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Text Version Of The FAWD Logo
Posted: Sept 26/12
Short article describing how/why the FAWD logo works.
All msgs or questions please send to: FAWD.V1[at]gmail.com.
This is not a commercial project.
............................................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................................
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●●●●
●●●●
●●●● FA Writers Directory v1.0
●●●●
●●●● FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS / RULESET
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● TEXT VERSION OF THE FAWD LOGO
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Last edited: Sept 26/2012
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● <<< To Main Page <<< To FAQ-Ruleset To FAQ-Ruleset Map Page >>>
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● There's a story here. Needs to be told first, before getting to how the FAWD
●●●● logo works.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● In principle, the FAWD logo--indeed, the whole look and feel of the place--
●●●● should simply not be possible. Those who know FA are surely scritching between
●●●● their ears right now, tails flicking in puzzlement.
●●●●
●●●● To everybody else it all looks like an ordinary website (although it isn't).
●●●● Well laid-out. Text 'n graphics 'n what-not all neatly formatted. All organized so
●●●● as not to club our eyeballs with confusion. This is how websites are supposed to
●●●● be, no?
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Here's the rub. FA was designed and built back in 2004-ish. A buncha fur
●●●● folks had a worthy dream: An art gallery of art galleries. Fur art, that is.
●●●● Fortunately some of those furs knew their code, pounced on the job, and here we
●●●● are. Sorta worked, dontcha think?
●●●●
●●●● EXCEPT: To judge from results, one core design goal must have been, keep
●●●● it simple. No sophisticated allowed. Not fancy, all as clean as possible, and
●●●● certainly no need for more than minimal text formatting capabilities. Users can
●●●● do a few funky things with text on main page and in submissions and journals
●●●● and comments and what-not.
●●●●
●●●● But not a lot. Oh, and how FA handles and processes text, from a code point
●●●● of view: Basic, very basic. One font, at one size only--you can throw some colour
●●●● at text--and that's about it. Notice no full justification of text, or margins, or
●●●● tabs, or nuthin'. You type the text, you edit it, you hit Post. No fuss, no muss.
●●●●
●●●● This is not a design flaw. Keep it simple. FA does so. Notice that the Forums
●●●● are much more sophisticated in terms of text and formatting and editing. There
●●●● are reasons for that.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● That said, arguably things got a little too simple back in 2004. It would've
●●●● been insane to write FA's text processing code from scratch. So it was decided to
●●●● just pluck it from some standard library or other, and plug in without fanfare, and
●●●● it works, moving on, moving on. Someday somebody may tell me that's exactly
●●●● how it was done.
●●●●
●●●● Or it just came with the SDK that was used to code FA. Nobody decided a
●●●● thing, but the compiler did.
●●●●
●●●● Or is it possible that this code was cloned from the programming IDE that
●●●● was used to build FA? This is ill-informed speculation, but maybe. FA's text
●●●● processing code does appear to do things that are familiar in a programming
●●●● environment (of one type, anyway). And/or it's related to how text gets turned
●●●● into HTML?
●●●●
●●●● As may be. These things make it an absolute *bitch* to do the kind of
●●●● formatting present in the FAWD. Three things in particular:
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● 1) Stripping out extra spaces. This is something you'd like a parser to do
●●●● when you're writing code. Cuts down on the bug count, keeps the compiler from
●●●● getting frazzled.
●●●●
●●●● So anywhere on FA, hit the space bar a buncha times to type in a string of
●●●● spaces. Hit Post. Look and see: Those spaces have vanished.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● 2) Also, FA doesn't know tabs. In Notepad or Wordpad, type a tab at the
●●●● first line of a paragraph. Copy-and-paste that to FA. Hit Post. The tab is gone.
●●●● Every story, every comment, every journal, *every* piece of text on FA, is
●●●● missing that crucial paragraph first-line indent that our eyes need to read better.
●●●●
●●●● (Except the text here, you'll notice).
