How to prevent attacks by trolls bearing .GIFs (and .JPGs)greenspun.com : LUSENET : TB2K spinoff uncensored : One Thread |
Someone (Andy Ray) already posted this but I thought it bears repeating.Posters starting NEW threads should place the tag
somewhere in their OPENING post. This fixes the background to a particular color (white ("ffffff") in this case), so that attempts in later messages (further down the page) to set a background pattern will have no effect. (Once a tag has been used in a web page, it can't be overridden. It appears that this forum software does not set the background attribute, so it's vulnerable.)
-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), September 18, 2000
I've noticed that this behaves differently on different platforms. On the Windows platform, it appears to work as you describe. However, on the Mac platform, subequent body background tags can override previous ones, at least when using Internet Explorer.
-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 18, 2000.
OTFR, thanks for the cleanup.That was not clear, what I said. There's nothing special about placing that tag in the opening post. You can place it an Answer as well. In other words, whoever places the <body background> tag first, wins! ....
hmmm .... except if you're viewing it using IE on a Mac? Curious. I've got a Mac here so I'll test and see if I get the same behavior.
-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), September 18, 2000.
Yes. Check this thread which has both the "shapes" background and my attempt to fix it. On a Mac, it looked fixed (at least with IE 5), but on Windows, I can still see the shapes. Of course, if OTFR fixes it before you get to it, the point is moot. LOL.
-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 18, 2000.
No worries. There has been a graffiti artist by the name of cpr who has been spamming up the forum with bold, nonsensical graffiti. I cleaned things up and made it beautiful by covering the graffiti with beautiful colors and shapes. All of the other posters are not posting graffiti, so their posts are still available to read.
-- cleaning up the community (i@love.shapes), September 18, 2000.
Hey "cleaning up the community", that's not the answer.
-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), September 18, 2000.
hmmm, OK, you had tried to fix it with colors in both the bgcolor= and background= attributes; I tried background= an image to override the first (shapes) image. As expected it does nothing when viewed through Windows browsers (IE 5.5 and Netscape 4.6 anyway).How does it view under IE 5 on the Mac? (I tried viewing the thread with IE3.01 on the Mac here and still saw the shapes. This old Mac won't take an upgrade to IE5 though.)
-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), September 18, 2000.
Hey fools, once the background is set, it is there to stay. It also overrides bgcolor. I can't believe you still haven't figured this out.
-- (i@love.shapes), September 18, 2000.
Go back and read, I had it figured out. Don't assume you know what the test was for. You don't.Thanks for your "contributions", NOT.
-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), September 18, 2000.
heh.
-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), September 18, 2000.
I checked the page with IE 5.0 for the Mac and I see lots of Cheshire cats. Apparently, "i@love.shapes" still hasn't quite figured out that HTML is rendered differently on different browsers and on different platforms.
-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 18, 2000.
That's nice hmmmm, but anyone who is stupid enough to still be using a Mac when 98% of the world is using PC's is just going to have to live with software problems.
-- (bill@and.bill), September 18, 2000.
Hmmm...
I thank you for pointing out that interesting bit of trivia. That explains a few things. I was really scratching my head on a couple of those threads where i@love.shapes was going "still trying, idiot?" and you were going "looks fine to me" in your usual laconic fashion. I thought, either hmmm deserves the Beating Head Against Brick Wall award of the year, or there is something more going on here with the browsers.
As for whether this behavior of IE5/Mac is "a bug or a feature?" I have just one comment, "hmmmmm..."
OTFR (if you're reading this)-
I think there was an accidental editing of my opening post here. You need to UN-edit it since the line showing the tag to include (<body background=#ffffff>) has disappeared. The line is still there when you View Source, but in place of the literal < and > it needs to have the escape sequences "<" and ">" (to represent left and right angle brackets) put back in. Thanks much!
-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), September 19, 2000.
Sheesh. Re-reading my opening post, "Once a tag has been used in a web page, it can't be overridden" Did I really say that??? Should be, "Once THIS tag has been used in a web page, it can't be overridden."And as we saw, even that is not always true.
A technical writer's job is never done. (eh, Brian?)
-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), September 19, 2000.
That's nice hmmmm, but anyone who is stupid enough to still be using a Mac when 98% of the world is using PC's is just going to have to live with software problems.I don't live with software problems. I use a Mac.
-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 19, 2000.