• Forgottenlord (unregistered)

    Hmm......somehow I don't think it works on all resolutions......

  • Pete (unregistered)

    No.... this is not true... is it?!
    O M F G !

    As creative as it is... I still feel like my brain needs to explode

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Forgottenlord

    what's best is when people design a page like this and they obviously have their text size set to a non default size... it dosen't work at any resolution!

  • (cs)

    Definitely one of the more creative methods I've seen. This was all in a table cell, or something that limited the width of the space that the text could occupy? What if the default font was different - chaos probably? Definitely done in a wysiwyg editor. There are 2 single a lines. This indicates that the creator looked a the page, and decided that those 2 rows needed an additional "space" to linewrap. It would also account for the entire WTF.

    Beh...

  • (cs)

    I sure hope he didn't get paid to develop this.  Hell he could have been more creative with it and used.....wtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtf

  • (cs)

    about as sharp as a bowlin' ball.

  • Colin (unregistered)

    Much like in a word processor, people use spaces to create columns or periods to give the two column entry & price type of layout.  I bet this is what happened here except his spaces either collapsed into a single space (as per HTML rules) or the editor was smart enough to use   except those won't wrap.  So why not get clevar and use text that matches the background?

    And god forbid the author learn tables and line all the dates and times up in nice, pretty columns.

  • Me (unregistered)

    I like how you highlight everything from Wednesday, January 18.... to Friday, January 27...  You can see the "aaa..."

    Is there a specific number of "a"s that forces a new line?  They don't seem to have the same number from line to line.

  • (cs)

    What would qualifiy this, on the face of it, as not "professional?" Does the contributor know for a fact that a professional (i.e., paid developer) did not produce this?

    Clearly, the author did not know FrontPage's favorite alignment tool -  

  • Pete (unregistered)

    I especially like this part:

      <font color="#FFFFFF">a</font>
      <font color="#FFFFFF">aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa</font>

    "oops, I need one more a to make it break" :D

  • doodle (unregistered)
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    discovered it when he copy-pasted the university bookstore's extended hours into an email to his students.

    Gee, doesn't he know he's only supposed to put a link to the page in his email, not copy & paste?

    Isn't this the power of the net?

    I mean what if their hours change?

     

    Obviously done with a WYSWIG editor, otherwise the HTML savy novice would know that you would use &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp which is globally accepted as how you align items as a novice html guru.

  • Krenn (unregistered)

    You just know that the guy tried spaces originally, and was completely mystified by the way the browser collapsed the whitespace. The joys of WYSIWYG HTML design - just put in a bunch of a's until it fits right, then paint them white.

  • doodle (unregistered) in reply to doodle

    Of course the graphically inclined html novice guru would have used <img src="images/clear.gif" width=120 height=1>

     

  • Christophe (unregistered)

    Yeah, but what if the background color changes? This person needs to set up a stylesheet for easy updating of the font color for just such an eventuality:

    <FONT face="Courier New">font.worthlesscrap {</FONT>

               color:   "#FFFFFF"

    }

     

  • Code Commando (unregistered)

    FOOLS! you now know the location of the Grail!

    "Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea.
    He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail
    in the Castle of Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa."

  • (cs)

    Here is a good one.... <sarcasm> he must not have know enough to us a transparent gif file to space out his table. </sarcasm>


  • (cs) in reply to Me
    Anonymous:

    Is there a specific number of "a"s that forces a new line?  They don't seem to have the same number from line to line.


    I think they probably used server-side GDI methods to calculate the width of the string, given the font face and size, and then programmatically built the string of "a"s to the appropriate length.
  • swapo (unregistered)

        This is so much better than the usual "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;..." as you can save almost 5/6 of the required bandwidth.

  • (cs)

    "a" + "a"  = "<br>" for sufficiently large values of "a".

  • Code Commando (unregistered)

    Would that be an African or European swallow? Aaaaaaaaaaaaa.

  • Rev. Johnny Healey (unregistered)

    The real wtf here is that he didn't use css.

    <span class="br">aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa</span>

    span.br {
    color:#ffffff;
    }

  • Marc (unregistered) in reply to John Bigboote
    John Bigboote:
    Anonymous:

    Is there a specific number of "a"s that forces a new line?  They don't seem to have the same number from line to line.


    I think they probably used server-side GDI methods to calculate the width of the string, given the font face and size, and then programmatically built the string of "a"s to the appropriate length.


    With javascript to tell the server what default font size the browser was set to!
  • Hexar (unregistered)

    HTML: So easy even idiots can screw it up.

  • (cs) in reply to John Bigboote
    John Bigboote:
    Anonymous:

    Is there a specific number of "a"s that forces a new line?  They don't seem to have the same number from line to line.


    I think they probably used server-side GDI methods to calculate the width of the string, given the font face and size, and then programmatically built the string of "a"s to the appropriate length.