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● 3) Obviously, FA doesn't know margins. Every piece of text on FA is also
●●●● splazzed out from one side of the screen to the other. Nicht so gut. But to be
●●●● able to put margins into text means a more complicated text editor. Among other
●●●● things that get more complicated.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● There's more, but this is all a little ominous. If you want to position text in
●●●● precise ways on screen, and organize it so it works well for the reader, FA just
●●●● won't let you do it. The only device you have to do this is the space character,
●●●● and FA's text processing code eats 'em. <Burp!>
●●●●
●●●● Making text look better on FA is therefore a non-trivial problem. Full justified
●●●● text, for example (like here). The code can't do it. And Christ, would it ever make
●●●● a difference to readability.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● At the heart, the issue is just that FA has to take what you type in, translate
●●●● it into an HTML page, then throw it back at your screen, splat. This is easy and
●●●● simple (more or less) if there's no complex text formatting involved.
●●●●
●●●● This is because complex text formatting means being able to measure
●●●● things, and knowing down to the pica where a letter or word should go. Then
●●●● generate the appropriate complex snarl of HTML. Places like SoFurry do this since
●●●● they've got a more modern codebase, and whoo-hoo, their servers must glow
●●●● white-hot to radioactive. Lotta work.
●●●●
●●●● FA compromises. Keep it simple, but provide as much formatting capabilty
●●●● as possible. Or as is reasonable. Most people are comfortable enough with what's
●●●● available, and don't necessarily miss advanced formatting capabilities, or would
●●●● use them often anyway. Again, sorta worked, dontcha think?
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● It took a semi-technical mini-essay to get to the point where you're now in a
●●●● position to learn a sneaky secret. There's a tiny loophole in FA's text processing
●●●● code. It's hairy and frustrating to use, takes practice to get better with it, but on
●●●● it the whole FAWD rests. And the FAWD logo, which, patience, is what you came
●●●● here for.
●●●●
●●●● Or call it a sidestep, not a loophole. FA's text processing code has no
●●●● deficiency or bug in it. But some frustrated fuming was done a year back over
●●●● the lack of para first-line indents. How the fweep to make this possible? And is
●●●● there some sequence of something that can be inserted to make an indent
●●●● happen?
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● As it turns out, yes, there is. After learning that Verdana was the font FA
●●●● uses, the character set was studied. Right there before the typographic symbols
●●●● was a character that doesn't see a lot of use. Programmers might know it.
●●●●
●●●● This is ASCII char #160, or A0 hex. The 'hard' space. Also called the no-
●●●● break space. Put it into some text, and your average text editor or WP package
●●●● won't break a sentence at that point when it does word-wrap to fit in the
●●●● margins.
●●●●
●●●● Not a very useful character, perhaps, but there it is. Most WP software will
●●●● let you use it, inserted as a special character. It is possible to type it in from the
●●●● keyboard. But it's a little easier to just copy-and-paste wherever you want to put
●●●● one.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Will FA's text processing code eat the hard space, like it does to normal
●●●● spaces?
●●●●
●●●● No. It does not. Ping! We have the key to the kingdom between our hot little
●●●● fangs.
●●●●
●●●● Type seven hard spaces into the first line of a paragraph, and lookithat: An
●●●● indent. Like all the text here. Actually they were all copy-and-pasted in. Much
●●●● faster.
●●●●
●●●● Start throwing strings of hard spaces around, and you can put text
●●●● anywhere on screen you want. Columns of text, newspaper-style, for example.
●●●● Or columns of numbers. See the FAWD main page.
●●●●
●●●● Or better yet, write some software to do some of that measuring of text,
●●●● then insert a carefully calculated batch of hard spaces *into* a sentence. Now
●●●● you can do full justified text. Like all the text here.
●●●●
●●●● Not a useful character, did we say? <Pppbbbhhtt!!> to that. On FA, the hard
●●●● space is *very* useful.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● It's not that FA's text processing code is being fooled, either. All it sees is a
●●●● character that, to it, is no different from any other character. And it's not a space
●●●● character. Ho-kay, type in as many as you want. We won't bother 'em.
●●●●
●●●● And obviously a hard space and a normal space look the same on screen.
●●●● But the hard space is not treated as a 'separator' character. The normal space is,
●●●● in the sense that this is what the text processing code looks for to mark the start
●●●● of a new word.
●●●●
●●●● A sentence stuffed full of hard spaces is considered to be one long word.
