EpiXHTML Part 5: Everything you can’t leave behind
Mar 01 '06 (Updated Nov 15 '06)
The Bottom Line Loose Ends and Annotated Links
• EpiXHTML Part 1: the X quality
• EpiXHTML Part 2: the Bald Blonde and the Immigrated Italian
• EpiXHTML Part 3: Anchors Away!
• EpiXHTML Part 4: The Unusual Suspects
• EpiXHTML Part 5: Everything you can’t leave behind
You are done! You already know everything you need to know about EpiHTML. The thing to do now is to start using that knowledge. You have great EpiPower now, and with great power come great possibilities.
LOOSE ENDS
posting a real haiku
One such possibility is posting a real haiku, despite’s epinions.com 100-word limit, as demonstrated by the Hundred Word Haiku.
How to write a Hundred Word Haiku explains how it is done.
viewing blocked content
Viewing blocked content is not really about EpiHTML. It is about how the site works, about which links lead to what.
How to view blocked content is explained in Unfiltered Content: all of epinions.com, all of the time.
How to know your opinion’s URL without posting
When you create a hyperlinked table of contents, you would like to know the URL of your opinion before posting your opinion. After all, you want to finish the table before posting your opinion.
How to find out the URL before posting is trick number 2 of Six Serious & Silly Thrilling Tips & Tricks: How to know your opinion’s URL without posting it.
more edit tips
It helps to see what you are doing. I already told you that I use bold and italics to highlight where the bold and italics tags are as well as what their effect is. I also use bold to highlight character codes I use.
I use colour to highlight links. I use brown for cross-links, links to anchors within the opinion, purple for all other epilinks and orange to highlight the incidental inclusion of an off-site link.
I did not do this from the start, but started doing this as the growing size of the epidictionary made it harder to edit that text. It is relative easy to find an error in small text, but as it grows larger, every little bit helps.
the ultimate epinions.com editor
The ideal editing environment would be some kind of epiblogging tool. A WYSIWYG environment that generates the HTML you need, allows dragging & dropping of links, etcetera. There are many HTML editors and blogging tools out there, and I would not be surprised to learn that a few epinionators are using these. Perhaps one of these can even be configured to allow nothing but EpiHTML. If you know and use such a tool, be sure to let us all know.
HTML checker
Until epinions.com provides and supports a tool, many members are likely to continue to use Word, and continue to be frustrated over the limited error reporting they receive from epinions.com.
If all the tips in The EpiHTML Editing Guide seem far too much manual work, consider adding an HTML Validator to your bag of EpiTools; The folks behind CSE HTML Validator have a free version that is more than good enough. Google “HTML Validator” to find theirs and others.
ebay
If your main problem with EpiHTML is the small set of HTML features it offers, consider posting your opinion on ebay.com instead.
problems?
Just knowing EpiHTML is not enough to be successful using it. You will surely encounter a variety of problems when trying to get opinions with EpiHTML in them posted. Be sure to check out the The EpiHTML Editing Guide before giving up.
PROFILE PAGE HTML
profile page HTML
The one thing you should know about profile page HTML is that you are not restricted to EpiHTML, but can use everything HTML has to offer.
Brief advice to use XHTML, to avoid scripts and to use CSS.
profile page picture
Adding a profile page picture is simple.
The Profile Page Picture Plan provides step by step instructions. Tips you how to speed up your profile page and even tells you how to get one of these trendy large profile pictures.
more profile page stuff
I have no series on profile page HTML to offer, and encourage you to read what others have written about it. I have collected links to quite a few opinions about profile page HTML below.
profile page HTML topic
Locating essays about profile page HTL on epinions.com is a tricky business. There is no separate profile page or HTML topic, so some authors post these opinion in General Comments about Epinions.com . For example, jag2112 series listed below can be found there.
Essays about EpiHTML are generally found in Things to known about epinions.com, but essays about profile page are generally posted in Developing an epinions.com personality.
Learning HTML
Some essays on HTML in general are posted in Learning HTML, which is actually an essay topic in the books category.
For example, neomartin’s HTML series listed below is posted there.
The Book Community Advice does not only include Learning HTML, but also Learning to Cook, Developing Computer Skills, and Learning about Presidential Candidates in addition to a few more bookish topics such as Harry Potter's Place in History.
lap0530’s profile page series
lap0530 was one of epinions.com’s early computer Experts. He wrote several opinions on using HTML. Many early epinionators learned HTML from his tutorials. The texts linked to below are not these tutorials. The texts below are opinions he wrote in addition to his tutorials, which he had posted on his “Computer Teacher” home page.
That page is still in the Internet Archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20000824072320/www.crosswinds.net/~computerteacher/index.html
There you will find a ten-step general HTML tutorial. Alas, not all ten of these seem to be in the archive.
Despite their age, all of lap0530’s opinions about HTML use real tags. That was a rarity back then, most early EpiHTML tutorial claimed that showing real tags was impossible and desired you to “imagine” that one character was another or something like that - as if trying to learn HTML wasn’t confusing enough by itself.
My 2001 essay How to include mark-up codes in your review proved fairly successful in stamping out the idea that showing real HTML in opinions about HTML is impossible, but lap0530 did it right from the start.
ANNOTATED LINKS
The OWF Trilogy
• Objectionable Words Filter (OWF): Not Helpful
The epiclassic about the Objectionable Word Filter.
If you don’t get it, perhaps the next link will help:
• • real bullets • “true quotes” • ellipsis and… • actual sex symbols! •
Handy dandy overview of codes to use, and codes not to use.
One for the bookmark list, but easily found by googling for “MobiProf sex symbol”.
