The Guardian of Forever

[blacknblue]

The problem, once again and forevermore, is that technical people always, Always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS assume that everyone else is as comfortable with technical issues as they are. After all, it is no problem for them to open up a window to the command line and input a few commands to reconfigure the setup files, so anyone should be able to do it, right? There is no reason to bother with installing a GUI app to accomplish something that anyone should be able to do.

There is no reason to believe that any stay at home mom, or retired father with a bum ticker, who has either spent his career outside looking through a theodolite, or when he was in the office he was punching keys on a CADD station or a spreadsheet - not a programming terminal - would have any issues with being forced to pull his mind away from his storytelling to focus on inputting these incomprehensible squiggles and esoteric hieroglyphics that everyone assures him are vitally necessary for some reason.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

The problem, once again and forevermore, is that technical people always, Always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS assume that everyone else is as comfortable with technical issues as they are. After all, it is no problem for them to open up a window to the command line and input a few commands to reconfigure the setup files, so anyone should be able to do it, right? There is no reason to bother with installing a GUI app to accomplish something that anyone should be able to do.

There is no reason to believe that any stay at home mom, or retired father with a bum ticker, who has either spent his career outside looking through a theodolite, or when he was in the office he was punching keys on a CADD station or a spreadsheet - not a programming terminal - would have any issues with being forced to pull his mind away from his storytelling to focus on inputting these incomprehensible squiggles and esoteric hieroglyphics that everyone assures him are vitally necessary for some reason.

Exactly what I mean when I reiterate that making writers do the coding will only accomplish that many of them just won't submit their stories. As I said elsewhere, coding could be done simply - by the staff - using things such as FreeWebs.

[CX]

I created an account, and I'm not seeing anything that will give me the coding.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

I created an account, and I'm not seeing anything that will give me the coding.

You have to create a page. Then you can use that page (or any other page you create) to paste the text into. It should be under "build & edit" and "Site Manager".

[CX]

And then what?

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

If you're at the "Site Manager" just click on the "New Page" button. After that it's pretty self explanatory. I think there's a tutorial somewhere there as well.

Anyway, I just copied and pasted your "The Letter" story to create this test page, just to show how easy and fast it is. Then when you're editing that page you can shift Paragraph type from "Paragraph Editor" to "Raw HTML Paragraph" and it will show you the coding, such as this:

Code: Select all

<P>By CX <BR>Rating: PG-13 (for adult language) <BR>Disclaimer: Same old spiel about how Paramount owns everything, but they can kiss my ass since they felt the need to kill the franchise. <BR>Author's Note: Pretty much everyone else is making a real hopeless romantic type deal out of this, and I can't help but think that a real guy who's been dumped this many times by the same woman might not be so… wistful. I also haven't read the book yet, but my beta <B>Rigil Kent</B> has, so any inaccuracies are all his fault. He also gave me the idea to write this letter too, so … yeah, all his fault. </P>
<P></P>
<P>
<HR>
</P>
<P>Trip plopped down in the chair that was next to the small desk in his modest quarters, his body and mind exhausted from the work that he had once again thrown himself into. He knew that it was a bad habit, that eventually his body would pay the price for this pattern of behavior, but right now he really didn't care. He had to do something, anything, to get his mind off of the pain he was feeling, and the person that was causing it. T'Pol. </P>
<P>So far, he hadn't been successful. No matter how hard he worked, no matter what task he tried to occupy his mind with, his thoughts kept drifting back to the beautiful Vulcan woman he'd given his heart to, only to have her break it, not once, not twice, but three times. Yet, try as he might, he couldn't forget about how she'd made him feel when they were together. How he'd felt when he finally realized that he was in love with her. The last time they'd gotten back together, he'd finally gotten her to admit <I>her</I> feelings for him, and though things had been a bit rocky at first, he'd hoped that they could finally make it work. But then there had been Elizabeth, and she had changed everything. </P>
<P>Trip fought back tears as he pulled his boots off, the image of his daughter haunting his vision. He'd hardly gotten a chance to see her before she'd died. She might not have been of his making, but he still accepted her as her own. And that had been the beginning of the end. </P>
<P>He kicked his boots under the desk. He was angry, and frustrated, and he had to get what he was thinking out of his head and onto something tangible, so he had at least a matchstick's chance in hell of getting to sleep tonight. He looked through the shelf over his desk, searching for something physical to write on. Typing something into the computer, or a padd, just wouldn't do. He pulled a binder from the shelf, one of the many technical manuals written for <I>Enterprise</I>. He flipped it open, and tore out the blank page that was just inside the cover. He didn't even bother to shelve the binder again, simply tossing it absently aside on his desk while he searched for a pen. </P>
<P>For several minutes, Trip simply stared at the blank page. He felt the tears falling silently down his cheeks, absently noting them as they fell on the desk, centimeters away from the sheet of paper. Finally, he brought his hand up, and put pen to paper. </P>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" align=center border=0>
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TD>
<P><I>I don't know if I'll ever give this to you. In fact, it would probably be best if I didn't since we still have to work together, somehow. To be honest, this is mostly for me, and getting my thoughts down on something so they aren't just bouncing around in my head. I've been trying my damnedest to ignore them, but it just isn't working. You’re all I think about, T'Pol. </I></P>
<P><I>To be blunt, I'm hurt, and I'm angry. I'm angry at you, T'Pol, and I'm angry at the situation I find myself in now. I know you probably wouldn't understand, but it kills me a little inside each time I look at you now, knowing that I can never be with you the way I want to be. Truthfully, I don't know if I'd want to anymore even if I had the chance. </I></P>
<P><I>I really don’t know what to make of us. From our first time together, you've been doing this to me. You'll act like you want to be with me, let me get close to you, only to push me away, again and again. I put up with it. I let you brush me off as some kind of damn science experiment. I watched you marry another man. I let you have all the time you needed when you wanted to find yourself again. And now, I'll let you find yourself again, on your own, but I'm not going to be waiting for you anymore. </I></P>
<P><I>I'd give anything right now to transfer to another ship, to put some distance between us so I don't have to see you every day. Starfleet would never put up with it though, not after I transferred to </I>Columbia<I>, just to transfer right back to </I>Enterprise<I>. You asked me then if I was leaving because of you. It might be a bit late to answer that question now, but yes, T'Pol, I was leaving because of you. I'd already sworn to myself then that you’d broken my heart for the last time, but fate seemed to have a different plan in store for me. </I></P>
<P><I>Lord knows I don't know what that plan is. The universe seems to have it in for me. Not only do I fall in love with a woman who can't seem to decide if she loves me back, but I've lost two children with her. I know you've felt the same pain that I have, I've felt it since Elizabeth died and we laid her to rest with your mother. It's just… There are times I wished you'd take that damn Vulcan logic of yours and shove it right up Surak's ass! </I></P>
<P><I>I feel for you T'Pol, you've suffered a lot since coming aboard </I>Enterprise<I>, but try as I might, I can't get you to realize that you don't need to be alone. </I></P>
<P><I>I just don't understand. I thought that we could mourn together, that we could grow stronger again together through our mutual loss. </I></P>
<P><I>I still love you T'Pol. Lord help me, but I do. Never have I loved anyone so deeply as I've loved you. It felt so right, me and you. Yes, I'm angry too, but I'm angry because I love you. I know you might not understand that, and I can't really explain it because I don't understand it either. I love you with all my heart, and my heart breaks every time I look upon your beautiful face now. I just wish you’d love me back. </I></P>
<P><I>I know you must still feel something, otherwise you wouldn't have wanted to make sure I'd stay. Part of me does want to stay too, against the chance that someday we might be together. I'm not sure if that day will ever come though, and if it did I don't know how I'd feel, or what I'd do. If you came to me right now and wanted to be with me, I honestly don't know what I'd do. Part of me would want to send you away, to protect myself, but part of me would want to just hold you, to feel you in my arms again. </I></P>
<P><I>I don't know if I'll actually stay or not. This pain is still fresh. I might heal over time, but I don't know. If I do leave, I'll probably have to leave Starfleet. I don't want to go, but I don't want to stay either. It hurts more now than before. Before I could blame Koss, or the reformation on Vulcan. But this time it was you, and I still can't figure out why. So I'm trapped here, stuck at arm's length from you. Still close to you, but light-years apart. </I></P>
<P><I>I don't know what I'll do yet. Maybe I'll leave, maybe I'll stay. Maybe I'll give you this letter someday too, or maybe I'll just burn it, and watch it turn to ash. I just don't know. </I></P>
<P><I>I love you, T'Pol, but God help me, I wish I didn't. </I></P>
<P><I>Trip</I></P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P>He sat back, and carefully folded the letter in on itself. As an afterthought, he wrote T'Pol's name on it, just in case he ever did decide to give it to her. Finished, he gave it an angry push with his fingertips, watching with an odd sense of satisfaction as the flimsy material slid to the back of his desk. </P>
<P>He felt fatigue wash over him. Stripping the remainder of his uniform off, he clumsily made his way to bed and flopped down. He couldn't quite close his eyes, though, and simply stared at the ceiling. As tired as he was, he knew he wasn't going to get any sleep. His thoughts drifted to the one friend he had left on board that he knew he could always count on. </P>
<P><I>Wonder if Malcolm's still up. I could sure go for a drink.</I></P>
<P>END</P>