●●●● This is important when using hard spaces in journal comments, but not anywhere
●●●● else. Without some normal space separators in there, FA's text processing code
●●●● can make a journal comment go right weird. Buffer overrun problem. I think.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● To step back a bit, this idea doesn't come without issues. This is one of
●●●● those tres-simple, almost doh-simple things that just happens to have large
●●●● implications. But they don't jump out at you until you think about it.
●●●●
●●●● You have to know about it to think about it, though. One issue, among
●●●● others: FA doesn't make that easy.
●●●●
●●●● People around here do put a lot of creativity into main pages and journals
●●●● to make 'em look good, textually speaking. Now here's a technique that could
●●●● open the door to a *lot* more of that.
●●●●
●●●● As for writers and stories, the more readable a story (in terms of
●●●● appearance) the better the readers will like it. This has been said elsewhere.
●●●● Bears repeating. If a writer wants his/her work to look pro, this can really help.
●●●●
●●●● Or don't hesitate, use this hard space idea and feel free to design your own
●●●● logo, for whatever purpose. ASCII art and graphic ornamentation can be found
●●●● on more than a few main pages. Can we do better? Yup. Now.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● But before dealing with the FAWD logo, one more crucial aspect of the trick
●●●● must be covered. This came as a surprise, too. Also with a wild whoop of glee,
●●●● upon realizing what it meant.
●●●●
●●●● When FA's text processing code sees a hard space, as said, it is treated like
●●●● an ordinary character. But one of FA's standard formatting features does
●●●● something interesting to ordinary characters. It's not obvious.
●●●●
●●●● Anywhere on FA, type in a sentence of text. Now copy that sentence and put
●●●● it in bold. Ie.:
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Take a look at this sentence, for example.
●●●●
●●●● Take a look at this sentence, for example.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Nothing unusual here. The bold text is still in Verdana font, but a different
●●●● set of font metrics are now in use to give us the fat letters. The length of the
●●●● sentence has changed a tiny bit, but it's barely noticeable. The new font metrics
●●●● only really affect shape.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● The surprise was learning that the metrics for one character in particular
●●●● *are* affected: The hard space.
●●●●
●●●● A normal space and a hard space are the same size. No problemo. A normal
●●●● space and an italiced hard space are the same size too.
●●●●
●●●● To prove it, see below. The first string is made up of normal spaces and Xs.
●●●● The second contains italiced hard spaces between each X, using the [ i] [ /i] tags.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
●●●●
●●●● x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
●●●●
●●●● x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● The last string? Bolded hard spaces between the Xs. And they're *shorter*
●●●● than a normal space. Put a hard space between the [ b] and [ /b] tags and it
●●●● shrinks by roughly 25%. Squee, Ah say, Ah say, squee.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Whuffo is this such a revelation? Well, a digression into the history of
●●●● printing might be helpful here, but to skip that let's just say we now have a type
●●●● size differential to play with. A normal space, a hard space, and a bolded hard
●●●● space all show up on screen the same way: As a space.
●●●●
●●●● But one of them's just a leetle smaller. And it doesn't get eaten. Meaning we
●●●● can now position text on the screen with *extreme* precision. Specifically, to the
●●●● difference in length between a hard space and a bolded hard space.
●●●●
●●●● In point of fact, this is the kind of precision you'd get if FA had some of
●●●● those advanced formatting features, and was furiously doing all that behind-the-
●●●● scenes measuring. We're down to the pica, in other words, and FA's text
●●●● processing code doesn't even know it.
●●●●
●●●● (Better than the pica, actually. A pica is a very small typographic unit of
●●●● measure, 0.1660 inches. The differential we have here is somewhere around
●●●● 0.012 inches. This is almost below screen resolution.)
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Or, to put it in terms my Grandfather the printer would smile at, we now
●●●● have two different sizes of 'slugs' to drop into a line of type to make it come out
●●●● perfectly on the page. Roll presses, and run that sucker at six. Fortunately for
●●●● our fur we're not dealing with hot lead here on FA, but the principle is the same.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Finally: The FAWD logo. Since how it's done ought to make sense now. And
●●●● everything else about the FAWD, for that matter. Seems quite ordinary, nothing
●●●● you wouldn't see on any regular website.
