Signature Lines 13

[XR250]

@Dik and others who have signature lines...

For me, it makes it annoying to follow posts sometimes - especially when the responses are short as I incorporate the sentence into the response I am reading. Are these really necessary?

See the attached thread...

Anyhow, maybe I am just easily annoyed

 

[IRstuff]

Your example's area usage is not due to the signature, since it's clearly visible near the bottom of that post pictured.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

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[dold]

@IRstuff, yes I'm aware of that. It's just a separate but similar rant aside from the signatures.

 

[EngDM]

This thread has devolved into something... interesting.

 

[KootK]

One potential annoyance I see is that if signatures are given their own little <div> for signatures rather that what seems to be text in every post (given edits seem to kill them) then displaying a signature on an older post will lead to some annoying doubling up without hiding all the existing sigs

That's an astute observation.

Currently, signatures just get "flattened" into the body text. So, short of a messy query operation, any post with a signature will always have that signature. And, as you say, the structure of the new #5 system would result in older posts usually having two signatures. Gross.

My guess is that the resolution to this would have to be to only apply the new signature routine to posts made after the new system took effect. That's still yucky but gets the job done.

There's actually a more nefarious problem associated with this as well. I'll get into that next.

[sub]That's a horrible idea. What time?[/sub]

 

[Just Some Nerd]

I imagine there's some half-assed solution that hides signatures from posts that weren't edited, as they aren't entirely lumped in with the body of the text yet. Haven't touched any software since highschool but I imagine there might be a way to hide everything inside the "sig" class.

As you'd expect from how this site behaves, that class is not there for any edited posts, so the problem of old signatures doesn't get 100% fixed.

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Why yes, I do in fact have no idea what I'm talking about

 

[KootK]

As great of an idea as #5 is, I'd be pretty surprised if we got that at this time. It'll probably be harder to implement than some folks think that it will be.

Currently, signatures are really just flattened text added to the text fields of the post records. Once a post is created, the signatures are static and "non-relational" in the database sense.

To implement #5, post records would need need to be displayed based on a query like the one shown below that draws the signature in dynamically & relationally each time that the query is run.

This change is also not a big deal in the grand scheme of database manipulation. It is, however, on an entirely different scale from just formatting signatures when they're added to the body text.

I'll ask around to see how viable #5 is for the folks that would be making the change. That said, it is my expectation that all we'll get out of this exercise is probably:

#3) Force signatures to be visually distinct from regular comment text. <-- the cluttered, multiline version.

Still, incremental improvement and better than nothing.

[sub]That's a horrible idea. What time?[/sub]

 

[KootK]

...as they aren't entirely lumped in with the body of the text yet.

Fascinating. The signatures must be stored in a flat/dead "signature" field in the "posts" table at the time that the post records are created.

If that's the case then #5 stays easy, which would be great news.

[sub]That's a horrible idea. What time?[/sub]

 

[JohnRBaker]

Note that the 'signature' used in the 'Ugly Hedgehog Photography Forum', a picture of which I posted earlier today, that information is 'live', that is that any changes, like a new 'avatar', will update every instance of your posts.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[dold]

I imagine there's some half-assed solution that hides signatures from posts that weren't edited, as they aren't entirely lumped in with the body of the text yet.

Yea this is interesting from my layman's point of view. The signature field does seem to get 'flattened' into the body when the post is edited. I wonder if the editing process just copies the entire post record and recreates it (without preserving the <p class="sig"> thing). Again, dold = html layman.

For those curious you can right click on any part of the page and select 'inspect' from the context menu.

Unedited post:

Edited post:

 

[dold]

Ok well I've solved the whole issue (at least for unedited posts). On my browser (Brave) I can create custom filters to block certain elements. In particular it is the ".sig" element.

I don't see anybody's signatures (on unedited posts) with this filter applied. I'd expect you can do something similar on Chrome?

 

[ggcdn]

FYI For you signature haters out there, if you have ublock origin chrome extension you can set up a rule to hide signatures.

Click on the extension, go to Settings > My Filters. Add this rule, hit apply, and refresh site.

eng-tips.com##p.sig:style(display:none;)

It wont hide edited post signatures however.

-JA ([link calcs.app]Calcs.app[/url])

 

[Just Some Nerd]

Judging from the two separate solutions above, seems pretty trivial then to hide the signatures from old posts?

Note that the 'signature' used in the 'Ugly Hedgehog Photography Forum', a picture of which I posted earlier today, that information is 'live', that is that any changes, like a new 'avatar', will update every instance of your posts.

I assumed that was the intent of tying the signature to the user and not the post, and is much neater than having to store the signature text for every single post individually imo.



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Why yes, I do in fact have no idea what I'm talking about

 

[JohnRBaker]

Actually, there is an signature option in the 'Ugly Hedgehog Photography Forum', which I just enabled today (see updated image below). It limits you to three lines and the presentation is such that it will never be confused for being part of the body of the post:

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[phamENG]

FYI For you signature haters out there, if you have ublock origin chrome extension you can set up a rule to hide signatures.

Click on the extension, go to Settings > My Filters. Add this rule, hit apply, and refresh site.

CODE

eng-tips.com##p.sig:style(display:none


It wont hide edited post signatures however.

This works for ublock in firefox as well. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Celt83]

Are the site folks really going to invest in updating the forum backend to accomplish any of this, if a planned modernization of the platform is coming down the pipe there are probably much more significant features we'd all rather have and the signature "issue" would probably be self resolving at that point.

I don't really have a strong opinion either way, from the perspective of personal advertisement for my site the signature is nice but from the metrics I see it really doesn't/didn't generate much traffic, significant upticks happen when it's mentioned as part of a response with proper context to the question being asked. When it comes to comments about software in general it is nice to know if the person commenting is associated with said software but that could just as easily be accomplished by a username decorator.
ex.

 

[KootK]

...if a planned modernization of the platform is coming down the pipe...

To my knowledge, there is no planned modernization coming down the the pipe. That's why the primary goal of this exercise is simply to develop a mechanism by which incremental change can be successfully implemented.

Are the site folks really going to invest in updating the forum backend to accomplish any of this

They have expressed an interest in helping with this. Whether or not that intrest can be translated into action remains to be seen and, in part, may depend on our ability to form a consensus with respect to the changes desired.

[sub]That's a horrible idea. What time?[/sub]

 

[Denial]

KootK.[&nbsp;] By "To my knowledge, there is no planned modernization coming down the the pipe" do you mean that (a) you know for a fact that there is no planned modernization, or (b) you are unaware of what Site Management's intentions might or might not be?

[sub][&nbsp;]—————————————————————————————————[/sub]
[sup]Engineering mathematician/analyst[&nbsp;] (see my profile for more details)[/sup]

 

[XR250]

Click on the extension, go to Settings > My Filters. Add this rule, hit apply, and refresh site.

CODE
eng-tips.com##p.sig:style(display:none

It wont hide edited post signatures however.

Seems to work. I think Dik is intentionally editing all of his posts so we must continue view his.

 

[dik]

I often edit my posts, to add material... it's not to thwart anyone.

​

I've already got that problem sorted out. I've programmed my keyboard (I have one that is programmable) and can hit a single key to embed my signature in the text message body, not relying on the site's signature. I've checked it on my son's website and it works great...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[XR250]

I've programmed my keyboard (I have one that is programmable) and can hit a single key to embed my signature in the text message body, not relying on the site's signature. I've checked it on my son's website and it works great...

Is that really necessary? I'm not sure I even understand the point of your signature. Please explain.