I wish all lj tags worked in previews

[nancylebov]

I just wasted some time on my pirate poll entry because the poll didn't show up in the preview so I kept fiddling with it until I checked the faq. Just like lj-cut, you just get unhtml-ish text when you preview a poll. *Some* tags, like lj-user and links, do work. Is there a list of what doesn't appear in previews?

Until recently, I've been reluctant to use cuts for spoilers because I felt I couldn't trust my proof-reading and couldn't check the cut in preview. Now that they've added the drop-down buttons at the top of the "post an entry" page, I can use lj-cuts serene in the knowledge that if they don't work, it's not my fault. I just wish they had blockquote as an option.

Comments

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

I had the same problem. Some other LJ friend, I forget who, said his solution was to add himself to his friends list, make the post private, "preview" by looking at the friends page, and when the post was right, set the permissions to public (or friends or custom...). Works for me.

I put in the blockquotes by hand, but I've been hand-editing my HTML for years and years.

[twistedchick]

It's not that difficult to write < blockquote > and </ blockquote > (without the extra spaces). Or to write (again without the spaces):
< lj-cut text="whatever you want the highlighted text to be">
and
</ lj-cut >

If the tags don't work in the previews, it means there's a space in the wrong place or a comma or a ' instead of a ". They do work in previews when they're coded right.

The confusion comes in dealing with lj users, because the lj user tag doesn't have the hyphen.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

It's not that hard to write the blockquote tags, but it's a lot easier to use the tag buttons and there's no chance of typos, so I'd like a button for one of my favorite tags.

I just did a little lj-cut test, using the lj cut button, so we can be sure it was coded correctly. The cut did NOT work as a cut in the preview. And it didn't work as a cut on "view entry" page. It DID work as a cut when the entry appears on my friends page.

[twistedchick]

If a button doesn't work in the preview, I'd consider it unreliable.

But then I've handcoded the Free Speech Zone and twistedchick entries most of the time since 2002. Using the preview is a good (though occasionally frustrating) way to fix code.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

More exactly, there are tags that don't work in preview. I was getting my tags from the buttons at the top of the text box page because that way I could be sure that I didn't have any typos.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

Thing is, lj-cut isn't supposed to work when you're just viewing that entry. So whenever I post something, I immediately go to my friends page to see what it looks like there. (Now if only tags showed up there.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Why shouldn't it work in previews? Or are you just addressing "view the entry"? Actually, I can't see what's gained by not having cuts work in the latter case, either.

Private previews as a workaround

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I will often write a poll in a private entry, save the code, post it, review it, and then when I'm satisfied, post a *new*, public entry with the poll code in it and delete the private one.

All because their previews aren't really accurate.

I also do this for some longer posts, esp ones with LJ-cuts in those; but there I'll just post it as 'private', preview it, and then change the permissions if it looks okay.

Re: Private previews as a workaround

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Good idea.