●●●●
●●●● But under the hood there's an absolute huuuge plethora of hard spaces and
●●●● bolded hard spaces inside that align and format everything to a T. A *lot* of
●●●● editing and tweaking of spaces and words went into getting it right.
●●●●
●●●● And this is a big downside to the idea, since no WP software ever built can
●●●● do this for you. Gotta set it up manually. Practice and experiment pays off.
●●●●
●●●● It took some to make the FAWD logo work out right. What you type can't
●●●● and won't resemble what you think it should look like. You'll only find that out
●●●● when you hit Post. Then go back and edit some more until it works. A bit hard on
●●●● the eyes after a while.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Here is what the FAWD logo looks like as the FA text processing code thinks
●●●● it should look (as in, the way it looks everywhere on the FAWD):
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● ●●●●●● ● |
●●●● ● ● ● |
●●●● ●●●● ●●●● |
●●●● ● ● ● |
●●●● ● Writers |
●●●● Directory |
●●●● v1.0 |
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Now here's the text that did it, with all the hard spaces replaced by a *. AND
●●●● with an extra normal space inside the color and bold tags (or they'd take effect
●●●● here).
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● *****[ color=#2E2EFE]●●●●●●[ b]**[ /b]●[ /color]*************|
●●●● *****[ color=#2E2EFE]●******[ b]**[ /b]●*●*[ /color]***********|
●●●● *****[ color=#2E2EFE]●●●●[ b]***[ /b]●●●●[ /color]**********[ b]*[ /b]|
●●●● *****[ color=#2E2EFE]●*****[ b]*[ /b]●****[ b]*[ /b]●[ /color]**********|
●●●● *****[ color=#2E2EFE]●[ /color]*****[ b]Writers[ /b]*****[ b]*[ /b]**|
●●●● ************[ b]Directory[ /b]**[ b]**[ /b]*|
●●●● ************[ b]v1.0[ /b]******[ b]*[ /b]*****|
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● It took a couple of pages to get here, and now you know why. This is *not*
●●●● like anything that most people on FA have ever seen before. How it works: Now
●●●● you know that too. Use the right strings of hard spaces and bolded hard spaces,
●●●● in the right places, and everything lines up precisely.
●●●●
●●●● This might not be easy to type in. If you want to be meticulous you can do
●●●● it. Better idea: Just copy this text off the screen, edit it, and it'll work.
●●●●
●●●● Replace the *s with hard spaces. Don't forget to take the normal spaces out
●●●● of the color and bold tags. Hit Post. There it is.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● (Notice the use of the | character, the vertical bar. When you're editing,
●●●● drop this in everywhere. It'll help you measure by eye as you try to get things to
●●●● line up. Then delete them. Left a few in here just for show.)
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● As for how you lay paws on the hard space character, that's easy. Windows
●●●● has a small utility called Character Map. Other OS's, there's likely something
●●●● similar.
●●●●
●●●● Select the Verdana font, drop down to character #160--it's a space, sorta
●●●● visible--and select and copy the hard space. Then paste it in to replace the *s.
●●●●
●●●● You may need to go after the ball character too. Waaay down at the bottom
●●●● of the font table, (#25CF hex). It is actually outside the range of normal ASCII
●●●● characters; can't be typed in from the keyboard. No matter. Select, copy, and
●●●● paste it in.
●●●●
●●●● And/or most WP software will let you insert special characters into text, and
●●●● finding the hard space and the ball character won't take long. When using WP
●●●● software it can help to toggle on the visibility feature (show hidden characters,
●●●● hard spaces, carriage returns, etc.). Using search and replace can also be very
●●●● handy. Your choice.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Ironic, a bit. The FAWD logo was the very first thing designed. And in it is
●●●● the secret to how the rest of this giant pile was built. That logo is a lot more
●●●● significant than it looks.
●●●●
●●●● But to just look at it doesn't do you any good. And just laying out the text
●●●● that does it wouldn't help you much either. You'd be typing that in (in order to
●●●● copy it) without knowing what the heck you're doing or why it looks that way.
●●●● Trouble ahead.
●●●●
●●●● Now you know. No trouble. Copy, copy, copy. :- )
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● <<< To Main Page <<< To FAQ-Ruleset To FAQ-Ruleset Map Page >>>
●●●●
●●●●
............................................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................................
