21-05-2016, 05:14 PM
(21-05-2016, 03:52 PM)Yorkie Wrote: Incidentally, for reasons that elude me, I can no longer cut and paste text from 'Word' into a forum post, nor can I cut and paste within a post, and the large gap in the text above is because I can't move the text up the page. The cursor will blink away on the line, but the keyboard won't more it up. No idea why - seems a coincidence that it's happened since MS planted W10 on my PC like a Trojan virus. Just another little niggle. (Doesn't happen on the UKVRF - leastways, not yet!).
Hi David,
This is probably related to the new browser that comes with Windows 10 - "Edge". Try it in Firefox or Chrome or - heaven forbid! - Internet Explorer. From previous conversations, I think you were using Internet Explorer previously - although I live in hope that you have upgraded to Firefox by now
Despite the apparent simplicity, copying and pasting is surprisingly non-trivial when you look beneath the surface.
Combined with that, the default "WYSIWYG" editor that this forum uses is not completely bug-free. I repeatedly advise people to avoid it and switch to "View source" - Ctrl+Shift+S. This turns the text entry box into a standard form, which behaves the same as pretty much any other forum. Nearly all problems related to editing posts are related to the WYSIWYG editor, and I am thinking about removing it - but I know that I would then have to spend months responding to complaints about that! So living with it is the lesser of two evils.
But as a result of bugs in the WYSIWYG editor, I spend a lot of time tidying up posts. Text that is copied from Word ends up looking terrible when you look at the code, and to be honest, I'm not sure the plethora of different fonts and colours that results is welcome, because it would have an impact on a future choice of forum theme next time we do a major update.
So in short, for anyone who wants to copy-and-paste from Word, please switch the editor to View Source mode first. See the attached picture:
Within the User Settings, you can change the software to default to Source Mode whenever you reply to a post: http://golbornevintageradio.co.uk/forum/...on=options
When in View Source mode, the usual "BB code" works, where you use square brackets to markup your text - the same as the majority of other forums. I'd encourage people to use this by default. Perhaps I need to put all this somewhere as a sticky...
Away from this, I found that my USB microscope took a surprisingly long time to sort itself out when first connected. It got the drivers via Windows Update, which took several minutes. I just left it connected while doing something else, and when I went back to it, it was working.
I hesitate to enter the W10 debate because I'm divided between both arguments. I did install it on a machine at work, but ended up reverting after about a week. I didn't have a major problem with it, but at the same time, I saw no compelling benefit from it. Nothing whatsoever. However, there were a large number of minor niggles - many of which hopefully have been sorted by now - but I needed to get on with actually using the machine and had no interest in delving any deeper.
In the past, each OS upgrade has brought similar minor problems, but the benefits always compensated for that. When I think back over my experiences, moving to 95 from Win 3.11 was a no-brainer, as was moving to 98 when it arrived. Obviously, Windows ME was skipped over by many, including me. In the NT world, I started with 4, and Win 2000 was a total joy after that. 2000 to XP was also a worthwhile step. Glossing over Vista, the move from XP to 7 is actually rather less clear-cut, and I'd say that in my experience it's been about 40:60 in terms of problems verses benefits. But since XP eventually went out of support, the balance has tipped more firmly in favour of 7. Again, gloss over 8 and 8.1 - if you have either of those, then W10 should be a worthwhile upgrade.
So what's in it for a happy(ish) W7 user? I really can't see it. On the one hand, I understand that the underlying code base might be newer (but that doesn't actually guarantee "better" - whenever I read up, I see lots of vague, subjective comments, but no actual real-world data). I do see, however, lots of people having problems. I'm also not won over by the user interface - it feels amateurish and unfinished. I dislike the increasing "dumbing down" - the incessant and relentless attempts to abstract the file system from the user which began with "My Documents" back in the day. I really dislike the "app store" ecosystem - it's a computer, not a mobile phone!
For those who definitely do not want to upgrade to W10, there is some advice about it on the UKVRRR forum: http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showt...p?t=122792 - though I think you have to be an active member to see that forum.
Window 7 will receive security updates until 2020, and by that time, you'll probably need to buy new hardware anyway - and that'll come with whatever they're calling Windows by that time (still 10, they claim). And assuming it's not extended, the deadline for the free upgrade will end in July, so let's hope they leave in peace then (although no-doubt the nag screens will turn into offers to sell the upgrade).
I remain open-minded, but unless I have some sort of epiphany in the future, my advice is going to remain neutral: upgrade if you like, but if you're happy with W7, stick with it. It's no big deal either way...
