[ANSTHRLD] Help with OSCAR from my Electronic Commenting class

[Kathleen O'Brien]

Have you turned in your concerns as bug reports?  If we don't know about 
issues, it is impossible to fix them.

My responses are inline below.

Mari



On 9/6/2012 11:40 AM, Doug Bell wrote:
> This is from my class on Electronic Commenting. It may be of help to new OSCAR commenters. This lists issues with OSCAR that make it less easy to use and suggestions to make OSCAR easier to use.
>
>
> The Problem:
> OSCAR on rare occasions will turn part of a comment into bold type, italics, or underlined.

I have never seen this problem.  The only thing I can think of that 
would even come close would be if you tried to use < > around the single 
letters b, i, or u.  In that case, you entered the tag to start a 
comment that was bold, italics, or underlined (respectively).  If you 
want to use < > to indicate exact spellings and want to use it with b, 
i, and u, then I recommend putting a space on either side of the letter 
in question:  < b >, < i >, and < u >.



> The Solution:
> None known. The cause hasn't been found but it looks like something is interpreted as an unexpected HTML command by OSCAR. Editing the text doesn't seem to fix the issue.

I would have to see the text of the HTML comment in order to try and 
read the problem shown in the code.


> Deleting the entire comment and reentering is the only solution but OSCAR is purposefully designed so you can't do that. This example (and comments put in the wrong place) is why a Delete last comment command is required on a tree structure like OSCAR.

It is not required.  There are multiple reasons that comments are set to 
only be edited for corrections and are not deleteable.


> Only the terminal node of commentary could be safely deleted to avoid breaking the chain links of the commentary tree structure.

The tree structure is only part of the reason that comments are not 
deleteable.


> Fortunately, this bug is quite rare and the damage here is only cosmetic. It can be safely ignored. Your comment looks slightly odd but no data is altered.



> The Problem:
> Under Firefox and Opera (I don't know about Explorer), when you have entered a comment recently OSCAR will freak out if you press the Back Page button on the Browser.

I don't know what you mean by "freak out".  That's not a helpful bug 
description.

FYI, I have not had any problem with hitting the back button in IE.


> The Solution:
> If you need to view a graphic of armory or an image of documentation use the mouse to open it in a separate tab or window. That way you can close it when finished without using the Back Page button.




> The Problem: When you post a comment OSCAR sometimes takes you to a random letter instead returning you to the letter the comment was posted. Thankfully, the commentary still goes to the proper place but this issue occurs regularly.

I have never seen this problem.  Are you running multiple browser 
windows simultaneously?  I don't do that so maybe that's part of your 
problem.


> The Solution: This appears to be caused by having more than one OSCAR screen open on the Browser at one time. Why would you need to do this? One tab is open for entering a comment and another is open to view the letter the comment is for. Still another is open to use the OSCAR search feature to check for conflicts within OSCAR records, check for documentation for a previous registration of a name, or check for previous submissions. The search function will open several more tabs linked to OSCAR. And it gets cranky when the comment is finally posted.

Okay, yeah, that's what you're doing.  You may be able to avoid this 
problem by running multiple browsers not multiple browser windows.  I 
suspect this is happening with cookie sharing between the browser 
windows.  So, for example, try having one window up in IE and one in 
Firefox and see if the problem no longer occurs.


> Of course, it is easy to go to the LOI/KLOI list of letters and restart the letter you were commenting on. The bug is only annoying and doesn't cause loss of comments.