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User Guide

edited August 2012 in Technical Questions
Is there a user guide somewhere? I would like to give long URLs a meaningful short name. Also what about fund/ETF names? Will phrases such as "abbreviate Pacific Standard Time as PST" give a reference to an ETF?

Comments

  • Hi, hawleyl.

    Thanks for writing. Currently, there is not a user guide for the site, but I'd happily accept any help in creating one. The ticker look-up in the discussion is a really great feature, but so far it can't tell the difference between ProShares UltraShort and Pacific Standard Time. I think most folks just try to avoid three-letter acronyms unless they're referencing an exchange-traded fund.

    Regards,
    chip
  • Hello Chip,

    Please bear with my sense of humor regarding PST; I think the ticker look-up is great!

    Is there a current link function to associate a meaningful name with a URL. I notice in "What would you do with a large inheritance?" there is a link " Fido Personal Retirement Annuity, Main page". Is this functionality supported by MFO, by Vanilla, or only by included html?

    Last question: Can I change my "hawleyl" handle to some other name, e.g. "Larry"?
  • edited August 2012
    Hi hawley/Larry:

    Welcome to the site. Last thing first: click on your name in the post above. That should take you to your "activity" page. From there, on the right side, click on "Edit My Account". You should be able to make your name changes from there.
  • edited August 2012
    Howdy hawleyl,

    The Fido Annuity naming you note was from my portion of that subject thread. Larry, the html coding examples I attempted to use here, although separated; tried to make one big link here.
    I will look around for a decent tutorial. You may also do a search for the words "html editing or character list". Many very good tutorials are online.
    I had to learn some of this back in the mid-90's before EBAY had this built into their auction listings. I had to set my own colors, font sized and related to provide a "spiffy" looking page for a sale item.

    Regards,
    Catch
  • edited August 2012
    Catch- I've been working on trying to help on this too, and running into the same issues that you did. Not all that easy. The following is pretty kluge, but it's the best that I can come up with right now.


    Hi hawleyl from your question, I see that you are at least familiar with the concept of html. I don't know very much myself, but I can try to show you how to do your "URL short-name" here.

    The basic statement is: <@ href="http://url">short-name</@>

    NOTE: I have substituted the symbol "@" for the text letter "a" to allow the statement to be visible here.

    That statement is really two sections:

    The first section, <@ href="http://url", deals with the actual Long-Name URL. The second section, >short-name</@>, deals with the desired Short-Name.

    Using the Mutual Fund Observer Long-Name URL as an example, the first section would then look like this:

    <@ href="http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discussions-3/"   And if you wanted to short-name this as simply "MFO", for instance, the second section would look like this:  >MFO</@>

    So the whole thing would look like this:

    <@ href="http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discussions-3/">MFO</@>, remembering of course that "@" must be replaced by the letter "a".

    Doing that replacement and giving it a try, we get:

    MFO

    and it works!

    I suggest that you take the basic statement <@ href="http://url">short-name</@> and paste it into a text document of some sort that you can easily access. When you want to use it just copy and paste it into an MFO text entry box, go to the site that you want to reference, copy their URL and paste it in place of "http://url". Remember to keep the quotes or it won't work. Then replace "short-name" with your choice (no quotes here though, unless you actually want them), and that should do it.

    Take Catch's suggestion and play around in this thread to get the feel of the thing.

    Good luck-
  • edited August 2012
    Hi Old_Joe,

    I do believe you found the best method for show and tell with the character swap (@) for the letter "a"; so that the MFO page won't go crazy thinking there is some type of massive link, and/or failure to understand what is being attempted.

    Larry, if this all makes some sense; this thread would be a good place for you to do some testing. As you can see from OJ's example, your page; as you are typing will look a bit messy, but the html coding will go bye-bye when you "post comment".

    Take care,
    Catch
  • edited August 2012
    Hi Catch: I had to resort to some " &nbsp&nbsp" stuff to separate some sentences and make it work at all.

    Go to bed... it's well past your bedtime back there.
  • Thanks to all,

    Yes, I can read the html and will try some experiments. I quit doing a blog in May, 2005. If interested just click on My old blog . Note my reference to Netscape 3.04; it shows how old I am. A good reference for html is at W3Schools
  • Try again

    Thanks to all,

    Yes, I can read the html and will try some experiments. I quit doing a blog in May, 2005. If interested just click on My old blog . Note my reference to Netscape 3.04; it shows how old I am. A good reference for html is at W3Schools
  • I have an idea, and I'd welcome any feedback. I took Old_Joe's instructions and pasted them into a document, which I've made available at http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Tips.pdf It's also linked directly at the bottom of the Resources page.

    I reformatted it a little, but not much. Is this something that might be useful, and that we could add to over time?

    If you guys would write the instructions, or point out some that are already written in various posts, I'd be willing to add to the document. Eventually, we might have a nice guide for new users.
  • Hi there Chip. Well, I've done a fair amount of technical writing in my day, and the results were generally well-received, but the problem there is that I have to feel confident that I understand something pretty well myself before I can begin to explain it to someone else.

    If you and I could communicate via email to try to develop something, I'd be very happy to help. Maybe a way to start would be to ask for suggestions as to what board folks might like to see covered, and then you could explain the material to me, and then I could reformat it for presentation, with you then proofreading to make sure that I don't go off the rails.

