The Trials and Triumphs of the Archiving Process

Some triumphs...

• finally getting around to using John's great 'Markup Template' whose virtues were extolled by Lady Arabella. What a time-saver!
• appreciating just how far the FIND/REPLACE option on Word can get you whilst reformatting... it's like MAGIC!
• remembering to use Elanor's tip about saving the URL addresses of each post while reposting; makes creating an index of posts later that much easier!
• when a FIND/REPLACE yielded 20 or more changes of the same poster's name... that took care of a lot of a doc, and then the same thing happened with another poster, and another...

Some trials...

• forgetting to change the e in TomoÈ's name to Tomoé in so many threads I've reposted ; will remember to do that in future threads I reformat/repost
• seeing so many common HP words spelled incorrectly like: Voldemort, Dumbledore, Hermione, McGonagall, Gryffindor; and other words, too, like: because, definitely, occurred... and so many more
• when you wonder that some posters didn't realize that there are supposed to be spaces AFTER full stops/periods and commas. Really?
• when a batch of 50 posts doesn't fit into one post, and then have delete some, and try again, and again *sigh*

Some random thought/observations...

• I'm just amazed by the breadth of the names that members chose for themselves; I am amazed each day by the discovery of a new one
• I'm amazed by the variety of the scholarly and well-reasoned posts, across so many threads

Okay, that's enough for now... I know I'll think of more later!

Edit: Re: Changing TomoÈ's name to Tomoé ... going to keep it as is, as the accent is going in the other direction, and I don't know the code for doing that!

PAH, I think you said it all!

Some triumphs for me are . . . .

• the amount of code I've learned (and actually gotten to work!) although I have a long way to go (but look - I can make a list! {I sound like Lockhart after he learns joined-up writing }).
  
• deciphering the original instructions for archiving - the first few read-throughs of MAMS' instructions were like reading Greek, but eventually they made sense.
  
• participating in this great adventure with a wonderful team of fellow archivists! I am a late-comer to the Forum, or at least, late as an active participant instead of lurker, but archiving the old threads made me feel as if I was there all along.
  

Some of the trials . . .

• finding the time to actually do this
  
• (echoing PAH), some of the spelling and punctuation, or lack thereof, in the posts, particularly spelling of the main characters' names. And I, too, was amazed at how many posters neglect the spacebar after a comma or period.
  
• trying to figure out which are the quotes in a post, since archiving to Notepad removed all original formatting. And yet, without restoring the formatting, the posts don't make much sense
  

And like PAH, I am constantly amazed by the depth and knowledge expressed in the posts. Such well-thought-out and well-reasoned theories and responses. What a privilege to be able to save these posts/threads for posterity!

Isn't Summer the season of taking time off and following relaxing pursuits?

Clearly my wife and family define "relaxing pursuits" differently than do I.

My summer check list:

Get starter motor on car fixed.
Paint girls bedroom.
Paint boys bedroom.
Ο Paint living room.
Ο Paint hallway.
Ο Put new flooring in living room.
   . (jumping down their list)
   .
Ο (Children) Watching Anime..
Ο (Children) Watching Psych episodes...
Ο (Children) Playing Wii or PS3 games...
   .
   .
Ο (Dad) Getting to use the home computer...
   .
   .
Ο (Dad) Getting to post archives threads using the home computer...

I guess my biggest trial is finding time to post archived threads...

Finding multiple blank lines in archive threads I've posted... (How did I not notice those big blank spaces!)

Formulas... (in the Excel Thread Markup Template) some are a bit dodgy like first year potions...

Finding an archive that is missing post numbers in the middle!

Creating a formula to help spot non-sequential post numbers...

Correcting a "post header format formula" that misidentified a posters reference to a previous post as the header of a new/different post...

Finding my last place in an active discussion thread. Those handy read page links to newest post always send me well beyond where I was last reading in any given thread here.

... Effectively using the time I do find to visit this forum.

Does anyone know a spell or wand technique to help me with the previous two lines/issues?

---

---

P.S. Ascii character code table [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
e acute      é      é
e grave      è      è

And Math symbols [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. (including a check mark!)
Ellipsis      …      …
Bullet      •      •
Check           ✔
Sq. Root      √      √
Pilcrow      ¶      ¶ (^p in Word )
Carrage return    ↵      ↵ (^l in Word )

And how did I get the Ampersand codes to appear without using *?
Ampersand      &      &amp; (so when you see the & symbol <word or #number> or text I have actually typed &amp;<word or #number> )
Wee!

