Magic Tricks For Writer's Cafe

Writer's Cafe is an amazing site, but with a bit of work, you can add even more tricks and goodies to your writing and comments.

Magic Tricks For Writer's Cafe Hello there ! As you know (or should) I've been in Writer's Cafe now for about a week or so and there's a few things I've found through experimentation that should help ya quite a bit. This will be an ongoing post that will be updated by LESSON and edited by DATE so check in often to see what new additions are added. So I won't be covering everything entirely in this one LESSON so there will be others to follow. Keep an eye out for them. LESSON ONE - Jun 11/2013 First off, when you are editing a message you may have noticed that what you are typing is not the exact same margins as what will appear in your final post. To correct this, what you want to do is look in the bottom-right-hand corner of your post area. Grab that corner there and DRAG it across to the RIGHT until the vertical scroll-bar almost vanishes. Then release. You now have the actual display margins for how your final post will appear and this should make it easier to know exactly how your writings will appear. OK, let's go over some things you cannot do. You cannot include any images, LINKS, or even change font size or bold in a comment to someone's post. Would be super neat, but they don't allow it. However, you CAN include any HTML (including images and links) if you are commenting on someone's profile, if you are WRITING your own profile, if you are writing a new post of your own, or even the shout-box (with restrictions). There are some unusual things you need to remember. When writing a post, you can type direct HTML but must edit it TWICE in order to have it saved correctly. That is, if you are editing or creating a new post and you type raw HTML in there, you need to SAVE, then Re-EDIT and SAVE AGAIN. If you do not and try to view it after the first edit, you will only see the raw HTML you typed and it will not be coded correctly. Apparently Writer's Cafe only 'injects' the HTML just before you start to edit a post so you will ALWAYS need to edit it twice and save it twice to lock it in (took me a-while to learn this). A few other things, while you can add whatever HTML you want, if you are using EMBED, or FLASH, or OBJECT, it will often appear perfectly INVISIBLE with no way of knowing if it even was recorded. This makes it quite difficult to keep track of. What you want to do is download Firefox's own Seamonkey Webpage maker (it's totally free), [LINK] and when you edit a post that you can't see your controls in, press CTRL-A and CTRL-C to copy it to the clipboard FROM Writer's Cafe and then in the Seamonkey Webpage, press CTRL-V to paste it. From there you can edit raw HTML. Now - a few things you should know. Unfortunately you can't just pick up any document from raw HTML and paste directly into Writer's Cafe. They have an unusual item that if there is a carriage-return in your document, it is visually displayed in Writer's Cafe, disrupting whatever complex HTML coding you are putting together most of the time. While you won't need to worry about this for simple things like creating tables, links, images, and fonts, for more advanced things such as direct flash coding, or object references, yes - it can be a problem and they ARE NOT transferred from Seamonkey back again. In fact, the only way you can do it is to copy the VIEW page of Seamonkey and then manually (like with Notepad) directly paste back the advanced code into Writer's Cafe editor. I had to do this, for instance to insert my streaming music player and streaming video. A pain I know but as you can see the results are well worth it ! OK, that's the tricky stuff. Now here are a few easier HTML tricks. If you type: <hr> anywhere, it creates a full horizontal line all the way across the screen, good for separating your writing. Remember ! It will not appear until you SAVE and then re-edit. All HTML entered is treated this way. Now while you have the option of using the default LINK icon to add links to your writing, you may have noticed that it links to the same page. Suppose you want the link to open a fresh tab first so the viewer can press Ctrl-W and get right back to your page just before they went there ? You'll have to use HTML for this. For instance, let's say you want to link to Google and you want the button to appear as [GOOGLE] in bold and it opens a new tab before it appears. Here is how you do it in HTML. Type this out: <a href="http://www.google.com" target="_blank"><b>[GOOGLE]</b></a> I know that might seem like a lot but the more you get used to typing HTML directly into your message, the better you will get at it. And with this, you have the advantage of not having your own page overwritten by a clicked link and a new tab is created instead. Now here are some interesting limitations Writer's Cafe has placed on uploaded images. If they are animated .GIFs, they do not animate. Some large .PNGs do not have transparent background but appear as the default lowest color in the index. Any .JPG exceeding 500 pixels across is shrunk to 500 pixels (causing blurring). If you want to get around these limitations you'll have to use a different image server other than Writer's Cafe like Google Sites. This is is what I use. That's all for now and this concludes lesson one. In the next lesson we'll learn about some curious undocumented 'features' in the editor itself (read: errors), how to get any color you want (without using their limited selection), how to vertically center images so they appear at the same level as your text, and learn how to upload an optimal non-blurry icon for your writings. Return home HERE.