    Uh, I really, REALLY disagree. If this was server-side, the programmer should be SHOT IMMEDIATELY. The method you describe requires intelligence. No one with the smallest amount of intelligence would use strings of text to break a line.

    This HAD to be a wysiwyg editor. Besides, the lines with single a's should prove that. The reason the number of a's are different is because the fonts are not monospaced.
  • codemoose (unregistered)

    Dang.  That's wicked. <font color="#ffffff">aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa<font color="#000000"> My eyes... <font color="#ffffff">aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa    </font> The goggles...</font></font><font color="#ffffff"><font color="#000000"><font color="#ffffff">aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa</font> ...you know the rest. </font></font><font color="#ffffff"><font color="#000000"><font color="#ffffff">aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa <font color="#000000">(ctrl-A for the punchline)</font></font></font></font>

  • (cs)

    Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea. He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail in the Castle of aaaaaagggh.

  • codemoose (unregistered) in reply to codemoose
    Anonymous:
    Dang.  That's wicked. <font color="#ffffff">aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa sssssssssssssssaaaaa<font color="#000000"> My eyes... <font color="#ffffff">aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssaaaaaaaaaaaaaassaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas   saaaaaa </font>  The goggles...</font></font><font color="#ffffff"><font color="#000000"><font color="#ffffff">aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa</font> ...you know the rest. </font></font><font color="#ffffff"><font color="#000000"><font color="#ffffff">aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa <font color="#000000">(ctrl-A for the punchline)</font></font></font></font>


    shoot, it's harder than it looks, too.
  • Noam Samuel (unregistered)

    He should have programmed it from a windows server running .NET application, and use the app to open notepad, type in each line and press "Enter" between lines, and then select all, copy and print the text in the clipboard.

    (And no, I don't know .NET, I just remember seeing that it had functions that allowed it to remote control GUI apps)

  • Bruce (unregistered)

    Working at a university, I've seen someone do something very similar to this before.  The problem is that some versions of Frontpage will create a paragraph break if you hit enter, and you must hit shift+enter to do a single line break.  Of course, most people don't know this and come up with creative solutions to get a new line of text to appear directly below the previous one.

  • (cs) in reply to Code Commando
    Anonymous:
    FOOLS! you now know the location of the Grail!
    "Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea.
    He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail
    in the Castle of Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa."


    What is your name? Sir FreeLance-a-Lot
    What is your quest? To place extended hours on separate lines
    What is your font's background color? #0000FF no, #FFFFFF - aaaaaaaaaaaa.....

  • (cs) in reply to OneFactor

    Clearly, this page was authored by Homsar

  • Timmy (unregistered)

    You'd be surprised how pervasive similar schemes exist.

    Some well respected Microsoft Access guru's had very popular Access Book with a conceptually similar scheme to force the JET database to use row-level locking.  JET locked only by 2k pages, so the scheme involved a 'dummy', hidden field that would be filled with junk to force each table record to round up to the next highest 2k size, so that each record was a page.   And this was Access, for gosh sakes!  How important could row-level locking have been on any Access system--when you couldn't concurrently have more than a handful of users hitting the thing to begin with!  And I'm thinking the letter they chose to fill with was the lower-case 'a'. 

    --Timmy 

  • (cs) in reply to OneFactor

    Now THAT'S comedy!

    Good one.

  • (cs) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:
    John Bigboote:
    Anonymous:

    Is there a specific number of "a"s that forces a new line?  They don't seem to have the same number from line to line.


    I think they probably used server-side GDI methods to calculate the width of the string, given the font face and size, and then programmatically built the string of "a"s to the appropriate length.


    Uh, I really, REALLY disagree. If this was server-side, the programmer should be SHOT IMMEDIATELY. The method you describe requires intelligence. No one with the smallest amount of intelligence would use strings of text to break a line.

    This HAD to be a wysiwyg editor. Besides, the lines with single a's should prove that. The reason the number of a's are different is because the fonts are not monospaced.


    Sorry, I thought about using some sort of sarcasm tag. I just like envisioning scenarios where massive amounts of technical know-how are brought to bear on solutions that really really don't need them.
    <bringingAGunToAKnifeFight>like so.</bringingAGunToAKnifeFight>
  • Emil (unregistered) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:
    Definitely one of the more creative methods I've seen. This was all in a table cell, or something that limited the width of the space that the text could occupy? What if the default font was different - chaos probably? Definitely done in a wysiwyg editor. There are 2 single a lines. This indicates that the creator looked a the page, and decided that those 2 rows needed an additional "space" to linewrap. It would also account for the entire WTF.

    Beh...
     