Am I pathetic or what? LOL

EEK!!!

I'm sorry John, I don't know what happened! I pressed the QUOTE button so I could use part of your comment in my post, and then when I pressed send, your post was gone, and my words were there instead. 1,000 apologies!
*** will iron my hands now ***
(Added: usually, when I use the QUOTE option, a new post opens up with the contents of the post I'm quoting from in the new post, and there's no problem. I really don't know what happened this time.)

---

---

*** strengthening charms to John *** (and a time turner would be great, wouldn't it?)

John Bumbledore wrote:Ah, If I may offer. I had thought Tomè used a lower case e grave. (Code with &egrave;)

Yes, I realized that after I had posted a whole slew of threads, but that's how Tomoè's name appeared in my Word docs (TomoÈ) after I copied and pasted the threads that LA sent me from Notepad. (docs with .txt at the end). I tried to fix the problem with a é, but then realized that the accent mark was going the wrong way, so just left things as they copied from Notepad. Wasn't inclined at all to do all the threads over again for that reason. Sorry Tomoè, but I'm sure you're a forgiving sort of person. Good to see your emoticon again, John. EDIT: Which is now gone, thanks to me,

EDIT: I made a major blunder while trying to post after John, and erased his really great post with cool code. Sorry about that! (Will just hide into the woodwork now...)

• when you wonder that some posters didn't realize that there are supposed to be spaces AFTER full stops/periods and commas. Really? ~ PAH

And I, too, was amazed at how many posters neglect the spacebar after a comma or period. ~ LA

PAH and LA, did you happen to come across some of my earliest posts? Oh well, I learned fast enough, and now I even know how to do tables and things. I've come a long way, LOL

3) Edit undo (Windows shortcut Ctrl+Z) is your friend, but it is fickle and may not be able to help you. ~ John

Once I replaced all - Sep with [/b*] - Aug for an entire thread (this was before I started using your wonderful template, John), and I wasted a lot of time correcting the mistake. When I told Son about it later, he said, why didn't you use Ctrl+Z? Well, now I know!

I too have e-mailed my original documents to myself. You never know when you might want to check something.

I posted this in the 'Efforts to Archive' thread, but thought it fit here, too.

Hi John,

I liked your idea for separating posts with a colored line that you described [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], but found that, depending on which of the browsers I used on my MacBook (Firefox v 6.0.2 or Safari v 5.0.5) the lines would either appear black or the intended color, on one and the other, but not as the intended color on both browsers. To be more clear, the intended color appeared as black in Firefox, but as the intended color in Safari. So because of that discrepancy, I opted to stick to the double [*hr] lines as my separators, which would appear the same way no matter which browser I used.

Here's your coding from a recent reposting, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (truncated for space)

Spoiler:

But I really liked the idea of a colored separator line. In my case, I wanted to use a shade of turquoise/teal that matched the shade of turquoise/teal that appears at the top of the forum pages:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

So then, I remembered the coding I used to make some of the Potty Games Archives 'icons' (a 1 row, 1 col. table) involved setting the table's border color, so had a look at the coding (in the spoiler boxes) more closely.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Spoiler:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Spoiler:

BTW, I learned how to do this coding from Lady Arabella's attempts, starting [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Thanks so much, LA!

---

---

This is where/how I got the idea to tweak the first line of your coding,
from this: [table Rules=Rows Style="Border-Color:#C68E17;"]
to this: [table rules=rows table border=0 bordercolor=#5F9EA0][td][tr]

You can see an example of this coding in action here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. I don't have a definite or technical idea why it works, and can't explain why the first line appears darker/thicker than all the others, but the turquoise/teal shows up as its true color in both browsers I use, and that's what I wanted.

On Firefox:

Spoiler:

On Safari:

Spoiler:

Just thought I'd pass it on, in case you, or anyone else, found it helpful. I know it made me, a very non-techie person, feel very accomplished. I would not have been able to figure out, on my own, without the original coding that you thought of, and could only arrive at the revision based on your original. Thanks very much, John!

Now, on to more reposting!

EDIT: Mona says it works on Explorer, too!