My HTML guide has been updated

[alohadave]

Source control is for losers; everyone knows real programmers write their code using magnets, on the server, live in production.

I used to work on a computer in the Navy that had a display panel that had all the registers displayed (60s vintage, not a single microchip, all discrete components). The main working register has push buttons that would set each bit.

You could program the computer manually by pressing the bits and advancing. Incredibly tedious.

What was interesting was that it had a lamp test function that would test all the bulbs on the panel. A side effect of this is that it would set all the bits in the main register, and crashing whatever was running. Useful if you needed to reboot the computer and couldn't get permission from the higher-ups.

 

[dirk2024]

Hey @FrancesScott,

Have you found anything about increasing Font Size? I've read through your guide and didn't see anything specifically about that. I looked online and found one site that said I HAD to use CSS, but you said in your guide that Literotica doesn't support CSS.

Any ideas?

 

[PennyThompson]

Hey @FrancesScott,

Have you found anything about increasing Font Size? I've read through your guide and didn't see anything specifically about that. I looked online and found one site that said I HAD to use CSS, but you said in your guide that Literotica doesn't support CSS.

Any ideas?

I'm pretty sure there's no way to override text size on a Lit story. Which is for the best, accessibility-wise! Lit allows readers to change text size and a few other font style settings, and mucking around with text sizes would cause all sorts of issues with those settings.

 

[old_prof]

I'm pretty sure there's no way to override text size on a Lit story. Which is for the best, accessibility-wise! Lit allows readers to change text size and a few other font style settings, and mucking around with text sizes would cause all sorts of issues with those settings.

View attachment 2592104

As an oldster with an oldster's eyes, I appreciate this about the site.

 

[dirk2024]

I'm pretty sure there's no way to override text size on a Lit story. Which is for the best, accessibility-wise! Lit allows readers to change text size and a few other font style settings, and mucking around with text sizes would cause all sorts of issues with those settings.

View attachment 2592104

Yeah, I use this for when I'm reading on my Kindle.

But I am hoping for a larger Header on my story itself.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yeah, I use this for when I'm reading on my Kindle.

But I am hoping for a larger Header on my story itself.

The site already gives you a much larger font for the story title.

 

[TheLobster]

Which is for the best, accessibility-wise!

Eh, really? Zoom (aka. changing text size) is like the simplest and most universal accessibility option that's available on virtually every browser. The whole idea of having a dedicated option for it on the site itself is weird to begin with, especially since the option tucked away under tiny UI elements that lack any visual cues they're even interactive.

And regardless, if Lit insists on having this option, it could nevertheless still support <hX> headers which are scaled to the selected text size, e.g.:

h1 {
    font-size: 24pt;
}
.font-size-plus1 h1 {
    font-size: 26pt;
}

as well as the <small> tag (and let's face it, the <big> tag as well; it might be deprecated, but trifles like this hasn't stopped the many authors who use <center>).

 

[RocketGrunt]

as well as the <small> tag (and let's face it, the <big> tag as well; it might be deprecated, but trifles like this hasn't stopped the many authors who use <center>).

No, the thing that stops users from using <center> on Literotica is that the site is still randomly not displaying some center-aligned text, regardless of what system you used to get it centered in the first place.

The bug has been going for months and there's no evidence that Manu is even working on the problem.

 

[FrancesScott]

Hey @FrancesScott,

Have you found anything about increasing Font Size? I've read through your guide and didn't see anything specifically about that. I looked online and found one site that said I HAD to use CSS, but you said in your guide that Literotica doesn't support CSS.

Any ideas?

@PennyThompson has answered, but to confirm, I am unaware of any way to control font size, face, or color in Literotica submissions. And this is probably a good thing, for the reasons she outlines.

 

[dirk2024]

@PennyThompson has answered, but to confirm, I am unaware of any way to control font size, face, or color in Literotica submissions. And this is probably a good thing, for the reasons she outlines.

okay, thanks Frances.

 

[dirk2024]

The site already gives you a much larger font for the story title.

I'm not looking for the title. The story I'm working on will include an official press release, so I want to change the font sizes to more accurately mimic one of those.

But, my hopes and dreams for this will not come to fruition.

 

[SmilingLez]

I wrote this to help other authors, and @Laurel was kind enough to contribute some content. As a few people pointed out, I had forgotten to include bulleted lists. This new version has these as well:

https://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-format-a-story-with-html

If there is anything else missing, please contact me.

Much thanks. I just recently found that the Literotica editor has a word count. This will save me time as no two word count apps are the same. I will just use Literotica's when submitting stories

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm not looking for the title. The story I'm working on will include an official press release, so I want to change the font sizes to more accurately mimic one of those.

But, my hopes and dreams for this will not come to fruition.

Ahh, you're looking to tweak the story font size itself. That's not going to happen - the site uses a simple house style for uniformity, to make the display as simple as they can, so it's compatible on multiple devices. That's why only a limited range of html is allowed.

You've got a printed page mindset going on, not digital. You need an offset printer .

