Using the Quote Feature

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jamesyaqub
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Using the Quote Feature

Post #1

Post by jamesyaqub »

I read the responses of others and note that it is possible to select various sentences from a post and to respond to each of them in turn. Each quote will be highlighted in light blue and the new response will be below it in black type.

When I click on "quote" the entire original post appears. How, exactly... step by step, does one cut this up so that desired parts can be singled out.

I haven't been able to do this and have to make a single reply below the whole original post instead.

I suppose you can see that I know little about computers.

Thanks,

JY

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Divine Insight
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Re: Using the Quote Feature

Post #2

Post by Divine Insight »

jamesyaqub wrote: I read the responses of others and note that it is possible to select various sentences from a post and to respond to each of them in turn. Each quote will be highlighted in light blue and the new response will be below it in black type.

When I click on "quote" the entire original post appears. How, exactly... step by step, does one cut this up so that desired parts can be singled out.
There are several ways to do this. What I have done here is simply quote your entire post, and then typed in [ /quote ] (without spaces) after the above sentence. That ends the quoted section and I just start typing my reply to that second here.

The rest of your quoted post is still below where I am currently typing. If I want to include those quotes also I must fix them up.

There are two ways to do that.

One is to go straight to the top of this whole edit box and copy the original "quote tag" there and just paste it below where I am typing.

This gives the next part of your text a newly quoted start again.
jamesyaqub wrote: I haven't been able to do this and have to make a single reply below the whole original post instead.
I then go down below what I have quoted add another [ /quote ] (without spaces) and then start typing my reply to that like I am doing here.

Other thing I can do is to just select a part of your text as below and simply press on the "quote" button above the editor where I am typing. This will produce the following:
I suppose you can see that I know little about computers.
Notice here that it doesn't say who I am quoting, but it still surrounded your text with [ quote ] and [ /quote ] tags (which you could have also typed in manually without spaces of course.
jamesyaqub wrote: Thanks,

JY
You're welcome and I hope this helped.

~~~~~

Hopefully the following won't serve to confuse you, but there is also another way to do this.

When you quote someone simply select all text in the edit box and copy it. Before you start typing your reply.

Then simply select and erase all the text between the quote tags except what you want to respond to. Then write your response below that.

Then PASTE the whole quoted thing again below your reply (it will still be on you clipboard). A simply Ctrl-V will paste it.

Then again select and erase all but the text you want to reply to, and type your reply to that.

And so on, until you have responded to everything individually as you had desired.

~~~~

Either way will work.

There are probably other ways to do it as well.

Hope this helps and wasn't too confusing.

Also, after you have chopped up a post like that don't forget to PREVIEW it to make sure it all came out right and try to figure out what went wrong if things aren't how you expected them to be.

Other people may have better tips, but this is how I've been doing it.
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Re: Using the Quote Feature

Post #3

Post by McCulloch »

For what it is worth, this is what I do. I start be clicking the quote button. Then I copy into the clipboard the first quote tag. For example[font=Courier New] [quote="[url=http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 739#637739]Divine Insight[/url]"][/font] Then I scroll down to where I want a break. Manually type [font=Courier New][/quote][/font] and hit return twice. Select everything from the end quote tag to the end of the original quote tag and copy that to the clipboard. I can now simply paste wherever I want a new break.

And remember to edit for brevity. If you are only responding to selected sections of a post, it is not required that you repeat the entire posting. Particularly if it is lengthy.
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Post #4

Post by postroad »

You can glean some information on how others are achieving their results by looking on how it appears on the "Post a reply" box and how it looks at the bottom in "Topic review.

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Re: Using the Quote Feature

Post #5

Post by wiploc »

1. I scroll down to the bottom of this box that I'm responding to your post in. The last thing down there is the CLOSEQUOTE: (/QUOTE), but with square brackets rather than parentheses. I highlight that. I do CONTROL-C to copy it to the clipboard.

2. I hit ENTER. This isn't necessary, but it gets me to the next line to pretty things up. If you skip this step, you'll want to skip the next step too.