Posted: Sept 26/12
Short article describing how/why the FAWD logo works.
All msgs or questions please send to: FAWD.V1[at]gmail.com.
This is not a commercial project.
............................................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................................
●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● FA Writers Directory v1.0
●●●●
●●●● FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS / RULESET
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● TEXT VERSION OF THE FAWD LOGO
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Last edited: Sept 26/2012
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● <<< To Main Page <<< To FAQ-Ruleset To FAQ-Ruleset Map Page >>>
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● There's a story here. Needs to be told first, before getting to how the FAWD
●●●● logo works.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● In principle, the FAWD logo--indeed, the whole look and feel of the place--
●●●● should simply not be possible. Those who know FA are surely scritching between
●●●● their ears right now, tails flicking in puzzlement.
●●●●
●●●● To everybody else it all looks like an ordinary website (although it isn't).
●●●● Well laid-out. Text 'n graphics 'n what-not all neatly formatted. All organized so
●●●● as not to club our eyeballs with confusion. This is how websites are supposed to
●●●● be, no?
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Here's the rub. FA was designed and built back in 2004-ish. A buncha fur
●●●● folks had a worthy dream: An art gallery of art galleries. Fur art, that is.
●●●● Fortunately some of those furs knew their code, pounced on the job, and here we
●●●● are. Sorta worked, dontcha think?
●●●●
●●●● EXCEPT: To judge from results, one core design goal must have been, keep
●●●● it simple. No sophisticated allowed. Not fancy, all as clean as possible, and
●●●● certainly no need for more than minimal text formatting capabilities. Users can
●●●● do a few funky things with text on main page and in submissions and journals
●●●● and comments and what-not.
●●●●
●●●● But not a lot. Oh, and how FA handles and processes text, from a code point
●●●● of view: Basic, very basic. One font, at one size only--you can throw some colour
●●●● at text--and that's about it. Notice no full justification of text, or margins, or
●●●● tabs, or nuthin'. You type the text, you edit it, you hit Post. No fuss, no muss.
●●●●
●●●● This is not a design flaw. Keep it simple. FA does so. Notice that the Forums
●●●● are much more sophisticated in terms of text and formatting and editing. There
●●●● are reasons for that.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● That said, arguably things got a little too simple back in 2004. It would've
●●●● been insane to write FA's text processing code from scratch. So it was decided to
●●●● just pluck it from some standard library or other, and plug in without fanfare, and
●●●● it works, moving on, moving on. Someday somebody may tell me that's exactly
●●●● how it was done.
●●●●
●●●● Or it just came with the SDK that was used to code FA. Nobody decided a
●●●● thing, but the compiler did.
●●●●
●●●● Or is it possible that this code was cloned from the programming IDE that
●●●● was used to build FA? This is ill-informed speculation, but maybe. FA's text
●●●● processing code does appear to do things that are familiar in a programming
●●●● environment (of one type, anyway). And/or it's related to how text gets turned
●●●● into HTML?
●●●●
●●●● As may be. These things make it an absolute *bitch* to do the kind of
●●●● formatting present in the FAWD. Three things in particular:
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● 1) Stripping out extra spaces. This is something you'd like a parser to do
●●●● when you're writing code. Cuts down on the bug count, keeps the compiler from
●●●● getting frazzled.
●●●●
●●●● So anywhere on FA, hit the space bar a buncha times to type in a string of
●●●● spaces. Hit Post. Look and see: Those spaces have vanished.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● 2) Also, FA doesn't know tabs. In Notepad or Wordpad, type a tab at the
●●●● first line of a paragraph. Copy-and-paste that to FA. Hit Post. The tab is gone.
●●●● Every story, every comment, every journal, *every* piece of text on FA, is
●●●● missing that crucial paragraph first-line indent that our eyes need to read better.
●●●●
●●●● (Except the text here, you'll notice).
