Firefox and forum formatting?

[epbrown]

I browse the forum using Firefox on my IBM Transnote with SVGA display. I've noticed that, annoyingly, a lot of threads on the board don't word-wrap, force me to scroll left and right for every line. This doesn't happen in IE, where the text wraps accordingly. Is there a setting in Firefox I'm missing?

[backfromMac]

I had a similar problem, oddly when I changed themes the problem went away. Kevin

[epbrown]

Thanks for the reply. I tried several different themes, with the same issue on all of them.

[smugiri]

I think that one of the main causes of this is threads with long urls pasted right into the text. phpBB, the board manager does not know where to break to warp since the URL is one long string of text ( which would be true for any board manager ). There might be other causes but this is the primary cause most of the time.

[LtTPfan]

I usually browse the forums here with Firefox and only have the wide screen problem when someone posts long links. That sure makes reading the threads much more difficult and makes me wonder why someone would bother posting if they won't bother using the url= format for links. Geez, it only takes a few more characters.

[epbrown]

You're right, it's usually an URL issue. I guess the problem is I expect Firefox to be better than IE, so I can't believe it's a problem MS can handle better.

[LtTPfan]

I just tried IE6 and you are right, it is able to break the up long links where FF is not. I went over to the Firefox forums and searched. Seems they are talking about 3rd party software and Java scripts to do something IE does on its own, rather than fixing Firefox. BTW, Mozilla has changed their site in the last few days. Now it's all a bunch of ads/links to various sites. I couldn't even find their support forum any longer, had to Google it.

[GomJabbar]

.....makes me wonder why someone would bother posting if they won't bother using the url= format for links. Geez, it only takes a few more characters.

I have a feeling that many of these posters do not understand how to do this. I haven't searched the forum FAQs, but a FAQ or Sticky that is easily found and read on this issue would probably make a difference.

When I first began posting on this forum (as one of the very first forums that I have posted to), I wanted to do the above but I didn't understand the procedure. I was trying to embed HTML code (which I hadn't used before) to accomplish this without success. Finally I mentioned in one of my posts that I was having a problem with this and someone responded with the easy forum solution. I was trying to do it the hard way!

[LtTPfan]

The answer is actually right above the message body window, and directly below the subject line, when you post a message. Just put your cursor over the URL* botton. It gives you examples.

[GomJabbar]

The answer is actually right above the message body window, and directly below the subject line, when you post a message. Just put your cursor over the URL* botton. It gives you examples.

Yes, I've known how to do that for some time now.

Another thought is that the IE users may not even realize that posting a long URL is a problem. That is, if they never have to scroll horizontally to see the whole page then there is no problem for them. Also, if one has a display with higher resolution than XGA, they may not need to scroll horizontally either.

I go to the Google forums sometimes, and on there they just truncate the display of the URL if it won't fit on the page. I wonder if that could be done here?

[BruisedQuasar]

I am an early user of firefox. I find a recent increase of internet resources that are not Firefox friendly, which does not surprise me at all. Firefox use has expanded from under 1% a year ago to 9% and growing. When use was under one percent market share, I found it very rare to come up against a site or resource that stumped Firefox. Today, I expect to come across a major mainstream resource that will not work with Firefox, which seems odd when you consider the fast growth of Firefox market share and the recent release of version 1.5.X. Gates has stepped up tactics to divert users from switching to Firefox, beyond his standard computer magazine misinformation (a tactic Gates relies on to keep Opera, Linux & Sun Microsystems OpenOffice use down). I hope none of you are surprised to learn that computer magazines are not out to look after you, the consumer. Consumer Reports does not reject advertising & free "review" products from manufacturers for nothing.

It is no mystery to me, a person experienced and well versed in Gates-Microsoft dirty tricks. Gates recently tried to buy off Torvald-- a standard Gates monopoly tactic-- owner of Linux core code rights. Microsoft is not about to allow Firefox, or any other browser superior to IE, to seize control of a serious chunk of the browser market. Opera is a commercial browser clearly superior to IE that has been around for several years. The only reason Microsoft has not unleashed illegal means to smash Opera out of existence, as it did Netscape, is that Opera has never threatened to gain even 1 percent of the browser market.

Each program included free with Windows has a story behind it, usually a story of illegal acquisition from the original authors and employment in smashing competitors. The trend is to use a program to smash a rising competitor and once competition is killed ignore further development of the program. This is where goofy free Windows programs like Copy Con came from. (You can bet the recent release of the limp Windows security programs is part of an attempt to crush some honest quality competitor.) This is the story behind IE. A large chunk of the Windows desktop is based on stolen technology, stolen from Apple. Gates acquired 25% ownership of Apple to end an Apple patent and copyright suite when Apple stock was very low. Apple was facing bankrupcy. It was so down that it welcomed back the hated Apple founder Steven Jobs and accepted a deal from Gates to infuse the firm with desperately needed 200 million dollars cash
in return for dropping the copyright infringement suite against Microsoft and for 25% of then low priced and falling Apple stock.

The fact that Gates owns 25% of Apple told me that Apple's shift to Intel processors would be done in a way that would frustrate porting MAC O/S to Intel PCs. Gates will not tolerate the existence of an O/S superrior to
Windows that can be installed on Intel processor PCs. This would be like allowing fully user friendly Linux O/S distros to march across the Intel PC terrain. No way. If Apple left it legal and open to install Mac O/S on Intel (and thus AMD) systems, MAC O/S installs would spread like wildfire, which would result in super rapid spread of MAC O/S use, which would in turn launch a fire storm of porting Linux Open Source programs that run on MAC O/S and commercial program developers would come out with versions that run on MAC O/S. Within a year, few people would be insterested in a goofy Windows O/S machine.

This Microsoft nightmare of real competition is not what Gates writes an annual 240 million dollar check ("donation") to the Democratic National Party and The Republican National Party for (only in America can you do legal bribes and deduct them from your taxes as non-profit organization donations.)

No, the Wintel computer cartel is not going to tolerate real competition any time soon. Gates allows little Apple Computer company to exist for one reason: He needs a innovative, quality computer company to generate good ideas & products for Microsoft to steal and half-[censored] reproduce.

The methods Apple will employ to prevent porting MAC O/S on non-Apple Intel Systems has Microsoft written all over them. One genius Microsoft has shown consistently is genius for generating methods for preventing users from modifying Windows or using the latest version of Windows on their other systems. Ever notice how long it takes for any non-microsoft browser to load in Windows? Not even the U.S. Justice department and 100 million dollars of U.S. tax dollars could put an end to that!

Of COURSE, THIS ALL MERELY MY HUMBLE OPINION

[donking!]

I wonder also if something could be done about long url links, like in Google forums, which is mentioned in a post above. It is really frustrating to scroll horizontally to read posts.

I know it's easy to post a url properly. I always do it. But in practice we Firefox users can all see that it's not what most people do. I don't think the problem will ever be solved on the user side.

Yes, hopefully, a fix for Firefox will be made. But since, in my experience, the long url problem doesn't happen in other forums, it seems like the simplest fix might be on the forum side of things.

Perhaps there's some reason this can't be done here. I don't know. I'm sure it has been discussed. Just hoping.