3. Press CONTROL-V to paste back in the closequote box that you just incidentally deleted by pressing Enter.

4. Hit ENTER six times. Nobody gets this. It has to do with prettyprinting, with making it easier to edit your mistakes after you've posted. Since you are going to post on the second line, this makes four lines of visual whitespace after any bit that you write. (This won't work if a particular discussion board's programming fights you. Some of them don't like blanklines, and take them out.)

5. Press CONTROL-V, to paste in another CLOSEQUOTE.

6. UP ARROW, RIGHT ARROW, RIGHT ARROW, DELETE. This will become habbit. It changes the CLOSEQUOTE to an OPENQUOTE: (quote), but with square brackets rather than parentheses.

7. Now you have about six lines starting with a CLOSEQUOTE and ending with an OPENQUOTE. Click and drag to highlight this block. Do a CONTROL-C to copy it to your clipboard. Shout hooray! because you're done with the repetitive part. You've saved this to your clipboard, so you don't have to go thru this process again until you either copy something else to your clipboard or turn off your computer.

8. Scroll up to the beginning, and start reading the post you want to respond to (deleting irrelevant parts, so that people who read your post won't have to wade thru material you aren't responding to). When you want to respond, CLICK to insert your cursor right where you want to comment. Then do CONTROL-V to paste in the block from your clipboard.

9. You now have a CLOSEQUOTE (ending the other guys' quoted material), followed by maybe six blanklines and an OPENQUOTE (which marks the resumption of the other guy's quoted material. CLICK on the second blankline, and start typing.

10. When you get to the end of the post, you'll find an extra OPENQUOTE that you need to delete for tidiness sake.

11. Next time you want to quote somebody, start at step 8, because you already have your desired block on your clipboard.

12. As soon as you discover how much you love this technique, and how much you wish it was automated, start petitioning the moderators or sysadmin to make a pushbutton that does it all in one click. Just like the quote button, and right next to the quote button, but that puts the CLOSEQUOTE at the top, and the OPENQUOTE at the bottom, and about five blanklines in between.

HEY! (per any western movie) or BEHOLD! (per the King James Bible) I've been talking about two different QUOTE buttons. That could cause some confusion.
jamesyaqub wrote: I read the responses of others and note that it is possible to select various sentences from a post and to respond to each of them in turn. Each quote will be highlighted in light blue and the new response will be below it in black type.
Now I've done this for real, rather than just describing the technique from memory, so I can say for certain that there are five blanklines.


When I click on "quote" the entire original post appears. How, exactly... step by step, does one cut this up so that desired parts can be singled out.
Anytime I get the whim, I can insert a cursor, do a CONTROL-V, and type a new bit of response. Couldn't be easier, once things are set up.


I haven't been able to do this and have to make a single reply below the whole original post instead.
Only now suppose you want to respond to several posts in one. What then? Don't left click on the QUOTE button. Right click it. Open the editing box in a new window, see. Then, you can CONTROL-TAB back to the original window to grab more text to paste into your editing window.

HEY! (per any western movie) or BEHOLD! (per the King James Bible) I've been talking about two different QUOTE buttons. That could cause some confusion. So let me clarify by pointing out that most of the time I've been talking about the quote button between the STRIKE and CODE buttons, above the editing or composition window. But, in the paragraph immediately above this one, I'm talking about the QUOTE button next to the REPLY button, the one that opens the editing or composition window.




I suppose you can see that I know little about computers.
I'm going to leave the extra OPENQUOTE at the end of this post, not clean it up. Just to see. I don't believe it causes an error message on this discussion board. I think it just looks a little sloppy.


Thanks,

JY




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Re: Using the Quote Feature

Post #6

Post by wiploc »

Mmm, works great. On this discussion board, the blanklines are not suppressed.

Therefore, when I click EDIT to go in to do repairs, my eyes jump effortlessly to the things that I wrote. My material is the stuff above the blocks of whitespace.



Moderators, I now begin my lobbying:

I want a button above the composition window, maybe between the QUOTE button and the CODE button, that inserts the following block of text where the cursor is:
[/quote]





[quote]

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Re: Using the Quote Feature

Post #7

Post by wiploc »

[Replying to post 1 by jamesyaqub]

Did we do you any good?

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