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● 3) Obviously, FA doesn't know margins. Every piece of text on FA is also
●●●● splazzed out from one side of the screen to the other. Nicht so gut. But to be
●●●● able to put margins into text means a more complicated text editor. Among other
●●●● things that get more complicated.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● There's more, but this is all a little ominous. If you want to position text in
●●●● precise ways on screen, and organize it so it works well for the reader, FA just
●●●● won't let you do it. The only device you have to do this is the space character,
●●●● and FA's text processing code eats 'em. <Burp!>
●●●●
●●●● Making text look better on FA is therefore a non-trivial problem. Full justified
●●●● text, for example (like here). The code can't do it. And Christ, would it ever make
●●●● a difference to readability.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● At the heart, the issue is just that FA has to take what you type in, translate
●●●● it into an HTML page, then throw it back at your screen, splat. This is easy and
●●●● simple (more or less) if there's no complex text formatting involved.
●●●●
●●●● This is because complex text formatting means being able to measure
●●●● things, and knowing down to the pica where a letter or word should go. Then
●●●● generate the appropriate complex snarl of HTML. Places like SoFurry do this since
●●●● they've got a more modern codebase, and whoo-hoo, their servers must glow
●●●● white-hot to radioactive. Lotta work.
●●●●
●●●● FA compromises. Keep it simple, but provide as much formatting capabilty
●●●● as possible. Or as is reasonable. Most people are comfortable enough with what's
●●●● available, and don't necessarily miss advanced formatting capabilities, or would
●●●● use them often anyway. Again, sorta worked, dontcha think?
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● It took a semi-technical mini-essay to get to the point where you're now in a
●●●● position to learn a sneaky secret. There's a tiny loophole in FA's text processing
●●●● code. It's hairy and frustrating to use, takes practice to get better with it, but on
●●●● it the whole FAWD rests. And the FAWD logo, which, patience, is what you came
●●●● here for.
●●●●
●●●● Or call it a sidestep, not a loophole. FA's text processing code has no
●●●● deficiency or bug in it. But some frustrated fuming was done a year back over
●●●● the lack of para first-line indents. How the fweep to make this possible? And is
●●●● there some sequence of something that can be inserted to make an indent
●●●● happen?
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● As it turns out, yes, there is. After learning that Verdana was the font FA
●●●● uses, the character set was studied. Right there before the typographic symbols
●●●● was a character that doesn't see a lot of use. Programmers might know it.
●●●●
●●●● This is ASCII char #160, or A0 hex. The 'hard' space. Also called the no-
●●●● break space. Put it into some text, and your average text editor or WP package
●●●● won't break a sentence at that point when it does word-wrap to fit in the
●●●● margins.
●●●●
●●●● Not a very useful character, perhaps, but there it is. Most WP software will
●●●● let you use it, inserted as a special character. It is possible to type it in from the
●●●● keyboard. But it's a little easier to just copy-and-paste wherever you want to put
●●●● one.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Will FA's text processing code eat the hard space, like it does to normal
●●●● spaces?
●●●●
●●●● No. It does not. Ping! We have the key to the kingdom between our hot little
●●●● fangs.
●●●●
●●●● Type seven hard spaces into the first line of a paragraph, and lookithat: An
●●●● indent. Like all the text here. Actually they were all copy-and-pasted in. Much
●●●● faster.
●●●●
●●●● Start throwing strings of hard spaces around, and you can put text
●●●● anywhere on screen you want. Columns of text, newspaper-style, for example.
●●●● Or columns of numbers. See the FAWD main page.
●●●●
●●●● Or better yet, write some software to do some of that measuring of text,
●●●● then insert a carefully calculated batch of hard spaces *into* a sentence. Now
●●●● you can do full justified text. Like all the text here.
●●●●
●●●● Not a useful character, did we say? <Pppbbbhhtt!!> to that. On FA, the hard
●●●● space is *very* useful.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● It's not that FA's text processing code is being fooled, either. All it sees is a
●●●● character that, to it, is no different from any other character. And it's not a space
●●●● character. Ho-kay, type in as many as you want. We won't bother 'em.
●●●●
●●●● And obviously a hard space and a normal space look the same on screen.
●●●● But the hard space is not treated as a 'separator' character. The normal space is,
●●●● in the sense that this is what the text processing code looks for to mark the start
●●●● of a new word.
●●●●
●●●● A sentence stuffed full of hard spaces is considered to be one long word.
