Some new work we're doing will remove HTML tags from major fields, including:

Title
Author names
Dates
Author roles
Tags
ISBNs
Common Knowledge fields

We are also removing spaces at the front and back (which HTML doesn't display anyway) as well as returns, tabs, double spaces.

Many other fields, including comments, reviews, private comments, etc. still allow these things. If anyone has any objections here, speak your mind.

I use italics a lot in disambiguation fields book titles. I'd hate to lose those.

Common Knowledge fields (e.g. epigraph and quotations fields) need at least html tag < br >.

Mmmm... Good point about CK.

Okay, consider CK exempt. Tag attributes will be removed, though. So you can bold, but you can't add onclicks, etc.

There are a small number of people who've added breaks or paragraphs to titles. I'm sorry for them, but titles should be strings, not complex HTML blobs.

Tim, if you did some sanitizing of work and author disambiguation notices, could you start displaying them on the confirm combination pages?

Thank you for exempting Common Knowledge. I agree that italicising titles is common, I've done that sometimes. Also use line breaks
in other cases otherwise it doesn't look right.

Last night I was trying to add a line to some CK, and finally took it out because without a line break it didn't read right.

What CK was forbidding it?

Disambiguation.

I didn't really understand it, because there were already two paragraphs. I wanted a new one, but my sentence tagged on the back of the second one.

Sorry, It's there OK now. Final sentence on http://www.librarything.com/author/ander...

But I know that at first it didn't take the line break.

Something funny was going on, though, because sometime in there LT timed out on me, ...

Message edited by its author, Nov 21, 2008, 4:23am.

CK formatting (bold, italic, p, br) was the only place I wanted to keep it, and that's already been exempted.

Is this only in CK?

I ask because there are books that mention titles of other books (or in some cases, magazines) in their own titles. These bits ought to be italicized, if only for clarity's sake, but that can't happen if you disallow HTML in book titles.

13> Titles' internal references to other titles can be italicized or underlined in the Summary field, which most LTer's underutilize.

Yeah, I see that occasionally a member will add formatting, either italics or underlines, in book titles. I'm concerned about keeping this, as it may end up screwing things up elsewhere. For example, a book that has italics in it may end up truncated, with only the opening tag showing. And certainly other bibliographic formats—Amazon, MARC, etc.—do not allow it. But.... well, if it were only in titles, and only italics, maybe I could be okay with it.

I know that I've added links to CK disambiguations before, and I'm fairly certain that other users have as well. They can be quite useful there. Is there a reason you no longer want to allow those?

No, I reversed myself on CK. All's fair on CK now—although we may strip some attributes you won't use.

Gotcha! Thanks for clarifying.

What does 'Author roles' mean anyway, and where is that? This doesn't include the Comments field does it? Or Summary? I use italics there sometimes, and I've seen others put links and bold etc. in Comments.

What about series descriptions? I find it frustrating that you can't add a plain text return to separate paragraphs, and removing HTML just compounds that.

Author roles. Add a book and you'll see it—authors, illustrators, etc.

Series descriptions are also CK.

Oh that, didn't think you could affect author role font style anyway...

Just wondering, I added a heap of Member Descriptions yesterday, how long does it take before the number is shown after adding it?

Descriptions (0)

Does that include member descriptions? I think it's just from Amazon.

Both show up on the description page. It doesn't seem right to only count the Amazon ones.

Message edited by its author, Nov 22, 2008, 6:46pm.

Will look at. Thanks.

Yeah I agree, it makes more sense to include both amazon and member descriptions in the number. Thanks!

It would make even more sense to include all, but star those that have a member descriiption. There aren't a lot of them, and I would rather read a LT member's descrption than Amazon's.

Message edited by its author, Nov 22, 2008, 7:01pm.

Note, some member descriptions are just blurbs found when nothing else was available. I assume that is acceptable.

Exactly what html tags have been disallowed in CK? When I use {p} or more than one {br} in a row, they disappear as soon as I reload.

