h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Deborah

I don't know whether this is appropriate to you, but after a long absence from the site due to ill health - both myself and my wife (we are both in our 80's). I am hoping to start making further contributions, linked to those I have made.

I started last year, with the intention of keeping things in chronological order, but got no further than the beginning of the war and the "Phoney War" period. (My contributions so far are A2233982 Rehearsals for War and A2720558 Phoney War, What Phoney War?

I think it was Helen who linked these two contributions together, but I understand she is no longer on the site.

My query is: how do I link future contributions to the former ones?

I apologise if this is not appropriate to you, but can you help, please?

Kind regards

Ron Allen

Dear Ron

I had not read your story before and have just finished the story so far, I look forward to the rest of it.

As for linking, just follow the pattern of the first two parts, the line in Part 1 "For the second part of this story please go to: A2720558" suitably amended.

Post the 3rd part, then copy the number Axxxxxx and go to Part 2 here A2720558 and click Edit. At the bottom of Part 2 type "For the third part of this story go to: Axxxxxxx". As an added touch, you could add at the top of Part 3 "For the second part of this story go to: A2720558"

That's all there is to it, it is easier done than explained.

Hope this helps,

Peter

Dear Peter

Many thanks for the helpful information. As soon as I can get it together, I shall submit the third part - quite an exciting posting at the time, being bombed and so on in a short space of time.

We have not corresponded before, but I followed some of your correspondence with John Absolon, before he, unfortunately died.

John and I corresponded both by eMail and on the site as we found we had followed very much the same army career pattern ie Territorial Army AA Searchlights, followed by posting to the Indian Army.

Regards and thanks again

Ron

Ron

I look forward to reading the 3rd part. The Archive closes on 31 December, so get cracking. If you need any further help just leave a message in my Pigeon-hole on my Personal Page here U521078.

Regards,

Peter

Ron

I see that you tried to enter links to the two previous parts in Part 3, here A5540960. Unfortunately there is an annoying bug which prevents entering links by members posting a story, although this can be done in any Discussion or Forum threads. I alerted the Team to this some months ago but nothing has been done about it so far. This means that entering any links, as Deborah did for you, will have to be done by a member of the Team. Sorry about that, hopefully they will now get this fixed.

Meanwhile, it might help readers if you were to give your story an overall title with each section further labelled Part 1, Part 2, etc, rather than separate titles for each part. This would greatly facilitate following the sequence and accessing them from your Personal Page.

Best wishes,

Peter

Peter

Thanks for the info.. Glad I didn't get it all wrong. I notice that the attempted links are still not high-lighted. Should I contact a member of the team to do this for me? It was Helen who did this before, but she is, I understand, no longer on the team.

Thanks also for the suggestion re. titles. I will try to alter them under the 'Edit' command.

By way of interest, I am already working on the fourth part.

Ron

Ron I have already asked the WW2 Team to look at this thread. See here http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/F125071?thread=963733 Peter

Dear Ron

You have done just the right thing. Although everyone can find all your contributions by looking at your personal page, it is more convenient to show the previous and next parts of the story within the article. When someone wants to move to the next part of your story they can copy the article number into the search box and immediately find the next section. We are not editing stories that are submitted to the site, except for when they are to be used on the front page, so this is the best way for people to link their stories together.

Good to have you back on the site and adding more of your memories.

Regards, Penelope

Peter

Thanks for contacting the team and for your help. I was not sure of your position on the site and whether you were able to do as you have, or whether it would be an imposition to ask you to do it. Anyway, thanks again

Ron

Dear Penelope

Very nice to hear from you again. Thank you for your helpful comments concerning my contributions. I'm glad I have done the right thing.

I must get on with writing "my war" before 'VJ Day' arrives at the end of the year. I have a thought concerning that and would like to contact you later, if I may.

I don't know if it is of interest, but before I moved to Gloucester, I contributed to a series of programmes broadcast by BBC Radio Kent called 'Wartime Kent'. I understand the tapes of these interviews have been deposited with the Imperial War Museum by Radio Kent.

With best wishes

Ron

Hi Ron

Don't be fooled by the grandiose title 'WW2 Site Helper' - I'm just an ordinary member like yourself. The title is given to anyone who volunteers to help.