●●●● This is important when using hard spaces in journal comments, but not anywhere
●●●● else. Without some normal space separators in there, FA's text processing code
●●●● can make a journal comment go right weird. Buffer overrun problem. I think.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● To step back a bit, this idea doesn't come without issues. This is one of
●●●● those tres-simple, almost doh-simple things that just happens to have large
●●●● implications. But they don't jump out at you until you think about it.
●●●●
●●●● You have to know about it to think about it, though. One issue, among
●●●● others: FA doesn't make that easy.
●●●●
●●●● People around here do put a lot of creativity into main pages and journals
●●●● to make 'em look good, textually speaking. Now here's a technique that could
●●●● open the door to a *lot* more of that.
●●●●
●●●● As for writers and stories, the more readable a story (in terms of
●●●● appearance) the better the readers will like it. This has been said elsewhere.
●●●● Bears repeating. If a writer wants his/her work to look pro, this can really help.
●●●●
●●●● Or don't hesitate, use this hard space idea and feel free to design your own
●●●● logo, for whatever purpose. ASCII art and graphic ornamentation can be found
●●●● on more than a few main pages. Can we do better? Yup. Now.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● But before dealing with the FAWD logo, one more crucial aspect of the trick
●●●● must be covered. This came as a surprise, too. Also with a wild whoop of glee,
●●●● upon realizing what it meant.
●●●●
●●●● When FA's text processing code sees a hard space, as said, it is treated like
●●●● an ordinary character. But one of FA's standard formatting features does
●●●● something interesting to ordinary characters. It's not obvious.
●●●●
●●●● Anywhere on FA, type in a sentence of text. Now copy that sentence and put
●●●● it in bold. Ie.:
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Take a look at this sentence, for example.
●●●●
●●●● Take a look at this sentence, for example.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Nothing unusual here. The bold text is still in Verdana font, but a different
●●●● set of font metrics are now in use to give us the fat letters. The length of the
●●●● sentence has changed a tiny bit, but it's barely noticeable. The new font metrics
●●●● only really affect shape.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● The surprise was learning that the metrics for one character in particular
●●●● *are* affected: The hard space.
●●●●
●●●● A normal space and a hard space are the same size. No problemo. A normal
●●●● space and an italiced hard space are the same size too.
●●●●
●●●● To prove it, see below. The first string is made up of normal spaces and Xs.
●●●● The second contains italiced hard spaces between each X, using the [ i] [ /i] tags.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
●●●●
●●●● x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
●●●●
●●●● x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● The last string? Bolded hard spaces between the Xs. And they're *shorter*
●●●● than a normal space. Put a hard space between the [ b] and [ /b] tags and it
●●●● shrinks by roughly 25%. Squee, Ah say, Ah say, squee.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Whuffo is this such a revelation? Well, a digression into the history of
●●●● printing might be helpful here, but to skip that let's just say we now have a type
●●●● size differential to play with. A normal space, a hard space, and a bolded hard
●●●● space all show up on screen the same way: As a space.
●●●●
●●●● But one of them's just a leetle smaller. And it doesn't get eaten. Meaning we
●●●● can now position text on the screen with *extreme* precision. Specifically, to the
●●●● difference in length between a hard space and a bolded hard space.
●●●●
●●●● In point of fact, this is the kind of precision you'd get if FA had some of
●●●● those advanced formatting features, and was furiously doing all that behind-the-
●●●● scenes measuring. We're down to the pica, in other words, and FA's text
●●●● processing code doesn't even know it.
●●●●
●●●● (Better than the pica, actually. A pica is a very small typographic unit of
●●●● measure, 0.1660 inches. The differential we have here is somewhere around
●●●● 0.012 inches. This is almost below screen resolution.)
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Or, to put it in terms my Grandfather the printer would smile at, we now
●●●● have two different sizes of 'slugs' to drop into a line of type to make it come out
●●●● perfectly on the page. Roll presses, and run that sucker at six. Fortunately for
●●●● our fur we're not dealing with hot lead here on FA, but the principle is the same.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Finally: The FAWD logo. Since how it's done ought to make sense now. And
●●●● everything else about the FAWD, for that matter. Seems quite ordinary, nothing
●●●● you wouldn't see on any regular website.
