Questions About the new Software

[fronobulax]

On my home page, I now see a "New posts" button (with a lightning bolt through it)

Not new. That's the same as the What's New menu option that is currently under the "headstock".

And is there any difference between that button and the "Unread posts" button that I have always used?

Yes. What's New uses dates and will show you "recent" posts that you have already viewed. "Unread" shows you posts that you have not read. I seem to recall @GAD did some customization perhaps in naming Unread?.

Experimenting on another site I frequent using a different version of the software, I think "What's New" sorts posts by Date and then displays them in reverse chronological order. Unread takes the same list as What's New but only displays the posts that are Unread.

On the other board the option that is "Unread" here is "New Posts" there and I seem to remember some confusion which is why the name changed.

 

[chazmo]

Thanks, fro. Somehow I didn't notice it before.

 

[fronobulax]

I made a post in the acoustics topic about the Westerly serial number. A few hours ago, I sent a comment with pictures, but when I checked in again just now, it was all text. When I pressed "post reply" after quoting my post, my pictures appeared in it. Strangely, when I was looking for my original post, it appeared approximately halfway down the thread when it ought to have been at the bottom, where it is now.

There is no evidence that you successfully posted anything so you did not do what you thought you did and what you saw may be your browser's doing.

 

[walrus]

@GAD, it seems you have had to "unfurl" my eBay links a few times lately. Is it something I'm doing incorrectly?

I simply use the "Insert Link" icon above, and copy/paste the link into it.

walrus

 

[GAD]

@GAD, it seems you have had to "unfurl" my eBay links a few times lately. Is it something I'm doing incorrectly?

I simply use the "Insert Link" icon above, and copy/paste the link into it.

walrus

Nope. Totally not your fault. Well… maybe a little bit but I’ll blame the system for making it not obvious.

Two things to know:

1) Modern websites embed piles of junk into their URLs so they can track stuff. I usually remove all that junk. You don’t need to worry about that at all because removing that stuff is just me being neurotic.

2) Using “Insert URL” will prevent the system from unfurling. Why? Because it’s designed for making a link in a sentence like this one to my blog.

The system won’t unfurl that because doing so would break the flow of the text.

If you want a link to unfurl, just paste it into the post without using the Insert URL tool. Also make sure you put the url on its own line. Here’s the same link to my site but I just pasted it as a nee paragraph:

Guild S65D | GAD's Ramblings

Today’s guitar is a relatively uncommon Guild S65D that I sought after for years. While only seen rarely, sometimes with a ridiculous price and almost always with a fair bit of hyperbole, these guitars are beloved by those who own them and misunderstood by those who don’t (and some who do). I’ve...

www.gad.net

The system sees that as a standalone URL and then unfurls it.

This is one of those cases where the system is trying to make things easier which it does if you follow its rules that aren’t really obvious at all. I’d even argue that in this case they are unintuitive since there’s a URL tool right there just begging to be used.

The good news is that though it’s wordy to explain, it should make posting simpler.

 

[GAD]

Here’s an example of the tracking stuff I’m talking about.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/115795558746?hash=item1af5f4015a:g:0AQAAOSwGcdkVSCp&amdata=enc:AQAIAAAAwFghdv07r3DrhMb08iPlPbwCieCJS5YZl73LPZomHeHljQA0BtlXMrV/6sRAjCp01afcg+KfXJKKWpbjh3ExrNnIbt98431LTGuLGRz6JK9HnxXU9ommjECcUz0+RYmstJ34Xb72IoiV/RX3HuyzGTbDrmrgl2KKM5n/Rj6KUwsB/eJFURECE/EJhWYlXJPMh1YwTdVFwAp31AcY243edvkNAK2hE7yG14D8Ngr2gU5p6QHkg18cUHO5brm0N38oVQ==|tkp:Bk9SR-yCs8_9YQ

Hmm - the system may "pretty" it up if it considers it to be too long. Here's a screenshot if it doesn't look bad:



That huge ugly link is what most people copy. The system would unfurl it and no one would care (I used the Insert URL tool to show the entire thing).

Here’s the rub: 90% of that URL does nothing for me, you, or the server. It was added by Ebay for tracking and other possibly nefarious things. Here is the same link with only what matters:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/115795558746

Try them both and you’ll see that they end up on the same page.

 

[davismanLV]

So does the junk always start with a ? or is that just in this case?

 

[GAD]

So does the junk always start with a ? or is that just in this case?

Yes! Good observation! ? is a special character in URLs that signify the beginning of additional information to be passed to the server. You can actually see what the data is in older sites where a URL might look like this:

hxxp://mysite.com/search.php?searchterm='davismanLV'

& is also a special character when there are more than one variable being passed:

hxxp://mysite.com/search.php?user='davismanLV'&searchterm='Blue Guitars'

Modern sites almost always obfuscate this because it can be (and has been) used by bad actors to launch an attack. Unfortunately the way they obfuscate often makes the resulting URL long and awful but since we don't often see raw URLs anymore no one really cares.

 

[GuildFS4612CE]

Thank you GAD for your wonderfully clear explanations of all the tech stuff...You must be a REALLY good teacher.

 

[GAD]

Thank you GAD for your wonderfully clear explanations of all the tech stuff...You must be a REALLY good teacher.

Thanks!

 

[JohnW63]

And I fight a losing battle with people using URL shorteners at work. The funny ones are when the short URL is not any shorter than the real one. Or the ones that want to bounce the link through a tracker web site first before going where you thought you were going.

 

[GAD]

And I fight a losing battle with people using URL shorteners at work. The funny ones are when the short URL is not any shorter than the real one. Or the ones that want to bounce the link through a tracker web site first before going where you thought you were going.

Yup. I actually wrote my own URL shortener for my private family photo website just to avoid all that nonsense.

 

[walrus]

Thanks, GAD! I just posted an eBay link without using the "Insert Link" button and it looks as it should.

walrus

 

[chazmo]

So, @GAD , this made me laugh... Do we really have an online assistant? Are you using AI for LetsTalkGuild? Are some of our users really chatbots?

 

[davismanLV]

Yeah, I've been seeing her a lot lately. I wondered who she worked for. I thought maybe a porn site?? Not sure....

 

[GGJaguar]

Do we really have an online assistant?

Someone who looks like Lynda Carter?

 

[GAD]

Someone who looks like Lynda Carter?

As an expert in all things Lynda Carter, not even close.

 

[GAD]

What a weird ad. Just “an expert”. No specifics makes me wonder if they’re charging for a talk with chatgpt.

 

[chazmo]

Ah, so that was a Google advertisement? Got it!!! Yes, very weird. Thanks, GAD!

 

[fronobulax]

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