Strange behaviour using preview (appended text)

[gmw]

I tend to use Preview a lot when writing posts - trying to minimise any embarrassment I feel when reading previous posts by myself, it doesn't always work . For some time now (I can't say exactly how long, sorry) I have noticed that sometimes I get extra stuff (a copy of text from earlier in the post) appended to the text in the editor after I've hit preview.

It doesn't always happen, but I noticed it again tonight when I was replying to this post from HarryT. At one point, after hitting preview, the word "road" was appended to the text in the editor. I removed it and kept going. But now when I try it I can't get it to do it again. I'm wondering if it only happens at certain lengths or something.

Are you aware of a problem like this? If so I'll continue as I am until it is fixed, if not then I will try to remember not to ignore it when it happens next and post an example here.

[dreams]

I haven't had that problem using preview, but, if it does happen to you again, please post more details and the example.

[gmw]

The problem hit again, twice.

I was composing this post, and after hitting preview I got the following (a copy and paste from the editor window - the preview display didn't show the appended text, although it would have if I hit preview a second time). (Placed in spoilers to avoid clutter.)

Spoiler:

I was recently revisiting Stephen Donaldson's "Gradual Interview" on his website (searching for a particular quote, I didn't find the one I was looking for, but posted another on the relevant thread here). I came across the following, in the Mar-2004 section, that I thought was interesting.

Donaldson is asked: "has it been difficult to jump back into this series after so long and keep the same "feel" as you had two decades ago?" He answers:

Strangely, recapturing the narrative tone and rhetoric of the earlier books has been relatively easy. I guess it comes naturally. The hard part has been convincing my editor to leave the "feel" of the prose alone. She's a modern woman, much younger than I am, who hasn't read any previous "Covenant" books, and who lacks my background in the study of Conrad, James, and Faulkner. Instinctively she prefers the kind of lean and ambiguous prose which never calls a spade a spade (never mind a ^#$%# shovel), and which certainly never identifies any of the emotions of the characters. Nor does she like the pacing of Covenant-style prose: to use a musical analogy, she would rather jump from key to key without modulations, which, she feels, "bog down the narrative." So my biggest technical challenge in revising "Runes" has been to preserve the stylistic essence of the previous books without outraging her sensibilities.

And there is a second short response to a similar question:

As I suggested in answer to an earlier question, I'm trying to strike a balance between what I prefer to call the "operatic" prose of the earlier "Covenant" books and the less poetic sensibilities of modern readers.

Since the books in question (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) are among my favourites, I find it rather disconcerting to read that a modern editor finds the prose unacceptable. I also find it odd that Donaldson would be assigned an editor that hasn't read the first books in the series. But most of all, I find it strange to have pointed out how much things have changed in (what seems to me to be) such a short time.

In some respects it is good to see that a famous author is being conscientiously edited, and is taking notice of the editor (it often seems, to me, that famous authors get away with more than they should - to their own detriment). On the other hand, for a project like this it would appear important that the style remains at least identifiably similar to the starting point.

Yes, okay, so the above quote is close to 10 years old now, but it seems still relevant because this is an author that was undertaking a project that he knew then was going to take 9 years or more of his time - the last of the four books is getting close to publication now. That, in itself, makes the whole topic all the more interesting.operatic

Notice the word "operatic" at the end of the post - I didn't put it there, but you can see where it must have come from.

While preparing this feedback post I tried to reproduce the error while editing here - but I couldn't get it to happen. However, when I went back to the original post and hit "edit" (in order to be able to copy the full source), this is what I got in the editor window:

Spoiler:

I was recently revisiting Stephen Donaldson's "Gradual Interview" on his website (searching for a particular quote, I didn't find the one I was looking for, but posted another on the relevant thread here). I came across the following, in the Mar-2004 section, that I thought was interesting.

