h2g2 Version 2 Help
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
This page attempts to identify the most common problems you might have with the new version of the h2g2 site.
If you find a new problem or need any help please post a message in the forums below
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New h2g2 - All change!
The all new version 2 of h2g2 (or h2g2v2 if you like tongue twisters
) offers a choice of ways to view the site.
This choice is accomplished by the use of "skins". Currently, there are two skins: the old Classic look h2g2 and a new all singing, all dancing one called Alabaster with lots of cool buttons and links on every page.
You can change skins by going to your home page and clicking on the "User Details" button in the Goo - or you can click here.
For a quick preview of the new Alabaster skin you can click here to see this page in the Alabaster skin.
The new skin (Alabaster) is the default skin for new users.
What's new
The main visible change is the addition of skins, though you'll probably notice that forums display slightly differently to the old h2g2.
There have been some changes to GuideML (eg FOOTNOTEs are now hyperlinked and display the FOOTNOTE contents as "hovertext" when the mouse is positioned over the footnote link in the body).
One of the most significant changes has been to the way the site handles GuideML. h2g2 is now far less forgiving about poorly formed GuideML1.
The rules that seem to cause the most problems are:-
- ALL attributes must be quoted (eg <LINK BIO="U42"> is correct <LINK BIO=42> is incorrect.
- ALL GuideML tags must be closed (even "empty" tags like <BR/>, <HR/> - don't use the form <BR> </BR>).
- GuideML tags must NOT overlap (eg <B> <I>stuff </B> </I> is wrong - it should be <B> <I>stuff </I> </B>)
- Comments: The comment syntax is <!-- this is a comment -->. GuideML does not allow double hyphens inside a comment block, so <!-----------this is a comment -------------> will fail. This is a nasty one so best to avoid comment blocks altogether.
- GuideML pages must be opened with <GUIDE> <BODY> and closed with </BODY> </GUIDE>. Anything outside these pairs will not display.
- Pages cannot contain the ampersand (&) character. If you want to display an & in a page you should enter it as &.
There are some new GuideML tags (called GuideML Gadgets) for the "Who's Online" list and for smilies. You can find details here
The GuideML Clinic has lots of information about the new ways that tags may work.
Pages Display Strangely/Differently
Some GuideML pages will display as if they were empty, even though they worked just fine on the old h2g2. This is most likely caused by the page contents not being opened and closed with <GUIDE> <BODY>... </BODY> </GUIDE>.
Some pages containing a javascript "pulldown list" will only display as far as the pulldown (which will not display correctly). This is usually caused by an empty SCRIPT tag (eg <SCRIPT SRC="something" />. To get it to display correctly change the SCRIPT tag to <SCRIPT SRC="something"> </SCRIPT> (the space is between the two is vital).
Some pages that previously contained LINKs to other pages will not contain the LINKs. This is caused by an unquoted attribute in the LINK tag (eg <LINK BIO=U42>). To fix it quote the attribute (eg <LINK BIO="U42">).
Links to h2g2 cgi scripts (eg user.cgi, index.cgi) won't work. The new URLs for these cgis is /user, /index etc.
Referenced Researchers, Entries etc - there has been a change to which LINK tags generate these entries in the margin. LINK BIO to a user page (U99999) will show under Ref. Researchers.LINK H2G2 to an entry page (A12345) will show under Ref. Entries LINK HREF will show under Ref. Sites.
- Some javascript just won't work and/or display properly - if all else fails you should remove it from the page and add it back later once you work out what's wrong.
Pages Seriously Broken - "XML Error" Displayed3
Some pages that previously worked fine on h2g2 will now not display at all. They will display something like:
| XML Error loading '' Incorrect syntax was used in a comment. at line 397, character 5 //-- Generate a random number between 0 and max. ^ |
The second line5 indicates what the error is6. The caret (^) at the end of the message points to where the GuideML parser thinks the error is - it seems to be fairly accurate.
Because the page is not displayed you may have difficulty editing it in the normal way.
If it is your user homepage you can edit it by entering the URL http://www.h2g2.com/UserEdit?masthead=1 into your browser (or you can click on that link).
If it is a normal page entry (other than your homepage) you can open it either the normal way from your homepage or by changing the URL in your browser to http://www.h2g2.com/UserEdit12345 (where 12345 is the page number). An easy way to do this is to change the URL when you get the error message, replacing the "A" in the page number with "UserEdit".
This type of error is caused by:
- Multiple "-"s inside a comment (eg <!-- //--... --> or <!-------- There are way too many dashs in this comment -------->) pair.
- Partially quoted attributes in a tag (eg <LINK BIO=U42">).
- Duplicate attributes in a tag (eg <PICTURE SRC="something" EMBED="LEFT" SHADOW="NONE" EMBED="LEFT"7>)
There may be other ways to trigger this error type that I haven't seen. Please post a message in the forums here if you find a new one.
You can get this type of error screen when you hit the "Update Entry" button, for all the above reasons. If this happens Don't Panic - hit your browsers "Back" button and continue to edit the page contents.
.4 (Me, mostly)5In this case "Incorrect syntax was used in a comment."6This particular error is caused by the -- which is inside another comment (eg <!--... //-- Generate a random number between 0 and max.--// ... -->.7Two EMBED attributes.