    Wouldn't it be a even bigger WTF if he really used a WYSIWYG editor and tried to wrap a line using aaaaa instead of just hitting enter?
  • (cs) in reply to Christophe

    Why is it so hard for peple to get inside anoyther person's mind and assume the creator of the software would have devised a way to make single-line returns; then go look for that feature, instead of behaving like monkeys?

    Anonymous:
    Yeah, but what if the background color changes? This person needs to set up a stylesheet for easy updating of the font color for just such an eventuality:

    <font face="Courier New">font.worthlesscrap {</font>

               color:   "#FFFFFF"

    }

     

    You do realise that this is invalid CSS?
  • (cs) in reply to Emil
    Anonymous:
    GoatCheez:
    Definitely one of the more creative methods I've seen. This was all in a table cell, or something that limited the width of the space that the text could occupy? What if the default font was different - chaos probably? Definitely done in a wysiwyg editor. There are 2 single a lines. This indicates that the creator looked a the page, and decided that those 2 rows needed an additional "space" to linewrap. It would also account for the entire WTF.

    Beh...
     
    Wouldn't it be a even bigger WTF if he really used a WYSIWYG editor and tried to wrap a line using aaaaa instead of just hitting enter?


    Yes, but that probably didn't happen here. As it was pointed out earlier, in Frontpage and other WYSIWYG editors, hitting enter creates another paragraph, which is way more than a line break. To create a line break they would hit Shift-Enter. Not something all people would try when they don't get the results they desire.
  • (cs) in reply to Me
    Anonymous:

    Is there a specific number of "a"s that forces a new line?  They don't seem to have the same number from line to line.

    And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more, no less. Three shall be the number of "a"s thou shalt count, and the number of the counting of "a"s shall be three. Four "a"s shalt thou not count, neither count thou two "a"s, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five "a"s is right out. Once the number three, being the third number of "a"s, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it." Amen.
  • Emil (unregistered) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:
    Anonymous:
    GoatCheez:
    Definitely one of the more creative methods I've seen. This was all in a table cell, or something that limited the width of the space that the text could occupy? What if the default font was different - chaos probably? Definitely done in a wysiwyg editor. There are 2 single a lines. This indicates that the creator looked a the page, and decided that those 2 rows needed an additional "space" to linewrap. It would also account for the entire WTF.

    Beh...
     
    Wouldn't it be a even bigger WTF if he really used a WYSIWYG editor and tried to wrap a line using aaaaa instead of just hitting enter?


    Yes, but that probably didn't happen here. As it was pointed out earlier, in Frontpage and other WYSIWYG editors, hitting enter creates another paragraph, which is way more than a line break. To create a line break they would hit Shift-Enter. Not something all people would try when they don't get the results they desire.
     
    Good point; Actually I didn't even know that until right now. Luckily I never had to deal with WYSIWYG editors because when we first learned about HTML in school all the WYSIWYG editors produced code more horrible as Word - but without the CSS which made to code even more ugly to look at.
  • (cs)
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    It's time once again to break the "professional examples only" rule and showcase yet another HTML WTF.



    Why was the rule broken?  Obviously this was done by someone who didn't know what they were doing and (I hope and pray) wasn't getting paid for it, and it was a website that probably wasn't viewed by more than twenty people a day.  There's no reason to expect quality work.  Out of "10 submissions a day" you didn't find anything usable from a "professional"?
  • (cs) in reply to Timmy
    Anonymous:
    Some well respected Microsoft Access guru's had very popular Access Book with a conceptually similar scheme to force the JET database to use row-level locking.  JET locked only by 2k pages, so the scheme involved a 'dummy', hidden field that would be filled with junk to force each table record to round up to the next highest 2k size, so that each record was a page. 


    Everybody knows that they called the database engine "JET" because it sucks and blows.
  • (cs) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:
    Anonymous:
    GoatCheez:
    Definitely one of the more creative methods I've seen. This was all in a table cell, or something that limited the width of the space that the text could occupy? What if the default font was different - chaos probably? Definitely done in a wysiwyg editor. There are 2 single a lines. This indicates that the creator looked a the page, and decided that those 2 rows needed an additional "space" to linewrap. It would also account for the entire WTF.

    Beh...
     
    Wouldn't it be a even bigger WTF if he really used a WYSIWYG editor and tried to wrap a line using aaaaa instead of just hitting enter?


    Yes, but that probably didn't happen here. As it was pointed out earlier, in Frontpage and other WYSIWYG editors, hitting enter creates another paragraph, which is way more than a line break. To create a line break they would hit Shift-Enter. Not something all people would try when they don't get the results they desire.


    And they'll usually replace spaces with nbsp; when two or more are typed in a row.  Well I think.  Last time I used FrontPage was about six years ago.
  • (cs)

    A lot of html editors will insert a double line break (paragraph break) when you press enter. This person obviously wanted just a single line break, and didn't know that shift-enter is usually the way to do it.

    Edit: This was already mentioned above. Sorry.

