FORMATTING forum questions/responses..... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2018, 01:41:36 pm
content: What ever my 'knowledge' I was ignorant of certain 'Formatting'of text within questions/responses..... I'm SURE all main contributorsalready understand, but for the other BEGINNERS, see......https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Alphabetical_list_of_all_bulletin_board_codesFor instance, if you are trying to show numbers to a power, then instead of seeing18 to the power 12, or 18^12, you will see... 1812(written as18{sup}12{/sup}but withsquarebrackets instead ofcurlybrackets )(The sup meaning superscript)There are many more !!!!!

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2018, 02:11:01 pm
content: Still for most things, formatting is the icing on the cake, making a good question that people will actually try and solve is the hard part.Too many years of answering questions on my part means I'm horrible at writing them in a way people will reply to.If you can get a 2 page rolling discussion that stays on topic, I would see you as a master wordsmith,

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2018, 02:29:57 pm
content: The super and subscript formatting is also useful for fractions:2/3,5/8,9/16etc.

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2018, 03:12:19 pm
content: EEVblog also supports MathJax for writing more complex equations. Seehttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/so-now-we-can-get-mathy-in-here/

author: NivagSwerdna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2018, 03:13:25 pm
content: <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< You learn something every day!

author: tpowell1830
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2018, 07:31:14 pm
content: I have been trying to figure this out... hmm does this work?EDIT: Sadly, no, I only wanted the link to show, not the huge YT screen...

author: metrologist
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2018, 07:48:20 pm
content: just slightly OT, but I noticed some of the large YT video screens show the video time. I thought it was a new thing they added, but I rarely see it.

author: ucanel
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2018, 09:56:54 pm
content: Another subject about this that bothers me,even highly contributed forum members does this;they are writing a detailed description of a wire-component connectionsinstead of sharing a simple schematic of what they are describing,as an engineering forum I would prefer universal and easy to understand language that is schematic.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2018, 09:45:08 am
content: Quote from: ucanel on May 14, 2018, 09:56:54 pmIn some instances they might not have a schematic and don't have time or the tools handy to draw one.

author: ucanel
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2018, 03:15:37 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on May 15, 2018, 09:45:08 amDaveCad is always an option,who has not got an pen and paper and a mobile phone to take a photo.If you would said that is because of laziness I would agree.

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2018, 03:24:26 pm
content: Quote from: ucanel on May 15, 2018, 03:15:37 pmI'd rather parse a text description of a netlist than suffer another poorly lit blurred and shaky photo of a schematic drawn on the back of an off-white envelope with a crappy pen or 2H pencil by someone who's never met a ruler. It doesn't save *ANYONE* time or effort if you have to faff around with the schematic for ten minutes in Photoshop to get it to the point where you can distinguish between connections and crossovers and actually read component values.Also those quickly snapped photos of schematics almost invariably have excessive file sizes which are burdens on both the server (unless hosted elsewhere*) and the bandwidth of everyone viewing the topicProducing a readable schematic takes time and effort, and many novice questions would go unanswered if one was required here whenever a circuit with more than two two terminal components was being discussed.* Offsite images have their own problems. e.g.https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/30/photobucket_charging_400yr_3rdparty_pgs/

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2018, 03:35:56 pm
content: Yes, I've often get frustrated having to process a poor photograph of a pencil drawing to make it readable.Quote from: ucanel on May 15, 2018, 03:15:37 pmPhone data can be expensive and is often limited. Text uses a faction of the data, as a photograph, so it often makes sense to describe the circuit in a few lines, especially if it's very simple. I think people are too lazy to read and want everything handed to them on a plate.The above is also a pain when people post overly large fuzzy photos of schematics, >10M pixels at 32-bit colour, when a sub 1M pixel, 1-bit monochrome line drawing would do.

author: ucanel
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2018, 05:45:12 pm
content: I am glad to hear your point of wiev about this subject thanks.I agree the unnecessary big file size and blurry photos and bad schematicsbut that is not my concern at the other hand there is poor text description is an issue either.Maybe it is because of English is not my main language and schematic seems easy to understand for me,And also I have a very bad photographic memory so I can not easily imagine what was desribed.That is only a suggestion, you may have your own style,I said my argument especially for the topic owners,as an answerer when I saw a topic I would prefer easily unaffordably understandable questions,hard job must be done by the question owner.

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2018, 06:07:37 pm
content: That's one of the reasons thatLTspiceis rather popular here. Even without its simulation capabilities its a reasonably easy to use free tool for drawing schematics that has a reasonably compact and well documented ASCII file format. It does have a few flaws, the most glaring of which is its lack of any easy way to tell if a part is original built-in or is a third party addon that must also be supplied to the recipientAs you have difficulty visualising circuits from English descriptions, I strongly encourage you to explicitly ask for a schematic if you are posting a question that needs a circuit in its answer.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2018, 01:34:15 pm
content: Quote from: Rerouter on May 14, 2018, 02:11:01 pmI hear you mate. And yes it is nice to sometimes stay on 'topic'. Although other times, it is 'interesting'where the conversation goes some times !!!! to add some diversity :-)I don't think any of us think of ourselves as 'Master Wordsmiths' but of course we like to get across whatit is we want to get across. The PROBLEM with 'typed' text is that it is just that! It does not show anyreal 'inflection' of tone/sarcasm/humor/ light heartedness (or seriousness) as required/meant.....and so is open to massive interpretations/misinterpretations, right or wrong. Hence.....Often 'exaggerated' smiley-faces and exclamation marks :-)In general, I was happy and in agreeance with the responses here, and so wish to add......I didn't realize how many other links there were to basic Forum formatting.... (My ignorance :-) )I learn't so much more than I initially posted. Thanks to all !!! Glenn

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 16, 2018, 01:53:50 pm
content: Quote from: Ian.M on May 14, 2018, 03:12:19 pmDavid found some sort of message during the server move checking that MathJax is no longer support and may cease to function?

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2018, 03:44:14 pm
content: Without having access to that message, I see the forum is currently using the cloudflare hosted MathJax library v2.71. I suspect that updating to the current version before the old version gets depreciated would be advisable.There's nothing onhttps://www.mathjax.org/news/that would indicate any concerns for the future of MathJax, so unless a future SMF update totally and unresolvably breaks MathJax integration I wouldn't expect it to be very difficult to keep MathJax support working here.