Author's Note

Any questions at this point, class ?

Reviews

[captain]

I'll be shelving this to my favorites for reference in the future when I have time to re-construct my profile, thanks for sharing!

[dw817]

Oh, glad you like it Captain ! There are certainly a lot of tips and tricks in here. :)

[Renée]

Very Informative ! Thank you !

[dw817]

You're welcome ! I will write a new post tomorrow (Tuesday) and cover additional material including how to back up your posts in here (including comments) with just a few easy keystrokes. Hope to see you there ! :)

[Renée]

I look forward to it ! ( :

[The dark story]

thanks teacher. that was very beneficial!

[dw817]

Glad you like it ! Class will attend regularly on Tuesdays. Students, dismissed ! :)

[MandaBear]

This is very cool. I cant wait to learn more !

[dw817]

Awright ! An enthusiastic student. I need to work out a weekly schedule for stuff. Thursday will definitely be the day I go to visit everyone and comment on their top posts - oh yah - and get my socks and undies all washed up in the laundry too, I do that Thursdays. :)

[MandaBear]

Lol I need to do my laundry! I am running out of socks and undies lol (not that you needed to know that lol) I am very excited about this!

[dw817]

Naaow I have enough laundry already ! *Grin* Lemme think, Monday I can post my Wit & Wisdom - I did that in Xanga and it was always enjoyed. Okay, Tuesday can be Writer's Cafe Class for Tips & Tricks - more neat stuff to learn to others !

[MandaBear]

Sounds like a plan! lol =P

[dw817]

Yep ! (Hope I can remember all that) !

[MandaBear]

I was wondering do you know how to put pictures on your profile I forgot how to I used to know but it slipped my mind. Do you have any suggestions? Or was it in this and I just missed it?

[dw817]

Oh that didn't work. Gimme a sec.

[dw817]

Actually that's not in there and that's a good question ! The coolio thing is I can answer all of your HTML in here and have it NOT work right (which is excellent for tuturials), so here we goes !

What you can do is either use a separate picture server (like Google Sites) or if you want to have a picture from Writer's Cafe appear on your profile, it's a bit of work.

You create a new post that no-one can see and upload a picture right smack-dabbers in there. Then click on it, then click on the image icon and NOTICE that it highlights the URL address to the image. CTRL-C copy that to the clipboard. Save your post (make sure it can't be seen by others) - then in your profile you paste raw HTML:

< img src="http://{{PRESS CTRL-V}}" >

Do not add spaces before the < and > . I am doing that here cause the comment removes them if I leave out spaces.

So you should have a HTTP in front and a .PNG or .JPG or something likes that on the end.

If you wanna cheat a little and not upload your own picture, and you're entitled to do it thissaways cause this was is tons easier, you can just do a Google Search for an image you like click on it, click click till the address at the top shows a .JPG or .PNG or stuff and the only thing you see on the screen is black with the image centered, then press ALT-D, CTRL-C, and you got the address ! You can also post that instead.

Here is an example image that you can copy to try out that contains words from your signature, "Midnight Queen."

< img src="https://img.youtube.com/vi/LGjCgu9Te3k/0.jpg" >

To copy an HTML line to clipboard that I will post in these comment replies, you can drag your mouse across the area, release so it's highlighted and press CTRL-C or triple-click it and it should highlight the whole bejangers at once and then press CTRL-C.

Hope This Helps !

[Lady Ra]

Wow. Thanks for this. I'm still in the caves when it comes to online stuff. I'm only just getting into it. The HTML info is still above my head, but I'm going to follow your posts and see if I can absorb some of your sage advice. ;-}

[dw817]

UBetcha ! At first I was thinking you couldn't do that cool HTML stuff in Writer's Cafe and I'd have to link to Open Diary or something - but now I'm messing with it, you can, but it's a little tricky. Hopefully the 2nd lesson won't be so complex as this one explaining how to lock HTML in which I know is a bit of work in here currently. :)