Some users may have noticed already, that we’ve just added support for Markdown to the stories.
Markdown is an easy way to use formatting (like bold text etc.) with plain texts. See this posting for more details about how this works and how it can be used.
Also, as part of this feature, all texts (including the existing ones) are now rendered a bit differently, like using indentation of the first line in each paragraph and automatic usage of typographic characters.
In some cases, existing stories could be rendered strangely, with unintended formatting. For example, if the author used some * (asterisks) characters in his text, the Markdown parser might interpret that as text that has to be rendered in bold or italic.
So my request to all authors: Please check your stories, if they are still rendered correctly. If not, please edit them to fix that (by avoiding * characters).
Also, as a reader, if you come across a story which is displayed incorrectly, especially if it hinders the readability, please let us know at admin@gayspiralstories.com
I hope you (both authors and readers) like this new feature and will make use of the new possibilities where appropriate. Please feel free to give me your thoughts and requests!
Could first line indentation be disabled or made optional? It doesn’t seem that common anywhere else (e.g. news sites). For me it also has distracting connotations with school essay writing.
As somebody who engages in typography I can say that indenting the first line is a very common thing in books (so for reading longer stories). It shall help to say that a new paragraph starts.
But there are some catches: You intend only paragraphs that follow another paragraph (in CSS: p + p). You never intend the first paragraph and never a paragraph that follows a subtitle or figure in the text. Also, you either set an empty line between paragraphs or intend the first line, never both.
Personally I like the indention (and use it in my private blog), but spacing paragraphs with an empty line is easier in most cases.
Sorry, that’s really off-topic here, maybe the admin wants to open up a new thread.
Well, actually I personally like the indentations, they’re quite common for novels. Not so much for news, though.
I can removed it of course, it’s just a CSS option anyway.
With the new text rendering module I’ve integrated, the paragraphs are actually properly tagged with <p> … </p>, that there’s an space between two paragraphs is done using CSS, too. Right now, the stories are rendered with this simple css rule:
.storyText p
{
padding-bottom: 15px;
text-indent: 3%;
}
So I can reduce the spacing a bit, if you think it’s too much. But won’t get rid of it, because I hate walls of text.
And, this is the perfect place to discuss this, no need for a new thread. Actually, I just realized that the horizontal ruler (created by putting — in a single line) is not rendered properly any longer.
It should look like this:
As soon as I find the time, I have to figure out why this isn’t working as it should.