    I can save documentation in PDF format on my Mac, and send stuff to you as a pdf attachment. That is a neat work-around to trying to do that here in the MFO format itself, and I sure like what you did with your sample. Documentation was always a challenge, and I always enjoyed it as it was a great learning experience for me as well.

    Take care- OJ
  • Reply to @Old_Joe: This sounds great! Email me anytime at [email protected]
  • Reply to @chip:

    Hi Chip,

    I think you need to restrict the general capability of members embedding html code in posted discussions. I can't say that it would cause problems, but there is that possibility.

    I took Old_Joe's idea and rewrote it into more of a step-by-step procedure. I also included a reference to a description of html links:

    USING A LINK NAME

    A link name is a short-hand name to refer to a longer Universal Resource Locator (URL). The link name is usually easier for humans to read and understand what is referenced. For example:

    The URL for Mutual Fund Observer is: http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/
    A short hand version, for human consumption, could be: MFO

    HTML TEMPLATE TO CREATE A LINK NAME
    The following template associates a short-hand Link Name with a URL:

    <a href="URL"> Link Name</a>

    USAGE: Copy the above string into a text file and save the file. When you want to create a short-hand name to a link do the following:

    1. Make a copy of the above string.
    2. Copy the link (a URL) from the browser or a document.
    3. Select the URL string in the template and replace it by pasting the link copied in step 2
    NOTE: The URL must be enclosed within double quotes.
    4. Select the string "Link Name" and type your short name.

    EXAMPLE: A link name MFO to reference the top-level page of the Mutual Fund Observer would be:

    <a href="http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/"> MFO</a>

    NOTE: In the address line at the top of a browser, current browsers do not include the "http://" prefix to a URL, e.g. there's an icon followed by something like "www.mutualfundobserver.com/" I have found that pasting a string copied from the address line includes the "http://" prefix.

    REFERENCE: Explanation of Links
  • Reply to @Old_Joe:

    Howdy,

    I found a trick to get around the need to substitute a "@" for an "a" when the "a" appears after a "<" character. Use the capability to create special characters using a "&". For example an & followed by lt; shows as "<" and when followed by gt; shows a ">".
  • Thanks to Old_Joe we have an initial version of a user's guide. It can be found at http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MFO-UG-p1-7.pdf

    I think he did a great job. Do any of you have any feedback or suggestions? What do you think? We'd really love to hear.
  • edited August 2012
    Howdy,
    The search function is very limited and basically not of use.
    Search is indicated at the home page, but the discussion only has the "box" and I suppose most folks understand it is a word search box.

    1. Any word of 3 letters or less will not enable a search.
    2. A psuedo valid search will only return one page.
    3. Search for this software format apparently is only able to search a user name or a word in a subject line.
    4. A note may be added about the search function and lack of power; as I suspect many users find very robust search functions/features at many web sites.

    Permalink This function and method of use should be indicated, in that a user may right click the icon for the drop down menu. If a user wants to save the "url" for a particular thread, click on the "save as a shortcut" and then copy the shortcut to their pc via whatever method is suitable.

    Edit This feature should be clarified to the user as a tool they may use if they choose to edit any part of a post that they generated.

    Save Draft Define how this functions when a user is not able to finish a current post.

    Flag What the flag function does.

    Lastly, a non-technical attribute; but one that should be clarified, is that a user should place a ticker symbol within the text portion, too; and not just the subject line for a fund that is being discussed. Also to note that the ticker will not have a highlight, nor to be able to have the auto link feature available, if the ticker is not in CAPS. Another piece of this function is how the popup box may be used once a ticker has been "clicked upon".

    I have used all of the above, as well as other features here. An overall guide would require a write for anything that is available for a user at this board, eh?

    Okay, there are other areas, too; but pillow time calls at this house.

    Chip, thank you.

    Catch
  • I suggest the selection of posting categories and possibility to edit the category, title and text for registered users.
  • Thanks much Catch. I can't help, of course, with the search limitations, but you are quite right that we can document the other functions that you mentioned.

    OJ
  • Reply to @Investor: Yep, that's on the agenda for sure. You OK with the setup so far?
  • Reply to @Old_Joe:

    Instead of going into much detail on entering html elements, you can point to http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp.

    I think you should use the standard terminology of HTML element and attribute. I personally find a bit odd to see <> with no element in between < and > or similarly </> Without any element they are not valid and odd looking for me.
  • Reply to @Investor: Well, I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not sure how many of our posters have any interest or background in the guts of the html world.

    The attempt here is to allow folks with absolutely no experience to at least do a few basic things here on MFO. There's nothing there that guys like you can't do in your sleep.

    I absolutely agree that the w3schools.com site is just excellent for anyone who wants to know how to do it right.

    Regards- OJ
  • edited August 2012
    Reply to @hawleyl:

    as long as you do not upper-case all the characters you can post things such as pst and etf and it will not do a fund lookup.

    e.g. this pst will not link to a fund or an etf

    e.g. pst Pst pSt pST psT but the final all-caps combination will PST

    note the following will link also
    or {PST} .PST. .PST .PST.

    but not

    aPST



    @hawley - will send a notification to hawley and will also provide a link to hawleys profile








  • edited August 2012
    Reply to @chip:

    @chip you should take a look at the new vanilla site - and see the functionality. I still think it would be worth upgrading version of forum
    adding links, and whole wealth of other features.

    and a bit of modifications to the user guide you are creating.


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