• How the Objectionable Words Filter works
Read this if you really want to know just why the OWF objects to several perfectly fine words.
missing tags
• How to create s̶t̶r̶i̶k̶e̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ and u̲n̲d̲e̲r̲l̲i̲n̲e̲d̲ text.
Internet Explorer has trouble understanding this, so it is best to use this sparingly.
character codes
• Ã disease
Even when epinions.com is messing many opinions up, knowledge of character codes lets you post your text correctly.
• How to include mark-up codes in your review
How to write about tags.
• Subscripts₍₁₎ & Superscripts⁽²⁾.
How to create subscript and superscripts.
Link Love
• epilinks
The standard reference on epilinks. Considerably more informative than epinions.com’s on-line help. Entirely focused on links, it does not discuss creating anchors, or relatively new techniques such as the ELLEE.
• even text with odd epilinks
• odd text with even epilinks
The duo of opinions that introduced and demonstrated the possibilities of anchors in opinions.
• External Live Links Enhanced Epinion
How to provide external links in your opinions.
• Spicy EpiLinking Techniques
A dozen epilinking techniques to spice up your opinions.
First Aid
• The EpiHTML Editing Guide
A quite exhaustive list of frequently encountered EpiHTML problems. providing detection, prevention and correction techniques.
Another opinion to bookmark. The opinion itself is a good example of hyperlinked table of contents.
• Four Reasons Why Your HTML was Rejected - and How to Fix It!
Another EpiHTML Editing guide, by scmrak.
Word Magic
• Using MS Word Macros To Add HTML Tags to Your Reviews
I briefly mentioned using an AutoText macro. In this text, scmrak tells you how to create such macro.
Prolific Profiles
• How to Modify the Size of your Epinions Profile Photo
The 2001 Oct 29 opinion in which soothsayer revealed his trick to size your profile page picture to your liking.
• The Profile Page Picture Plan
The title says it all. Includes discussion of soothsayer’s trick.
• A Simple Explanation of How to Modify Your Profile Page
Fonts, font sizes, font colours, line breaks, paragraphs and links explained by DrDad.
lap0530’s HTML opinions
• The Realities of Learning HTML
This 2000 May 1 essay is about HTML learning in general. It makes the case for actually learning HTML before choosing a tool that generates code for you.
• Basic Epinions Hyperlink Tutorial--Revised May 3, 2000
This 2000 Mar 2 text is not about epilinks in opinions, but about adding links to your profile page. Back then, epilinks did not exist yet.
• Hyperlinks Two--More Things to Do
Once you’ve created hyperlinks, you may want to spice them up with some colour. Discusses adding backgrounds to your profile as well.
• More HTML Secrets Revealed
This 2000 May 9 tutorial about EpiHTML basics uses real tags (a rarity back then, most early EpiHTML tutorial claimed showing real tags was impossible). Please note that suggestion to include special characters by typing them into Word dates from before the à disease…
• Menus for Member Pages
This 2000 Aug 25 opinion explains how to add a drop-down menu to your profile page. The example code relies on a bit of JavaScript.
The links in this opinion are not original. They were added by epinions.com’s Automatic Link Editing program. You should read this text as if these links are not links, but just plain text.
neomartin’s Solid HTML series
This series, posted in late 2001, is a general HTML series. It is not focused on profile pages. This is not an XHTML series and uses uppercase tags throughout, but that does not get in the way of understanding it.
• Solid HTML That's As Simple As It Gets
The basic structure of a web page; header and body.
• Solid HTML That's As Simple As It Gets: Bolding, Italicizing, and Hyperlinking
Bold, italics and links.
• Solid HTML That's As Simple As It Gets: Handling Images
The image tag, its attributes and borders.
• Solid HTML That's As Easy As It Gets: Unordered and Ordered Lists
How to make lists.
• Solid HTML That's As Easy As It Gets: Fonts, Sizes, and Colors
Fonts.
• Solid HTML That's As Solid As It Gets: Colors and Comments
Colour codes explained and how to include comments in HTML.
• Solid HTML That's As Simple As It Gets: TABLE Basics
Introduction to tables in HTML.
• Solid HTML That's As Solid As It Gets: Table Formatting
More about tables in HTML.
• Solid HTML That's As Easy As It Gets: Viewing Source Code
How to learn by studying existing web pages.
• Solid HTML That's As Simple As It Gets: Advanced Tables
Even more about tables. Nested tables.
• Solid HTML That's As Simple As It Gets: Forms
Web Forms.
• Solid HTML That's As Simple As It Gets: Frames
Frames explained. Frames are an old HTML feature that you should not be using anymore, but it remains good to know about it.
• Solid HTML That's As Solid As It Gets: Other HTML Tags
Many other tags that may be usefull.
jag2112’s profile page HTML series
• How important is your Epinions Profile Page?
Why you should care about your profile page. It is one of those early opinions that still complains that “Epinions won't allow me to use any HTML code in my opinion”. but part 2 and 3 do it right. It discusses drop-down menus, but that topic is revisited in part 3.
• How important is your Profile Page - An HTML Lesson - Part II
Discusses bold, italics, tables, links and tags.
• How Important Is Your Profile Page - Part III - A Lesson in HTML Coding
Discusses drop-down menus and choosing a background colour. Includes a list of mnemonic codes that are not supported by XHTML.
style sheets
• Styling and Profiling
A gentle introduction to style sheets by lap0530. Probably epinions.com’s earliest opinion on style sheets.
• How to Develop a CSS Profile Page
This text by martytdx is practical introduction to CSS style sheets.
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mobiprof
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Reviews written: 180
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