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Author Topic: ASCII Characters  (Read 39638 times)

Offline Bob B.

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ASCII Characters
« on: January 16, 2013, 09:06:26 AM »
Since many scientific variables are represented by Greek letters, I've often tried to use ASCII codes to display these when posting to the forum.  I'm almost certain that at one time this worked, but lately no.  (Perhaps the last software update disabled something.)  Doubly frustrating is that often the characters seem to display OK in a preview, but when I post, they're replaced by a ? symbol.  Do you know of anyway to use or allow special characters?
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Offline Bob B.

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Re: ASCII Characters
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2013, 09:19:36 AM »
The following is a test

? ÷ ? ?

(edit)  The above is the exact same test I performed here at Apollohoax.  From some reason the division sign displayed OK but not the others.  There's something different here that's not allowing these characters to be displayed.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2013, 09:26:13 AM by Bob B. »
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Offline Satanic Mechanic

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Re: ASCII Characters
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2013, 11:39:29 AM »
On other forums I am on where Greek letters are used, I usually find a character that is close or I spell it out.  Example: Mu = u and I spell out Ohms since I cannot type the omega symbol.  One thing you could do is write the equation in MS Paint and display it as a .jpeg picture on the post.
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Offline Bob B.

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Re: ASCII Characters
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2013, 11:53:06 AM »
Usually I just right the word, e.g. delta-v, but I'd rather use the symbol.  I think Apollohoax (LO's other forum) uses the same software as here, and it seems to be working over there.  I'm hoping there's a simple solution. (fingers crossed)
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Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: ASCII Characters
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2013, 08:38:25 PM »
? ÷ ? ?

Hmm... is it working now?

I just installed the jsTex plugin for doing equations. It was the only difference between this forum and ApolloHoax.net that I could see.
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Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: ASCII Characters
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2013, 08:38:45 PM »
Damn. It was working in the preview.
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Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: ASCII Characters
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2013, 08:47:54 PM »
Code: [Select]
? ÷ ? ?
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Offline Bob B.

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Re: ASCII Characters
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2013, 10:35:28 PM »
Quote from: LunarOrbit on January 16, 2013, 08:38:45 PM
Damn. It was working in the preview.

That's the problem I've been having.  It's been pissing me off.
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Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: ASCII Characters
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2013, 10:46:05 PM »
I'm kind of stumped. The fact that the characters show in the preview makes me suspect that something happens after they are saved to the database. I'm just not sure why.
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Offline Bob B.

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Re: ASCII Characters
« Reply #9 on: January 17, 2013, 08:57:57 AM »
I don't know when I first started to notice this problem, though I'm sure it's at least been a couple months.  My recollection is that it wasn't always that way, so I went back through my old posts to find the last time I was able to post special characters and it appears to be March 3, 2012.  I was surprized to see that I didn't make a single post between March and December of last year (that's got to be my longest dry spell ever).  I think whatever is causing this happened sometime during that period.

By the way, the following are the characters I posted the last time it worked.  Let's see if it works now.

? ?

(edit)  Nope, obviously not.
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Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: ASCII Characters
« Reply #10 on: January 17, 2013, 11:19:50 PM »
I had some issues with the forum back in the summer and ended up having to get my web host to restore a backup of the database. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

I'm going to spend some time on the weekend trying to figure this out. Google hasn't been much help so far.
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" We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
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