Server Upgrade & Copying from Word Issues

[Frug]

The servers were upgraded last night to better hardware and as usual there were some bumps. Chat went down briefly but a minor edit solved that problem pretty quickly.

Currently I've had some complaints that certain posts, when copied from microsoft word, replace apostrophes with funky letters like “ and stuff. I have a vague idea of why this is happening - the character encoding is not being declared correctly and I suspect word is or isn't using unicode when it should. It should be easy to fix but I don't know how long it will take to figure out how.

Let me take this opportunity to complain, once again, about microsoft products. Download open office ( http://www.openoffice.org/ ). Use it. It's free. It opens and saves word files just fine but doesn't do annoying things like this. Word is bad mmmkay.

I don't have word so I can't test it but I copied this out of an open office document:

Don't replace apostrophes with 'symbols' that are “strange”

[Frug]

At the moment it seems that I will have to ask Mike to modify something in the server's config files. This may not be a simple issue to solve.

There is one way I can think of that should work around this issue if you are copy/pasting from word.

Write it up in word.
Copy/paste the whole thing into notepad (or an equivalent simple text editor which does not fudge with special characters).
Copy/paste from notepad to your post.

The problem is not with all apostrophes and quotes, only the "smart" apostrophes and smart quotes which are actually special characters. It's the difference between quotations marks that have a direction and surround the word, and quotes that are just two little lines.

I suspect word probably has an option somewhere to change the character encoding. You can try changing that and see if it fixes the problem. Also if you're using IE try firefox. I'm just guessing, but I don't think firefox even allows you to paste those characters in. Not sure about that though.

[Frug]

“smart”

This is using ie and open office.

Hm....

[Blood Ravenous]

"Hey guys"

“Hey guys”

The above is without smart quotes, and the one below is. (There is an option to change it... At least in Word 2000 XD Lol I'm old-school.)

I don't think it's doing it (o_o) But I've seen that elsewhere so it wouldn't surprise me.

[Frug]

Thanks ice. Lyle also checked and it seems to work.

So apparently this issue has been resolved. I'm not sure when or how either, I suspect mike changed something, but if it isn't resolved please let me know.

Edit: also you should go back and fix your old posts if they're corrupted, because I have no practical way to retroactively replace things. That is if you want to.

[Jenica Sabiny]

Can you check and see if that would be a possibility? It's hundreds of posts for some people, so an easier fix would be very very welcome.

If it's totally impossible then nothing can be done for it, of course.

[Frug]

The only way to do it is to export the entire forum to an sql file (which is getting pretty big as I mentioned with regards to trimming old posts) and then to re-import the whole thing. The forums would be down for the length of the procedure, which would take at least 30 minutes, and I don't even know if it would work. Everything put together it would take me at least two hours of work, maybe a lot more. Most of the old posts look fine to me when I scan through them anyway.

[Lylessa Uluki]

Can you please unlock the following so I can fix posts?

Uluki's Character Profile http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=975

Many Roads Merge http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=982

The 3 R's http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1019

If You Look Like a Demon... http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1086

Preparations for Battle http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=997

Atonement http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1144

Aftermath http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1178

Employment Opportunity http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1331

The Worm in the Apple http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1343

Wings http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1446

Apologies http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1545

The Naked Truth about Fairy Spells http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1583

I think all the other threads I've posted in are still open (yes, this affects almost every IC post I've made on the board) but if I've missed any I may need to ask for more to be re-opened. Fair warning.

[Lylessa Uluki]

Thanks for unlocking those, Jess. I will let you know when I'm finished. May be awhile, given the format copying problems we discussed, but I will try not to dally.

[Frug]

And more news on this...

Even though I said I wasn't going to try and spend hours just to fix some broken apostrophes, there was a somewhat serendipitous realization that two birds can be killed with this stone. Namely, apostrophes and the issue of sending out copies of the forums to people in a safe way.

There were some problems exporting the database and we didn't know why (Mike and I) but by cutting out parts of the database (the search index, the chat logs, the shoutbox logs) and turning off the shoutbox and chat I've managed to go and export it finally.

After exporting it I tinkered and created a duplicate Thar. Zomg two Thars! Anyway, what this does is it proves to me that I know how to import/export/backup forums properly AND it means I can test the method of fixing apostrophes without killing our current forums AND it means that I can go into mirrored forums, delete all of the forum members, and voila!

Voila? Yes voila. I've got a forum that has no personal information on it, in a database I know I can move around (which is about 18 megs in size, 5 megs when zipped in winrar ). And I can make that file available to whoever wants it.

You can then take that file, find a host with an SQL database and php support (not hard to find) and import the database and have your very own copy of Thar. It's actually quite easy and can be done in only a few clicks.

So yes, in theory I can export the database in a way that fixes the charset issue that broke some apostrophes and quotes. And yes, I can send you the forums so that you can duplicate them.

But Frug I don't even know what the fuck SQL stands for (neither do I to be honest) or any of that junk and I want a copy of thar I can actually use.
Well that's a problem because even though I found a program that will grab every single page automatically and save it as an html file for you, guess what? It's huge. Huuuuge. I have been running it for the past 20 minutes and it's created 2000 files so far. Not a surprise either really. So until I find a modification that will grab forums and posts and save them into nice organized text files we're outta luck on that front.

[Julen]

Whee! Once again, you're my god, Frug. The posts really are pretty unreadable with all the apostrophes and quotes scrambled, and I was NOT looking forward to correcting 300+ IC posts. Thanks for continuing to work towards another solution.

[Frug]

Don't thank me, thank Mike

[Lylessa Uluki]

Thanks, guys!

Just to give you an idea how long this would have taken otherwise, I spent five hours working on my own posts last night, and got seven threads done, and two more with symbols replaced but not pasted in. I didn't think it would take quite that long, but due to some conversion weirdness I was pretty much having to go line-by-line. I've posted in twenty-one IC threads.

So... I am really relieved, to say the least, that there is another solution. (I mean, yeah, I could just have left it, but I've put a lot of work into those posts, so leaving them basically unreadable was too depressing.)

Thanks Mike and Frug!

[Lylessa Uluki]

I am finally done with the topics I asked you to open. Thanks!

[Xyon_of_Calhoun]

Don't thank me, thank Mike

The guy does rock out loud.

Google tells me SQL stands for Structured Query Language.

Google makes me look smart.

Rock on.