I have trouble formatting posts the way I want to

First of all, I want to say that I absolutely LOVE the new AMASS software! I think it is the best thought-out forum software in the universe.

BUT.......

There are things I like to do when writing posts that I am unable to do. Or should I say, I do those things, then AMASS over-rides them.

For instance, When writing a paragraph with multiple sentences, I like to have two blank character spaces between sentences. . So, when one sentence is finished I put a period at the end of it and then I hit the space bar twice before starting the next sentence. . I think that text reads much, much better when there is a bit of extra visual relief between sentences. . The problem is that when I do this in AMASS, the software undoes it automatically. . So when I see my post up on the forum, my spacing has been removed and is replaced with just a single blank character space. . Sometimes I will go back into my post and edit it by adding an extra period between the sentences. . I then have to change the color of the extra period to light grey so that it blends into the background and is not readily visible. . I have done this with this paragraph that you have just read.

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There are other times when I think that a bit of extra separation between paragraphs would be helpful. This is especially true when I am writing a very long post in which I discuss multiple topics at length.

For example, let's say I have three topics that I am discussing in a post, and that each topic has 4 paragraphs. I will want one empty line between each paragraph in a topic. But when changing topics, I will want two or three blank lines between the last paragraph of topic #1 and the first paragraph of topic #2, and between the last paragraph of topic #2 and the first paragraph of topic #3. But AMASS undoes this carefully thought-out formatting and reduces my two or three blank lines down to just one blank line. WHY?????????? I end up having to do the "light grey period thing" again and again, just to get the spacing I want.

Or sometimes I just use the underline key and make a horizontal line between topics..........which brings me to another problem - in AMASS, if you type more than 18 of the same character, AMASS automatically abbreviates the string of characters to 18. So if I want to make a long line that spans my wall of text, I have to actually make 4 or 5 shorter strings of underline at 15 spaces each, and separate them by a single blank space. I have done this with the first line I drew (above), but did not bother doing the extra copy & paste steps with the line immediately under this paragraph, so that all can see how AMASS shortened my original line.

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When I read books, magazine articles, brochures, and even advertisements, I pay close attention to the way the formatting was done. I see spacing used very effectively, in a way that gives the reader a little bit of "break" between thoughts. I appreciate this, as the formatting helps tell my brain how to process the things that I am reading. I want to use this type of effective formatting when I write posts here on POTN, but it is difficult and time-consuming to do so, because AMASS undoes the things I do and over-rides my formatting with its own not-so-thoughtful spacing.

I suspect that maybe part of the reason AMASS does this "trimming down" of my formatting has to do with how people see the site when viewing on their cell phones. Personally, I really don't care about cell-phone compatibility and how my posts read on those tiny little screens. I write for those folks who care enough to visit POTN the way it should be visited - on a real computer with a respectably-sized monitor. I do see that for some there is value to being able to access POTN on a cell phone, but when cell-phone compatibility starts to diminish "real" POTN participation, then that is a problem that needs a better solution.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #17712220
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It looks to me as if you've figured out how to defeat the robot, so why not just suck it up, Tom? ; )

Tom, I don't have so many quarrels with the format as you do. For instance, most typography changed from two spaces after a period to one space years ago. Even if I preferred the longer space, I wouldn't take the time to insert a second period in another color.

However, if you feel a need to set off paragraphs more vividly, you might use a display initial. See how definite that is?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Options also exist for emphasizing the space between topics.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I'm sure you can find some "format hacks" of your own.

ASCII character code (on Windows PC here) Alt+0160 types the HTML non-breaking space character. You can use that as a "hard space".    |<-four spaces after a period.
 
 
You can separate paragraphs like that too. Alt+0160 <enter> at the beginning of a line leaves it empty-looking, just the space character is there.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #17712275
It looks to me as if you've figured out how to defeat the robot, so why not just suck it up, Tom? ; )

Because I don't want to defeat anything, I just want to be able to type posts here on POTN the same way I type things when I am using Word, or Text/Edit. I actually don't enjoy having to add spacing in some backwards manner. If I didn't have to do this, then I could spend the saved seconds and minutes reading and writing more POTN content!

Also, I want to know WHY! I like like to understand why things are the way they are, and therefore would value an explanation as to why AMASS has been programmed to override what we type.

Have you ever been to a forum or comment section where they allowed what you want? And seen how some people like filling pages with carriage return/ line feeds? Or hold down the space bar or other key for a few seconds (or let their cat sit on their keyboard ) and then submit? It can make for unreadable and very long empty posts.

Tom, you must have been trained on a typewriter back 40-50 years ago, when they taught use of the double space separating sentences! I was trained to do that, too, and I still prefer it that way for improved readability. Yeah typography may have changed that a while back, but it is not universal...I happen to have a 1998 medical textbook Pathophysiology on the shelf and it follows the double space convention of separating sentences.

I mostly dislike the automatic compression of the multiple space because sometimes I want to type in some information in a quick row-column tabular form, but when it gets posted the columns no longer line up, which hurts the readability of the data. Having to first make a Word table or Excel, do a screen grab and then post the JPG on a sharing site so you can link POTN to it is more time consuming than I want at times!

Trying the Alt+0160, it does work   . But it is 5 key strokes vs. one, simply for one non-breaking space, hardly a good way to type a paragraph of response!

