Adding a Message
You can add a message, or reply to one by clicking on the "Add
Message" button (or "Respond" in old versions) at the bottom of the
appropriate page. Please do NOT add to this page, unless you
are writing about Adding a Message. HyperNews assumes that the
current article you are displaying is the one being replied to, so
first make sure you have the message or base article you want to reply
to on the screen.
The message form asks for a title. This should say something distinctive
about the subject of your message. Any HTML tags in the title will be
converted to plain text. If left empty, the article will be
given the title "Untitled".
Your message can be just the title, if that is all you wanted to say,
otherwise you will need to choose a format for your text:
- "Smart Text" means that several
automatic formatting changes will be done for you. Long or
short lines of paragraphs will be wrapped and filled. A
paragraph is all consecutive lines separated from the next
paragraph by a blank line. Multiple blank lines are
contracted into a single blank line. A paragraph will be left
unformatted if any line starts with spaces or tabs. You can
start the first line of a multi-line paragraph with
indentation, however. If more than one line starts with the
same prefix, they will be left unformatted. Anything that
looks like a URL or email address will be made into an anchor.
HTML tags are converted into plain text.
- "Word Processor" (new with 1.9.3)
means HyperNews will wrap long lines, break lines at hard
Returns, preserve leading blanks and tabs, and use a fixed-width
font. This is useful if you copy/paste your text from a word
processor. URLs and email addresses will be made into links.
- "Plain Text" means you can type anything
in the box and it should come out looking that way, whitespace
preserved. Please note that if your browser wraps lines for you in the
text box, you still need to insert line breaks yourself where
appropriate.
- "
HTML" means you have the full power of the HyperText Markup
Language. This, for example, is how you get images embedded in your
message. But you must at least separate paragraphs with <p> or
they will look like one big paragraph. Please try to generate correct HTML
since otherwise you could mess up the display of the appended message
tree. However, don't include the <head> or <body>
tags, these are automatically added by HyperNews.
- "URL" means you only need to enter the
URL of the document containing your message in the box. For example,
http://my.site/my-message.html. The URL may be a full http
URL including the server name, or an absolute path starting with "/"
(for HyperNews 1.9B4.1 or later). The document that the URL points to
is assumed to be an HTML document, and it must be publically readable,
or at least readable by the server. Please do not add <head> or
<body> tags in the file since these are added automatically by
HyperNews.
Other options:
- Fill in your e-mail address, if there is a space for it. The server may
not know your correct address ahead of time.
- You can also enter some keywords that may be utilized by a search engine.
- Uncheck the notify box if you do not want to be e-mailed when
someone replies to your message.
- You may also specify the kind of message with an icon that
will be displayed with your message.
- If you want to, there is a spot to include your name and homepage as well.
Your name would then appear with your message instead of your user ID.
When you are done editing your message, push the Preview Message
button at the bottom. The next page will show your formatted message
as it will appear to readers (using your browser). If everything looks
OK, go ahead and push the Post your Message button at the top of the
preview page. If you decide to not submit your message, just don't
push that button - you will have to back up with your browser Back button.
If you want to edit your message some more, use your browser to
back up to the previous page containing the message form. (If it is
empty, you may need to increase your in-memory cache size, or try a
different browser. Alternatively, copy the text of your message
*before* you preview it.) Reloading the message editing page will
clear out all the entries. You can't reload the preview page, and
please don't post twice for the same message (neither will do the
right thing).
Instead of first previewing, you may be able to Post directly from
the form. (New in version 1.9.3.) If you do this, be careful that you
are done editing because once you post, you cannot edit the posted
message and it will have been sent out to subscribers.
After submitting the message, you will get an acknowledgement page
with a link to the page you added your message to. Click on that
link to see it and notice that your message has been added to the
end. You may need to reload the page if your browser
uses the cached copy of the page instead of reloading it for
you. (Older versions of HyperNews would automatically
display the page that you added your message to.)
D.K.S.