Call me dense, but I'm having difficulty uploading a story.
I've got an .html file that contains my story. It has <p>, <br> and <i> tags and that's all. Well, maybe there's <html> at the start and </html> at the end.
I've used this same file to upload to tgfiction.net and it works OK. If I drag and drop the file into a Firefox window, it displays perfectly fine.
If I try and upload it here, what happens is that every <p>, <br> tag, plus every line feed in the source file gets turned into a paragraph break. This means that I end up with paragraphs with short lines with huge amounts of empty space between them. Elsewhere, linefeeds in my source files get discarded, and I naturally assumed that would happen with Topshelf.
I write using OpenOffice.org on Mandriva Linux. I normally write in Rich Text, and then when I'm happy export it to HTML and then load it with a text editor and clear out the junk that OO.o puts in before uploading. I'm assuming that the text editor is putting the linefeeds in, although I don't see why this should be a problem as they get tossed by Firefox and tgfiction.net.
Anybody got a clue what's happening, and how to deal with it?
Posting stories in HTML
I had this feature turned off for people without author accounts some reason. I turned it on. Below the box for the Body, you should see a link that says |Input format|. Click that and you can choose one of three input types. The one you want is |Filtered HTML w/o Line Breaks|. This will still attempt to sanitize the HTML but won't run the line break converter.
It's possible to severely screw up the appearance of the front page by writing your own HTML so be careful. I or one of my editors will save the day if you do mess up though. :)
Once you've posted a story, you will be upgraded to an author account which has some other nice stuff. Welcome to BigCloset!
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
That fixed it, thanks
I won't say I thought I was going crazy, because I already know I am. Crazier, now that's another thing. Thanks for your help. I guess it's easy when you know how...
The only HTML formatting I ever use is <i>. Since I have no notion how my text is going to be displayed, I try not to force random restrictions on my readers.
Author privileges
Now that you've been upgraded to author, you can also, if you like, upload your story in RTF or PDF file format using the |Insert image or link| doohickey under the Body box. If you have some particular formatting thing you want to do, like Donna has on her Enchanted Girlfriend story, I can include some custom CSS for you to call on, if you can write CSS.
BC is all about empowering authors to present their stories the way they want to present them. There's also StarDust, TGLibrary and Fictioneer associated sites that offer more formatting and presentation options. And Tor der Traume if you write in German. :)
The only thing I really insist on controlling is how the teaser box looks on the front page. :) As much as possible and safe, I leave everything else up to the authors.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.