Edited because the tags were mucking up my post. Duh.

Message edited by its author, Nov 24, 2008, 6:35pm.

29: Do you mean blurbs copied and pasted from elsewhere on the net (or in print, for that matter)? I'm not sure that is within the TOC - possible infringement of copyright. Fair use might permit some quoting with attribution. I believe this has been discussed in Talk before, with respect to CK descriptions, but I can't remember the outcome, or exactly what is permitted/not permitted. Anyone?

Edited to add: I dug around a bit and found these previous discussions: http://www.librarything.com/topic/40060
http://www.librarything.com/topic/33825
http://www.librarything.com/topic/21649
After reading those, I'm still not sure what's appropriate and what's not. One post suggests that cover blurbs are licensed in a particular way that allows reproduction, but I have no idea whether that's correct or how it works. Generally I'd avoid copying and pasting anything, or would only do it for short quotes within a longer and original description, and definitely wouldn't do it without proper attribution to the source. Does anyone know if the rules & copyright law are more flexible here?

Message edited by its author, Nov 24, 2008, 7:59pm.

It is just card catalog blurbs found in any library catalogue, on amazon, alibris, abe, etc.

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Why, um, thanks.

No objections at all now you've exempted CK. Thanks.

May not be that relevant, but what about when HTML has been used for accents etc. in titles and fields?

No, that's fine. They are entities or UTF8, not tags.

Tim, is there a listing anywhere of which HTML tags are allowed (and where), and what tags get automatically removed? I was just trying to do something in my profile, and was getting really annoyed when none of my methods worked (I finally had to resort to styling the italic tag).

What didn't work on your profile?

>40

FONT
PRE
CODE
KBD
TT

I realize most of those are pretty uncommon tags, but they were appropriate to what I was trying to do. I didn't try SPAN yesterday, but I'm assuming it doesn't work either. I'm pretty sure I've tried DIV in the past and it gets stripped out too.

However, I was happy to discover that BLOCKQUOTE works. I used it to highlight a couple of "messages to readers" I had added at the end of my profile.

This is tangentially related, but has more html been stripped from Talk too? My bookmeters in 50 Book Challenge have vanished. Mostly. (It's here. It should be a long rectangle of color above the numbers/percentages and instead there is blank space, although the link is still active, so there's something there.)

I know this is relating to profile but didn't know where else to ask: Can't you put simple line break or paragraph break HTML onto the Profile? It is annoying not being able to do that.

44> I just tried on my profile (using the "about me" box) to use "br" and "p" tags and both worked fine and dandy, the only problem I noted was that they're stripped out when you go back to edit the profile later.

When I entered them, they did not work when I saved, and were not there when I went back to the edit page.

46> In any of the boxes (fields) in particular?

Message edited by its author, Jan 1, 2009, 4:06am.

(Was only trying in About Me field) -- I assume the other fields would be the same?

Ok, I was trying in the same field - just clarifying. Never assume when it comes to software development, it's easy to apply something in one place and not in others, by accident. :)

I store my 'About my library' text in an MS Word document. The carriage return/line feeds that I use seem to be copied across fine when I cut and paste into the field.

I find if I enter {br}hardspace{br}, the line breaks stick.

Earlier today I tried strike in My Library; it didn't work, and it got wiped out.

Robert

rdurick, I also found strike wipes out in Profile yesterday when I was editing About My Library. Still seems to work in Talk though ....

>52, 53

You didn't read my profile page, then?

51 - not sure what you mean?

Read Noisy's profile. There's good stuff in there.

Noisy, pls change your user name to "Helpful" :-)

Can you be more specific? Too much infomation there.

54> I have a link to your profile page on my profile page. I had probably read about strike some time back and forgotten, although the notion that some things worked some places and not others had stuck with me.

I thank you for all of the information that you have presented there. It actually got me started in using HTML markers.

Robert