Extra Character

[Chomsky]

<p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: comic sans ms,sand">Good morning.  This has been a problem for quite some time.  I just did a search and could not find the issue listed anywhere.  When posting news articles on the guild website (EQ2Players), the character  (a capital A with a cap over it) is placed at the end of each sentence.  Is this being remedied?  I am posting here, with a cross-reference from the Forum Help forum.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: comic sans ms,sand">Thanks again for your assistance.</span></p>

[Seagoat]

<p>Are you composing the news posts in other software, such as a new Outlook [Express] email, or a blog or website WYSIWYG editor?  If so, that would account for the extra characters being inserted.  I have this exact problem when I C&P posts I composed on a website somewhere into my blog software, or into my HTML editor of choice in preparation for inserting it into one of my own websites.</p><p>If this is the case, I think the only ways you can remedy it are...</p><ol><li>Don't C&P.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></li><li>Paste the text -- <i>not</i> the source code -- into a pure text program (such as Notepad) first, and then C&P from there into the new article composition form.  Any links or formatting that would normally copy over will have to be manually reinserted, of course, since Notepad will strip all that out...but it will also strip out the extra hidden/corrupted/mistranslated characters.</li></ol><p>If you're not C&Ping from another program, then there's definitely something screwy happening between the time you compose the post and click "Submit" and the time the posts shows up on your guild website.  I haven't seen any other posts here that would indicate that this is a widespread problem, so I imagine that the first scenario is correct.  (Am I right?)  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Chomsky]

<p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: comic sans ms,sand">You are not right <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.  We are not copying and pasting... this is typing in original text, freeform, into the online WYSIWYG.  I have had this problem as well as others in my guild that are also typing freeform into the WYSIWYG editor.  This is only happening in the EQ2Players guild website for me.  The characters I get at the end of each sentence are  (cap A with a tilde, then a square block, then a cap A with a hat).</span></p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: comic sans ms,sand">Here are the links to 2 different posts by two different guild members on our guild site:</span><span style="font-size: x-small"><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sand">   From June 2, 2007     </span><a href="http://mithrilbandmembers.everquest2guilds.com/onepage.vm?articleId=156677&detailed=1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sand">http://m...tailed=1</span></a><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sand"> </span><p><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sand">  From December 13, 2006     </span><a href="http://mithrilbandmembers.everquest2guilds.com/onepage.vm?articleId=145617&detailed=1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sand">http://m...tailed=1</span></a></p></span>

[Seagoat]

<p>Hmm...are you using a locale/language other than US English?  It might be possible that your system's locale isn't meshing with the locale on the guild website.</p><p>No other possibilities are coming to mind at the moment.  :-/</p>

[Chomsky]

<span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: comic sans ms,sand">Local language: English.  I've spoken English since I was born, lived in the US since I was born... and type on a keyboard that is US-English...  There is at least one other person in my guild having this problem.  I'm a little surprised no one else is having this problem.  Could it be an IE7 thing?  I do use IE7.</span>

[Seagoat]

<p>I've tried viewing your articles in IE7 and FF2.  The diacritical characters appear in both, but in FF there's no square between them like there is in IE, so I don't think it's a browser issue.</p><p>(After some testing...)</p><p>Posting a test article on my own guild site, multiple spaces (such as a double-space between sentences, a common occurrence from anyone who ever took a typing class in school) result in diacritical characters being displayed.  Try editing your post and removing any double- or multiple-spaces.  Editing a post <i>without</i> deleting the diacritical characters <i>or</i> the multiple-spaces results in the article appearing as you're seeing it on your own website.  Every subsequent edit without removing the junk characters will result in the number of junk characters increasing exponentially (2 > 4 > 8 > 16 > 32 > 64 > etc.).</p><p>This is definitely a bug, probably in the WYSIWYG editor; I'll link this thread in the stickied post above, and hopefully someone official will be able to look into it.</p>

[Chomsky]

<p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: comic sans ms,sand">Do you think it is us putting double spacing in what we type?  I'll try single spacing everything.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: comic sans ms,sand">Thanks you so much for your help, Seagoat.</span></p>

[Seagoat]

<p>Yep, it's the multiple spaces that are being manually typed in when a new article is composed that's causing the issue -- even though something like that <i>shouldn't</i> be causing problems.</p><p>I'm happy to help, and it always gives me a warm fuzzy <strike>to point out flaws in other people's code</strike> (LOL) to narrow down what's wrong and figure out a way to fix it or work around it!  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Hellswrath]

<p>There was another post on the subject <i>ages</i> ago.  My guild has a custom domain, so I haven't kept track of it, but this is not new by any means.  If you do a little (or a lot of)  digging, you may find the old post about it.  However, I do remember that there was no discernable fix or cause for this other than not using 2 spaces after each sentence.  All in all a fairly strange error if you ask me.</p>