Peter

Hi Penelope

Thank you for your message re linking different parts of stories.

However, there seems to be a problem. I have tried to access my different stories as though I was a stranger, by highlighting the Story ID given in the text, copying it to the clipboard, then pasting it in the search box of the current story on the screen. A number of times it comes up with the wrong story, even though the number in the search box is correct! The same thing happens if the required number is typed into the search box.

I have posted this in your own Personal Page as well as Deborah's.

Regards

Ron

Hi Penelope

Thank you for your message re linking different parts of stories.

However, there seems to be a problem. I have tried to access my different stories as though I was a stranger, by highlighting the Story ID given in the text, copying it to the clipboard, then pasting it in the search box of the current story on the screen. A number of times it comes up with the wrong story, even though the number in the search box is correct! The same thing happens if the required number is typed into the search box.

I have posted this in your own Personal Page as well as Deborah's.

Regards

Ron

Ron

You are finding difficulties where none exists. You do not have to copy the story ID numbers nor the titles then paste them in to a search box to access a story, in the way you describe.

It is much simpler than that, all you have to do is go to your Personal Page (U520694) then scroll down a little to the "My WW2 Stories and Questions" section, then click on any title. The titles ARE the links. That is why I recommended that you add to your your story section titles 'Part 1', 'Part 2', etc.

I hope this helps.

Peter

Hi Peter

Many thanks for your comments . I appreciate the trouble you took.

However, my object was to put myself in the position of somebody reading an article and wanting to read an earlier or later part by using the reference given in the current story as a short cut. However, since it is not highlighted as a link it cannot be used except by searching for the story ID number. (I agree that it would probably be little different in the time taken compared with going to the writer's personal page).

I quite expected that the use of the ID number would work but to my surprise it did not. The story with the particular ID number did not appear - it also happened with other stories on the site. Therefore it would seem that using the search engine on the site to find an article, if all that is known is the article ID number, is useless. Following on logically from that, is that there is no point in referring, in a story, to earlier or later parts by their ID number in order to give the reader a short cut. A reference, perhaps, to the writer's personal page would be all that can be done.

It would, I suggest, be much better and retain the reader's interest more if the bug you mentioned earlier could be fixed so that anything appearing as A....... (an ID number) would be automatically highlighted as it is when an eMail address is given in Outlook Express for example, or as it is in anything on this site other than part of a story. If that cannot be done (I believe it used to be) then it would be very helpful if a member of the team could cause it to be highlighted in the same way that Helen did with both my previous stories.

We must just hope the team responds to your comments on the bug.

Best wishes

Ron

Hi Ron (Allen, that is)
It's the other Ron (Goldstein, that is) just dropped in to see if I can be of any help.
Not in any technical way, I leave that strictly to St.Peter, but purely because I've managed to stick loads of stuff on to this site and still managed to retain my sanity.
The site has always had its shortfalls, particularly when it came to 'SEARCH' facilities but I have finally come to terms with what one can and cannot do and my answer has been to use my Personal Page to keep my articles in a chronological sequence.
Have a look at it, see if you can put any of my own format to your use and then perhaps come back to this thread to tell us what you have decided to do.
We will talk more on this subject !
Regards
Ron

Ron A

Ron G has created a very impressive catalogue of his stories on his Personal Page (U520216). Notice that you do this in the "About Me" section, the ID Number links work there. You could then perhaps add a line to each part saying 'Go to my Personal Page for links to other parts of this story', but you may consider this to be over-egging the pudding.

Peter

Hi Peter

As with Ron, I have just picked your note up tonight, so will reply tomorrow.

Ron A

Hi Ron (G of that ilk)

Thanks for the suggestions. Have just picked this up tonight, so will reply properly tomorrow.

Ron (A of that ilk)

Hello Ron,

Just got back from holiday to find this long discussion in my Pigeon-hole!

Your problem can be easily solved by pasting in a little bit of GuideML code at the end of each article.

What you do is this. At the end of the article, you type in the following:

For the next part of this story, please go to A123456

Substitute A123456 with the article number of the article you want to link to. That will turn the number into a link.

You may find that doing this makes all the paragraph breaks in your story disappear. If that happens, let me know and I will explain how to fix it.

Hope that helps,
Deborah