Split quotes - a mystery still unsolved

[DM51]

Quoted posts are sometimes split into separate paragraphs, for no apparent reason. This is a test to try and find out why. I am going to put 2 paragraph marks after this sentence (return key).

Now after this sentence I am going to put 2 x line breaks (shift + return).

Now I'm going to post it, then quote it in post #2 to see if there is any difference in whether it splits or not when quoted, and if it does, after which paragraph.

[DM51]

OK, let's see what happens:

Originally Posted by DM51

Quoted posts are sometimes split into separate paragraphs, for no apparent reason. This is a test to try and find out why. I am going to put 2 paragraph marks after this sentence (return key).

Now after this sentence I am going to put 2 x line breaks (shift + return).

Now I'm going to post it, then quote it in post #2 to see if there is any difference in whether it splits or not when quoted, and if it does, after which paragraph.

[DM51]

Maaan. It didn't split at all. So I'm no nearer finding out why this happens. I'll leave this here on the off-chance that someone else reads it and has noticed the same thing, and has a bright idea.

I may come back to it later if I think of anything else.

[Daniel_sk]

Originally Posted by DM51

Maaan. It didn't split at all. So I'm no nearer finding out why this happens. I'll leave this here on the off-chance that someone else reads it and has noticed the same thing, and has a bright idea.

I may come back to it later if I think of anything else.

I'm not really sure what do you mean by "split quotes". Did you quote a message and the quote itself was split, but you didn't do it? Could you send a link to a thread where that happened?

[DM51]

Originally Posted by Daniel_sk

I'm not really sure what do you mean by "split quotes". Did you quote a message and the quote itself was split, but you didn't do it? Could you send a link to a thread where that happened?

Yes, exactly that. It has happened 3-4 times when I've quoted posts that have more than one paragraph. And when I've tried editing out the split afterwards, it even comes back again! There is an example here:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...25&postcount=6

Note to mods: maybe this thread belongs more correctly in the problems sub-forum, if it continues. I didn't post it there initially as I hoped I might be able to find the answer myself.

[Daniel_sk]

Test...

Originally Posted by Kentuckian

I'm haing a bit of confusion. I just about had my heart set on the WE recharchable Rattlesnake with the HO-9L High Output 9V Lamp(380 lumen) so I would have the option of using the 3.7V Rechargeable Batteries or 123's. The problem that Glen pointed out in another thread is that the HO-9L High Output 9V Lamp is rated to use the 23.7's or three 123's and the Rattlesnake holds four 123's. Now I don't know what to do all over again!

Edit: I copied the same quote you were referring to and posted it here, but it didn't split up... I'll try more things..

[Daniel_sk]

One reason might be that Kentuckian's post uses two different fonts, the first part uses Verdana and the second part uses Arial font. And the quote was split exactly in the part where the font was changed...
Could you try to click "edit" on your post and see if there are two seperate quotes?
(it would look like (quote) .... (/qoute), (quote) .... (/qoute)) .

Note - I used different brackets in this examples, so that the system doesn't recognize them as real quotes.

[DM51]

Originally Posted by Daniel_sk

One reason might be that Kentuckian's post uses two different fonts, the first part uses Verdana and the second part uses Arial font. And the quote was split exactly in the part where the font was changed...
Could you try to click "edit" on your post and see if there are two seperate quotes?
(it would look like (quote) .... (/qoute), (quote) .... (/qoute)) .

Note - I used different brackets in this examples, so that the system doesn't recognize them as real quotes.

Yes, it does look like that, with the {quote} then {/quote} to make the split. The thing is, I did not put that there, and it wasn't there when I was adding my comments to the quote just before posting.

And when I noticed it and went back straightaway to try to edit it out, I deleted these extra quote-unquote handles, but as soon as I pressed "submit" it happened again - the server simply put them back!

I thought it might be the new system, where the quoted posts are now marked by number ie in the format {quote=bonehead;1234567} but somewhere else I even edited out that number and the split still reappeared.

EDIT: And drat it, your post didn't split there!

[DM51]

I’m trying something else, again quoting my original post. This time, I used the quote button which opened the editing text window, with the quoted text in it within the usual quote-unquote handles.

I then used Ctrl+C to copy it, and Ctrl+V to paste it into a text-editor to make sure of not losing it. Then I wrote this text. Now I shall copy the whole lot (including the quoted text) back into the thread as a new post.

Originally Posted by DM51

Quoted posts are sometimes split into separate paragraphs, for no apparent reason. This is a test to try and find out why. I am going to put 2 paragraph marks after this sentence (return key).

Originally Posted by DM51

Now after this sentence I am going to put 2 x line breaks (shift + return).

Now I'm going to post it, then quote it in post #2 to see if there is any difference in whether it splits or not when quoted, and if it does, after which paragraph.

YES!! The quote split itself this time. It was the fact that I had used a text-editor (MSWord in this case). Also, it split after the para return, not the line break. Maybe this is a factor - I'm not sure. I have to go now but I will investigate further later.

[DM51]

Now I will try to confirm it is the para mark causing the split, rather than the line break. Using the same quote (from post #1) to keep the post # there. However I have altered the breaks so they are BOTH line breaks – no para marks now. Text altered slightly for accuracy (altered text in bold). Let’s see what happens.

Originally Posted by DM51

Quoted posts are sometimes split into separate paragraphs, for no apparent reason. This is a test to try and find out why. I am going to put 2 line breaks after this sentence (shift + return key).

Now after this sentence I am going to put 2 x line breaks (shift + return).

Now I'm going to post it, then quote it in post #2 to see if there is any difference in whether it splits or not when quoted, and if it does, after which paragraph.

[DM51]

That seemed to work - there was no split. It would seem that line breaks must be used if you edit posts in a text-editor rather than in the forum's editing box.

HOWEVER, I was about to add this comment as a footnote to post #10, and on pressing "edit" something very odd happened. The text appeared, but the quote split had reappeared. I therefore cancelled the edit to preserve post #10 and posted the comment here. I will post the identical unaltered text again, in the post following this one, and then I will edit it to add a footnote.

[DM51]

Now I will try to confirm it is the para mark causing the split, rather than the line break. Using the same quote (from post #1) to keep the post # there. However I have altered the breaks so they are BOTH line breaks – no para marks now. Text altered slightly for accuracy (altered text in bold). Let’s see what happens.

Originally Posted by DM51

Quoted posts are sometimes split into separate paragraphs, for no apparent reason. This is a test to try and find out why. I am going to put 2 line breaks after this sentence (shift + return key).

Originally Posted by DM51

Now after this sentence I am going to put 2 x line breaks (shift + return).

Now I'm going to post it, then quote it in post #2 to see if there is any difference in whether it splits or not when quoted, and if it does, after which paragraph.

Edit: The split has reappeared. A mystery. Maybe this thread should be moved now.

[DM51]

For the sake of clarity: there is no difference between posts #10 and #12, except that post #12 was re-edited after posting to add a footnote, in the hope that this would provoke a recurrence of the split. It did.