Donaldson is asked: "has it been difficult to jump back into this series after so long and keep the same "feel" as you had two decades ago?" He answers:

Strangely, recapturing the narrative tone and rhetoric of the earlier books has been relatively easy. I guess it comes naturally. The hard part has been convincing my editor to leave the "feel" of the prose alone. She's a modern woman, much younger than I am, who hasn't read any previous "Covenant" books, and who lacks my background in the study of Conrad, James, and Faulkner. Instinctively she prefers the kind of lean and ambiguous prose which never calls a spade a spade (never mind a ^#$%# shovel), and which certainly never identifies any of the emotions of the characters. Nor does she like the pacing of Covenant-style prose: to use a musical analogy, she would rather jump from key to key without modulations, which, she feels, "bog down the narrative." So my biggest technical challenge in revising "Runes" has been to preserve the stylistic essence of the previous books without outraging her sensibilities.

And there is a second short response to a similar question:

As I suggested in answer to an earlier question, I'm trying to strike a balance between what I prefer to call the "operatic" prose of the earlier "Covenant" books and the less poetic sensibilities of modern readers.

Since the books in question (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) are among my favourites, I find it rather disconcerting to read that a modern editor finds the prose unacceptable. I also find it odd that Donaldson would be assigned an editor that hasn't read the first books in the series. But most of all, I find it strange to have pointed out how much things have changed in (what seems to me to be) such a short time.

In some respects it is good to see that a famous author is being conscientiously edited, and is taking notice of the editor (it often seems, to me, that famous authors get away with more than they should - to their own detriment). On the other hand, for a project like this it would appear important that the style remains at least identifiably similar to the starting point.

Yes, okay, so the above quote is close to 10 years old now, but it seems still relevant because this is an author that was undertaking a project that he knew then was going to take 9 years or more of his time - the last of the four books is getting close to publication now. That, in itself, makes the whole topic all the more interesting.I was recently revisiting Stephen Donaldson's So my biggest technical challenge in revising

Again you can see text appended after what should have been the final word "interesting.".

It is a strange and inconsistent problem, but I hope this example might be enough to help your developers reproduce it for themselves.

Note: I suppose this could be browser specific. I am currently using Opera v12.15 (probably time I updated, I see they've gone up to v15 while I wasn't looking), on Windows 7 x64.

Late breaking news: It did start to happen while working here. First "[URL=" got appended, I removed that and hit preview and then "Runes" got appended. I added this text and it preview ... and nothing got appended. No idea what's going on.

[dreams]

Thank you for the follow-up. I will pass this on.

[Alexander Turcic]

Hi gmw, thanks for your in-depth description of the problem you've been experiencing. It most certainly seems browser-specific as we have never heard of this problem before. It could be the specific version of the browser you're using, or it could be an extension in your browser that is misbehaved.

I am going to download a copy of Opera 12.15 and use it for a while to see if I can replicate the issue. Meanwhile, have you tried updating your browser to a later version? 12.16 is out containing bug fixes, and 15 is out (based on the Chromium engine).

[gmw]

It is possible that the appearance of the problem coincides with a particular browser update - the problem is so inconsistent that it is difficult to be certain when it started. I have only one extension installed (relating to YouTube). I am happy to try v12.16. From what I've been reading about v15 (now that I know it exists), I think I will be staying away from that for a while. I have Firefox installed here too, I just don't use it very often, so I can try that if the problem recurs in Opera v12.16.

I will let you know what I find out ... but don't hold your breath waiting, it may take a while to be confident of the results.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by gmw

I will let you know what I find out ... but don't hold your breath waiting, it may take a while to be confident of the results.

[gmw]

Okay, I can confirm the problem still exists in Opera v12.16. I've noticed it twice here since I changed over. I can also confirm that it is NOT specific to MobileRead - it happened to me today while editing a blog post inside WordPress.

Thanks for paying attention, hope I didn't waste too much of anyone's time.

[Alexander Turcic]

No problem, G.M. If we can help - that's why we're here for.