply | Quote

Maybe this can be a collection point for simple—really simple!—tips that just work. What may be second nature to experienced users may not have occurred to others who could benefit.

For those using the visual tab in this forum on entries, you may want to quote the OP or another commenter. Copy the text you want to quote and before you paste it into Reply To box, click the quotes button in the toolbar. For those using Text mode, enclose the text you pasted in with:

< blockquote >the quoted text< /blockquote > (I added a space in the code so it shows here as code and not a regular blockquote)

In visual mode and at the end of the quote, just press your enter key twice to get out of the blockquote and start a new paragraph.

Oh, and copy and paste are the time-honored keyboard shortcuts Ctrl C and Ctrl V. Right-clicking also works.

Reply | Quote

However, if you are doing a copy/paste from outside  (like a Word document, for example) you should use the “Text” tab in the entry box. Otherwise, all the HTML code from the formatting can show up as gobbledy-goop in your reply. The “Text” tab removes the HTML formatting (which is a pain for the moderators to remove by hand).

3 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, Chris, woody

Reply | Quote

Amazing how much junk gets hauled in with the cat.

I frequently use Ctrl+Shift+V to paste plain text. Doesn’t work everywhere, but it does here.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Elly

Reply | Quote

Chris wrote:

For those using the visual tab in this forum on entries, you may want to quote the OP or another commenter. Copy the text you want to quote and before you paste it into Reply To box, click the quotes button in the toolbar

Chris, isn’t it better to use the ‘Quote’ button under the post in question? That includes the username you’re quoting as well as the text—though of course it brings in all the text of the post, so you’ll usually want to delete some.

That’s what I did with your post above. Below is just a copy-paste:

<span style=”color: #000000; font-family: ‘Helvetica Neue’, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;”>For those using the visual tab in this forum on entries, you may want to quote the OP or another commenter. Copy the text you want to quote and before you paste it into Reply To box, click the quotes button in the toolbar</span>

Hmm, did I do something wrong with the second one? Shows the HTML code within the Blockquote.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

Reply | Quote

If you highlight what you want to quote before you hit the “Quote” button, it only quptes what is highlighted.

If you shift to the “Text” tab before you copy/paste, you don’t get the HTML.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Lugh, Chris

Reply | Quote

Thanks! The problem with using the quote link that is it works differently than the reply link. A reply is nested under the comment you replied to, a quote starts a new comment with the only relation to the other comment being the quoted part. At least I think so (this is a reply to you and should be nested).

Reply | Quote

Or I can “Quote”, highlight and copy everything in the quote, then delete it.  Next I can click on “Reply” and paste the quoted material in the Reply To: textbox.

bbearren wrote:

Chris wrote:

Maybe this can be a collection point for simple—really simple!—tips that just work. What may be second nature to experienced users may not have occurred to others who could benefit.

For those using the visual tab in this forum on entries, you may want to quote the OP or another commenter. Copy the text you want to quote and before you paste it into Reply To box, click the quotes button in the toolbar.

I quote the entire text, edit out those portions I’m not addressing, then type out my reply to that part of the post. That leaves a link to the post being quoted in “Chris wrote”.

That will nest the quoted reply.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do to our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

2 users thanked author for this post.

Lugh, Chris

Reply | Quote

If you hit reply first, then go back to quote, it nests it. Little bit of trouble, but it works.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Chris

Reply | Quote

Chris wrote:

Maybe this can be a collection point for simple—really simple!—tips that just work. What may be second nature to experienced users may not have occurred to others who could benefit.

For those using the visual tab in this forum on entries, you may want to quote the OP or another commenter. Copy the text you want to quote and before you paste it into Reply To box, click the quotes button in the toolbar.

I quote the entire text, edit out those portions I’m not addressing, then type out my reply to that part of the post.  That leaves a link to the post being quoted in “Chris wrote”.  Clicking on the “Chris wrote” link will take one directly back to that point in the discussion.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do to our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

Reply | Quote

OK Guys, that’s copy-paste-quote-reply inside the Forum pretty much covered. Let’s move on to other basic useful hints and tips . . .

Thanks for the useful discussion though!

Reply | Quote

Something that took me a while to spot is the little arrow at the end of titles in the list of topics. This takes me to the first (to me) new post in the thread. Similar to ‘New posts’ link in WSL threads. I wish I had seen it earlier. I also look at the date/time of latest posts as well, so I can ignore something that was last updated some time ago (unless it seems something interesting).

Is there a ‘mark as read’ facility? I haven’t found one.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

Reply | Quote

I’ve bookmarked Recently Active Topics, and there it shows “new” topics, and those with “unread” posts… by clicking on the title, you go to the top of the thread… on the right is the most recent post time. Clicking on that tends to bring you to the bottom of the thread (unless someone posted somewhere else). You can quickly scan up and down and see replies labeled as “new”. Only problem is if you leave the thread, before reading all the “new” posts, as they will not be so labeled the next time you access it.

If you truly want to catch every new post, subscribe to the thread (top right). Sometimes you will be unsubscribed, when you didn’t mean to be, so it isn’t entirely fail safe… Subscription will send you e-mails with the text of the post included, and link back to the post on AW.

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

1 user thanked author for this post.

access-mdb

Reply | Quote

I’ve been using the New posts since last visit link in the ‘Woody panel’ on the right, seems to work as expected—gives me around 20-30 threads per day. Then mid-mouse button the little right-arrow Access mentions for any thread I’m interested in, and they’re all open in browser tabs at my first unread post.

I tried the email subscribe but got too much in my Inbox. Above is cleaner if I’m doing it right.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

Reply | Quote

I have a minuscule tip for any “edit” you may do after you post.

Aside from the “Notify Me” box at the bottom left of an edit, you will see a checked box for “Keep a log of this edit”. Unchecking that box will keep the edit’s from being displayed at the bottom of your post. You must uncheck the box for every edit you do, unless you want it to show for some reason.
This is what will not appear by unchecking the box.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Elly

Reply | Quote