Heh! I guess there are a bunch of us who go back the 40-50 to where we learned to work on typewriters!

I do remember that I moved from delineating paragraphs with double-line breaks instead of the old-fashioned Tab approach! As to other more "fancy" stuff, well, I don't give it much thought, although I've occasionally resorted to some kind of symbolic "breaks" -- I didn't know about the current software "breaking through" to prevent some things like Tom mentioned...interestin​g to know and see what becomes of it.

Which brings to mind -- the "double-space" that we use instead of resorting to a Char double-space. I really don't care to resort to the Char functionality. The problem is that I've had to pick up "Texting" on my little cell phone, and with texting I'm forced repeatedly to go to a Character layout, even just to get a period or comma in. In other words people who just rely on the "standard" keys end up with their texts being jumbled and barely readable! That disgusts me so I had to quickly work out the "special" characters when texting. It makes me much more satisfied writing messages with my computer keyboard!

Tom Reichner wrote in post #17714494
Also, I want to know WHY! I like like to understand why things are the way they are, and therefore would value an explanation as to why AMASS has been programmed to override what we type.

As JWdlft said in https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=17714585 the "measures" are to clean up texts from extra clutter.

I have never heard someone wants to have two spaces between sentences, so I apologize, but repeating spaces in html are also removed by web browsers when page is rendered. If you wanted more space, the special characters are one way, the other is that I make a tag for adding more space (which would be rather inconvenient if needed a lot), or I could make special rendering modes for individual members (add space characters automatically after a dot and one space for posts by member id 175152, for example. This is always extra work, though, and now other things take precedence.

JWdlft wrote in post #17714585
Have you ever been to a forum or comment section where they allowed what you want?

Yes! In fact, I did those things on the old POTN. It would allow me to have as many blank character spaces or as many blank lines as I wanted. Other forums I belong to (huntingwashington, huntfishNW, NatureScapes, WildlifeSouth, etc) also allow me to format posts the way I like without any extra steps. And no, I have never seen this result in any of the abuses you mention.

Wilt wrote in post #17714656
Tom, you must have been trained on a typewriter back 40-50 years ago, when they taught use of the double space separating sentences! I was trained to do that, too, and I still prefer it that way for improved readability. Yeah typography may have changed that a while back, but it is not universal...I happen to have a 1998 medical textbook Pathophysiology on the shelf and it follows the double space convention of separating sentences.

No, I was not trained on a typewriter. In fact, no one ever told me to do the double space between sentence thing - I just happen to think it reads better that way.

I like a little mental relief between thoughts, and I think that a little extra physical space helps to facilitate this mental pause. There is such an incredibly strong connection between what we see and what we think that I want to use every tool at my disposal to format things in such a way as to guide the reader to think in the way that I think will best communicate my points.

For the same reason, I will not use the pre-printed shipping label that PayPal creates, as I think that addresses read better when there are multiple spaces between certain parts of the address, and, unfortunately, PayPal/USPS defaults just put one space between.

I pay a lot of attention to labels on packaging on items I see at Walmart and the grocery store. I pay a lot of attention to the spacing that I see in graphics used in advertisements on the internet and in print. I'm not just talking about spaces between items of text, but also spacing between visual elements and between graphics and text.

I am supremely interested in how things are laid out, a.k.a. "composed", and am forever closely observing and critiquing such things. If the composition of our photographs matters so much, then does not the composition of everything else we create matter just as much? I think it does. To me, posts here on POTN are not just something I am writing, they are something I am designing, something I am composing.

Wilt wrote in post #17714656
I mostly dislike the automatic compression of the multiple space because sometimes I want to type in some information in a quick row-column tabular form, but when it gets posted the columns no longer line up, which hurts the readability of the data. Having to first make a Word table or Excel, do a screen grab and then post the JPG on a sharing site so you can link POTN to it is more time consuming than I want at times!

Yes, I have tried to write posts with a heading and then indented bullet points (without the bullet), but AMASS undoes all of the carefully measured spacing that I have entered, and each line just begins on the extreme left margin, or one space in from the edge of the margin. I don't know how to write stuff on other software and then import it into POTN. And I don't want to go thru the hassle of doing so, even if I had the knowledge to be able to do so. Even if I did, it would then be too dificult for other members to edit my posts when quoting them. I just want stuff to be indented a certain way and to line up a certain way like I used to do here on the forums.

Pekka wrote in post #17714976
As JWdlft said in https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=17714585 the "measures" are to clean up texts from extra clutter.

I have never heard someone wants to have two spaces between sentences, so I apologize, but repeating spaces in html are also removed by web browsers when page is rendered. If you wanted more space, the special characters are one way, the other is that I make a tag for adding more space (which would be rather inconvenient if needed a lot), or I could make special rendering modes for individual members (add space characters automatically after a dot and one space for posts by member id 175152, for example. This is always extra work, though, and now other things take precedence.

Pekka,
Thanks so much for the explanation. I certainly don't expect you to do any extra work for the very few OCD users like myself who are super-picky about how a post reads. What you have created here with AMASS is awesome - I just wanted to know why a few small things did not work the way they used to work. Now I understand. I will continue to go thru my workaround rituals when I think it is important enough to justify the additional effort.