●●●●
●●●● But under the hood there's an absolute huuuge plethora of hard spaces and
●●●● bolded hard spaces inside that align and format everything to a T. A *lot* of
●●●● editing and tweaking of spaces and words went into getting it right.
●●●●
●●●● And this is a big downside to the idea, since no WP software ever built can
●●●● do this for you. Gotta set it up manually. Practice and experiment pays off.
●●●●
●●●● It took some to make the FAWD logo work out right. What you type can't
●●●● and won't resemble what you think it should look like. You'll only find that out
●●●● when you hit Post. Then go back and edit some more until it works. A bit hard on
●●●● the eyes after a while.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Here is what the FAWD logo looks like as the FA text processing code thinks
●●●● it should look (as in, the way it looks everywhere on the FAWD):
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● ●●●●●● ● |
●●●● ● ● ● |
●●●● ●●●● ●●●● |
●●●● ● ● ● |
●●●● ● Writers |
●●●● Directory |
●●●● v1.0 |
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Now here's the text that did it, with all the hard spaces replaced by a *. AND
●●●● with an extra normal space inside the color and bold tags (or they'd take effect
●●●● here).
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● *****[ color=#2E2EFE]●●●●●●[ b]**[ /b]●[ /color]*************|
●●●● *****[ color=#2E2EFE]●******[ b]**[ /b]●*●*[ /color]***********|
●●●● *****[ color=#2E2EFE]●●●●[ b]***[ /b]●●●●[ /color]**********[ b]*[ /b]|
●●●● *****[ color=#2E2EFE]●*****[ b]*[ /b]●****[ b]*[ /b]●[ /color]**********|
●●●● *****[ color=#2E2EFE]●[ /color]*****[ b]Writers[ /b]*****[ b]*[ /b]**|
●●●● ************[ b]Directory[ /b]**[ b]**[ /b]*|
●●●● ************[ b]v1.0[ /b]******[ b]*[ /b]*****|
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● It took a couple of pages to get here, and now you know why. This is *not*
●●●● like anything that most people on FA have ever seen before. How it works: Now
●●●● you know that too. Use the right strings of hard spaces and bolded hard spaces,
●●●● in the right places, and everything lines up precisely.
●●●●
●●●● This might not be easy to type in. If you want to be meticulous you can do
●●●● it. Better idea: Just copy this text off the screen, edit it, and it'll work.
●●●●
●●●● Replace the *s with hard spaces. Don't forget to take the normal spaces out
●●●● of the color and bold tags. Hit Post. There it is.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● (Notice the use of the | character, the vertical bar. When you're editing,
●●●● drop this in everywhere. It'll help you measure by eye as you try to get things to
●●●● line up. Then delete them. Left a few in here just for show.)
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● As for how you lay paws on the hard space character, that's easy. Windows
●●●● has a small utility called Character Map. Other OS's, there's likely something
●●●● similar.
●●●●
●●●● Select the Verdana font, drop down to character #160--it's a space, sorta
●●●● visible--and select and copy the hard space. Then paste it in to replace the *s.
●●●●
●●●● You may need to go after the ball character too. Waaay down at the bottom
●●●● of the font table, (#25CF hex). It is actually outside the range of normal ASCII
●●●● characters; can't be typed in from the keyboard. No matter. Select, copy, and
●●●● paste it in.
●●●●
●●●● And/or most WP software will let you insert special characters into text, and
●●●● finding the hard space and the ball character won't take long. When using WP
●●●● software it can help to toggle on the visibility feature (show hidden characters,
●●●● hard spaces, carriage returns, etc.). Using search and replace can also be very
●●●● handy. Your choice.
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● Ironic, a bit. The FAWD logo was the very first thing designed. And in it is
●●●● the secret to how the rest of this giant pile was built. That logo is a lot more
●●●● significant than it looks.
●●●●
●●●● But to just look at it doesn't do you any good. And just laying out the text
●●●● that does it wouldn't help you much either. You'd be typing that in (in order to
●●●● copy it) without knowing what the heck you're doing or why it looks that way.
●●●● Trouble ahead.
●●●●
●●●● Now you know. No trouble. Copy, copy, copy. :- )
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●●
●●●● <<< To Main Page <<< To FAQ-Ruleset To FAQ-Ruleset Map Page >>>
●●●●
●●●●
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