  • Josh (unregistered)

    I've seen the same thing on AVP.com. I'll see if I can dig it up...

    Ah:
    http://www.avp.com/schedule/gameday.jsp?id=3993
    When: Thursday July 13 -- Qualifier
    <font size="1"><font color="#ffffff">whenwhenwhen</font>Gates Open 8am - 6pm</font>
    <font color="#ffffff">When:</font> Friday July 14 -- Main Draw Competition
    <font size="1"><font color="#ffffff">whwhenenwhen</font>Gates Open 9:30am - 6pm</font>
    <font color="#ffffff">When:</font> Friday Night July 14 -- Main Draw Competition
    <font size="1"><font color="#ffffff">whwhenenwhen</font>Gates Open 7:30pm - 10pm</font>
    <font color="#ffffff">When:</font> Saturday July 15 -- Main Draw
    <font size="1"><font color="#ffffff">whwhenenwhen</font>Gates Open 9:30am - 6pm</font>
    <font color="#ffffff">When:</font> Saturday Night July 15 -- Main Draw
    <font size="1"><font color="#ffffff">whwhenenwhen</font>Gates Open 7:30pm - 10pm</font>
    <font color="#ffffff">When:</font> Sunday July 16 -- Men's / Women's Finals
    <font size="1"><font color="#ffffff">whenwhenwhen</font>Gates Open 9:45am - 5:50pm
    Highlight for goodness
    </font>

  • (cs)

    The real wtf is that they omitted January 17 from the start of the list.

  • (cs) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:
    John Bigboote:
    Anonymous:

    Is there a specific number of "a"s that forces a new line?  They don't seem to have the same number from line to line.


    I think they probably used server-side GDI methods to calculate the width of the string, given the font face and size, and then programmatically built the string of "a"s to the appropriate length.


    Uh, I really, REALLY disagree. If this was server-side, the programmer should be SHOT IMMEDIATELY. The method you describe requires intelligence. No one with the smallest amount of intelligence would use strings of text to break a line.

    This HAD to be a wysiwyg editor. Besides, the lines with single a's should prove that. The reason the number of a's are different is because the fonts are not monospaced.
    The real WTF is that people in this forum aren't explicitly delimiting sarcasm with the requisite sarcasm tags.
  • Mike (unregistered)

    Makes perfect sense to me.  The coder was obviously a fan of the tv show "Happy Days" and wanted to put in an easter-egg shout out to his main man, Fonzie.

  • (cs) in reply to Saarus
    Saarus:
    GoatCheez:
    John Bigboote:
    Anonymous:

    Is there a specific number of "a"s that forces a new line?  They don't seem to have the same number from line to line.


    I think they probably used server-side GDI methods to calculate the width of the string, given the font face and size, and then programmatically built the string of "a"s to the appropriate length.


    Uh, I really, REALLY disagree. If this was server-side, the programmer should be SHOT IMMEDIATELY. The method you describe requires intelligence. No one with the smallest amount of intelligence would use strings of text to break a line.

    This HAD to be a wysiwyg editor. Besides, the lines with single a's should prove that. The reason the number of a's are different is because the fonts are not monospaced.
    The real WTF is that people in this forum aren't explicitly delimiting sarcasm with the requisite sarcasm tags.

    Uh, I really, REALLY disagree.   ...

    Oh, wait... Never mind.
  • (cs) in reply to Saarus
    Saarus:
    GoatCheez:
    John Bigboote:
    Anonymous:

    Is there a specific number of "a"s that forces a new line?  They don't seem to have the same number from line to line.


    I think they probably used server-side GDI methods to calculate the width of the string, given the font face and size, and then programmatically built the string of "a"s to the appropriate length.


    Uh, I really, REALLY disagree. If this was server-side, the programmer should be SHOT IMMEDIATELY. The method you describe requires intelligence. No one with the smallest amount of intelligence would use strings of text to break a line.

    This HAD to be a wysiwyg editor. Besides, the lines with single a's should prove that. The reason the number of a's are different is because the fonts are not monospaced.
    The real WTF is that people in this forum aren't explicitly delimiting sarcasm with the requisite sarcasm tags.


    Oh wow lol.... Yeah.... lol.... I definitely do NOT catch sarcasm unless surrounded by tags lol. Oh my god how did I not notice that lol. jebus... lol.... I can't stop laughing now....
  • stephen (unregistered) in reply to Emil

    Depends on the editor. In dreamweaver (one version don't know if it is all), you have to hold shift and hit enter to get a line break, otherwise it is white space that is just treated as a single space.

    I know this, because I was asked to help a small business that was doing their own website which had a very similar problem (she was doing some pretty weird stuff to get a line break).

    I actually applaud the creativity of this, I would never come up with such an interesting solution. I'm just one of those boring guys that would spend time looking for the correct solution instead of making my own up.

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