 

[dirk2024]

Ahh, you're looking to tweak the story font size itself. That's not going to happen - the site uses a simple house style for uniformity, to make the display as simple as they can, so it's compatible on multiple devices. That's why only a limited range of html is allowed.

You've got a printed page mindset going on, not digital. You need an offset printer .

Okay...thanks.

 

[IWroteThis]

No, the thing that stops users from using <center> on Literotica is that the site is still randomly not displaying some center-aligned text, regardless of what system you used to get it centered in the first place.

The bug has been going for months and there's no evidence that Manu is even working on the problem.

I'm pretty sure they were referring to the fact that people still use the "center" tag despite it being deprecated, not that people aren't using it.

 

[IWroteThis]

Ahh, you're looking to tweak the story font size itself. That's not going to happen - the site uses a simple house style for uniformity, to make the display as simple as they can, so it's compatible on multiple devices. That's why only a limited range of html is allowed.

You've got a printed page mindset going on, not digital. You need an offset printer .

What they are wanting to do has nothing to do with print versus digital. It's HTML4 versus HTML5, and the push to move all control to hidden CSS files. Like center, the font tag has been deprecated, but it's still there and largely supported by browsers.

 

[RocketGrunt]

I'm pretty sure they were referring to the fact that people still use the "center" tag despite it being deprecated, not that people aren't using it.

Yeah, but whether you use:
< div style="text-align: center;"> < p> < /p> < /div>
or
<center>
or
None of the above because you use a WYSIWYG text editor and center the text in the word file itself

It still just doesn't fucking work on Literotica if your work is more than one Lit page.

 

[ElectricBlue]

What they are wanting to do has nothing to do with print versus digital. It's HTML4 versus HTML5, and the push to move all control to hidden CSS files. Like center, the font tag has been deprecated, but it's still there and largely supported by browsers.

I know that. Joke emoji. Sigh.

It's still a printed page mindset to an extent, wanting something to look like a press release - rather than a publishing platform where every story looks the same for practical, technical reasons. But the OP knows that already.

 

[IWroteThis]

I know that. Joke emoji. Sigh.

Sorry, I thought that was for the second sentence, not everything. My bad.

It's still a printed page mindset to an extent, wanting something to look like a press release - rather than a publishing platform where every story looks the same for practical, technical reasons. But the OP knows that already.

I'm still going to have to disagree with you, for a couple of reasons.

First, they want similar elements to look the same, not every element. That type of uniformity is why HTML5 pushes CSS. It has nothing to do with a "printed page mindset." It has everything to do with presentation and appearance, no matter the medium.

Second, even if Literotica wants every story to be nothing more than a block of uniform text, that's stupid. Some elements need to stand out from other elements. One of the most obvious is chapter markers, but that is far from the only thing that needs to be distinct from the regular narrative and dialogue. Other story hosting sites allow a lot more creative control within the confines of the story without breaking the framework of the site itself. Granted, there are other, less popular sites that force the no-enhancement look you desire, but they don't have the reader or writer base that Literotica or other sites have.

Actually, I'm going to throw something else out here as well. When you say, "practical, technical reasons," it sound like you're referring to using an old-school typewriter with one font and only caps or exclamation marks for emphasis, so I guess it's you that has a printed page mindset after all!

 

[dirk2024]

Just to clarify...I am only talking about the text within the story. What I want would look like this:

This is the top line of the Press Release.
This is the second line of the release.

This is the text of the release.

And the same size for the text of the story.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sorry, I thought that was for the second sentence, not everything. My bad.

I'm still going to have to disagree with you, for a couple of reasons.

First, they want similar elements to look the same, not every element. That type of uniformity is why HTML5 pushes CSS. It has nothing to do with a "printed page mindset." It has everything to do with presentation and appearance, no matter the medium.

Second, even if Literotica wants every story to be nothing more than a block of uniform text, that's stupid. Some elements need to stand out from other elements. One of the most obvious is chapter markers, but that is far from the only thing that needs to be distinct from the regular narrative and dialogue.

If you can't get by with bold, underline, and italics, I'd say your words aren't doing what they should. If your writing is strong enough, you don't need bells and whistles.

Other story hosting sites allow a lot more creative control within the confines of the story without breaking the framework of the site itself. Granted, there are other, less popular sites that force the no-enhancement look you desire, but they don't have the reader or writer base that Literotica or other sites have.

It's not so much what I desire, but accepting the obvious that the site defaults to a standard format, so that all published content looks and feels pretty much the same. Some folk go to huge efforts to use formatting that makes little difference to the story - it's a waste of time if you ask me. And if it goes wrong, and the chances are high that it will, you end up with a terrible mess, and usually have to start all over again. Or at least do an edit, which can take several weeks.

Actually, I'm going to throw something else out here as well. When you say, "practical, technical reasons," it sound like you're referring to using an old-school typewriter with one font and only caps or exclamation marks for emphasis, so I guess it's you that has a printed page mindset after all!

Show me mainstream books that have all sorts of fancy formats, and I might take your stance more seriously.