Help talk:Editing

It would be useful if the Help section addressed permissible formatting that will work in Sources and Notes text. For instance, users wanting to add a signature to a note are stymied unless they know the format. (I figured it out by saving a text box with a signature, then opening the page to edit and copying out the format.) But formatting that works on Watercooler pages, for instance--the multiple equal signs or colons to format heads or paragraphs--does not work inside Sources and Notes text, as I've discovered by trial-and-error.

By the way, if this is a bad location for this comment, please delete it and know I won't be offended. I'm just trying to figure out where we users should post comments/queries about information that isn't included (or that we can't find) in the Help sections.--KF-in-Georgia 17:01, 2 May 2007 (MDT)--sq 20:45, 2 May 2007 (MDT)

Thanks for your comment. You can put comments on any relevant discussion page. I am not sure there is any formatting available in the sources or notes fields. I'll find out and get back to you.--sq 20:45, 2 May 2007 (MDT)

{br /} works (angle brackets instead of curly ones, of course). So does {p}, {b}, {i}, etc. You can see my notes here. --KF-in-Georgia 21:03, 2 May 2007 (MDT)

Thank-you for taking the time to work this out! I expected some formatting wouldn't work, but I hadn't figured out which formatting would and which wouldn't. We'll add what you've found out to the help pages.--Dallan 09:41, 3 May 2007 (MDT)

I sorta cheated. ;o) I had MS Word files on my laptop that I've used to upload the info to my own family tree site. I already had bold/italics and break/paragraph commands in the files. I took the commands out of the first files I posted, then rethought that, put the commands back, and checked to see what happened. Then I just had to figure out how to get a signature in there. But I really wish we got an edit box like this one for notes and source text; the box we're provided is tiny, and it'd be nice to have a bigger box and have every text-entry box work the same way. (It'd streamline your help files, too, if every text box functioned the same way.)

I'd also love to have a command that indents the first line of a paragraph--without having to double-space or break/break or p-command. It's so annoying to have pages run way deeper than they need to and have notes appearing to run together because there are blank lines everywhere, instead of just between notes. (I'm a freelance proofreader/editor and former typesetter, so I get fussy about nit-picky details.)

Oh--and if you're wondering about my logic for putting info in Notes instead of Sources/MySources: If I'm only going to cite the info on that page, I put the text in a Note. If I plan to cite the info on multiple pages, I'll use a Source or MySource. And I'm still holding an internal debate on how I should handle census data...--KF-in-Georgia 14:41, 3 May 2007 (MDT)

I'll add making the boxes bigger and trying to get them to behave the same way as the main edit box does to the todo list. I'm not sure what you're talking about with respect to blank lines everywhere though. Could you give some examples?

On a related note, there is an issue with line-breaks. In many notes that are imported from GEDCOM files, line breaks (carriage returns) are significant so that things line up correctly. In wiki/html text, line breaks are not significant. I've been struggling trying to figure out how to accommodate both. I may end up with something along the lines of: if you have a line break (carriage return) in your note, the system will translate it to an html line-break when the note is displayed. Not sure how this would impact your thinking.--Dallan 21:50, 3 May 2007 (MDT)

If I put in a note that's 10 paragraphs, followed by a note that's 6 paragraphs, followed by a note that's 12, I've automatically got 28 blank lines in the notes--including the blank line between the notes. I'd love to have blank lines only between the notes, so that readers would instantly see the separation between notes. But I can't run my 10 paragraphs of Note 1 all together without some form of paragraph separation--like an indention at the beginning of each paragraph. I've never quite understood why HTML coding doesn't have an "indent first line" format code. (It would just be the opposite of the "list" code--with no bullets or numbers involved.) It wouldn't be so bad if I could fake the indented look with extra spaces, but the spaces don't transfer. I've sometimes used ______ or ¶ in files. For a page with lots of short paragraphs on the notes, see Person:Jacob Hoss (1).--KF-in-Georgia 19:46, 4 May 2007 (MDT)

     Ok, I understand what you're saying now. I'll put adding some kind of code for indenting the first line of a paragraph on my todo list. In the meantime, you can start the line with several non-breaking spaces (edit this page to see how I started this paragraph). That's at least better than nothing.--Dallan 22:07, 5 May 2007 (MDT)

How to delete [15 January 2013]

Could a cross-reference be added to the how-do-i-delete passage that links to a page explaining how nominate of pages for deletion by an admin? --Ceyockey 20:47, 5 October 2008 (EDT)

Ref button [24 March 2013]

Given this community's penchant for documenting information (which is GOOD!), a ref button would be useful (automatically adding <ref name=""></ref>). I always have to look up the appropriate way to add a reference, and it would be useful to just click a button.--Obstinatesnooper 13:53, 24 March 2013 (EDT)

Do you have information on the British Virgin Islands or only America [29 June 2015]

--Alice harewood 01:59, 29 June 2015 (UTC)