[CX]

I get the same thing over again, and I can't see a single thing that I can click and it'll just spit out the HTML coding for me.

[blacknblue]

I downloaded some freeware WYSIWYG editors, and they give me different codes. For instance, instead of <p> they end the paragraph with <br> or some such thing.

I can't keep up. I give up. I am moving to the wilderness and finding a cave somewhere.

[Asso]

I have read all things above.
HELP!

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

That's weird, CX. That's not how it looks like for me!

This is how it looks like. First, here's how it looks like if I'm about to enter edit mode:



I click on "edit" (circled above) and then I get this:



From there (where I've pasted the text) I change from "Paragraph Editor" to "Raw HTML Paragraph" (circled above) and then I get this:



Which is the HTML coding.

[CoffeeCat]

I have read all things above.
HELP!

[CX]

That's weird, CX. That's not how it looks like for me!

Then I'm afraid that this is not a viable option for me if I can't get the coding out of it.

Unless someone can find me a good, free, WYSIWYG editor, I'm going to stick with my current requirements, though I'm probably going to take down the FreeWebs suggestion since it basically leads to no where on the HTML front. From everything I've seen of these editors, it's actually a ton easier to use the three basic tags for your stories than for me or anyone else to try to use one of these editors. HoT and TriS before me have had these requirements, so I'm not seeing any kind of an issue there because it certainly hasn't kept either of those sites from getting plenty of submissions.

[Distracted]

Actually, CX, all Bucky asked me to do were the italics tags in the body of the story. She did everything else. When I post a story on TriS, I like seeing the italics tags, but they're not required, and I put in everything else. The only stories I've ever written and posted on TriS that I put all the codes into have been the ones I posted myself. TriS takes stories all the time which lack paragraph tags. We put them in. That's one of the steps Elessar taught me when I learned to post stories. Now, if the author WANTS to put in the tags because he knows how, far be it from me to tell him not to do it.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

I found this online generator. I've tested it and it seems to work all right. You just paste the body of your text into the big box and then press the <> button and it'll give you the code.

[CX]

Paragraph tags are the easiest things in the world to add in HTML. All you have to do is copy-paste <p> at the beginning of every paragraph. And I'm guessing you never had to add tags for anything else because you only ever used italics in yours stories. Bucky had a program to add the paragraph coding, which is why she never required it in submissions.