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Phil Goodson
Mar-15-2009, 4:47pm
Scott,

Back to the question of headers in the classifieds.
Many of us use Ad-Blockers as a part of Firefox.

Apparently, this is totally removing the Titles of the Ads. So when an ad is titled '23 Loar Mando, and then the ad text says, "good condition, original equipment, etc..." , there is no way to know what the instrument is unless the poster has remembered to put the details within the description.
Might be easier to convert the titles to text than to get people to change their posting habits. Or not.
Can't give up my ad-block though.

Any help?

Oh, I just noticed. The same thing is happening throughout the threads in the forum. That is, once I open a thread, I can't see the title of the thread ANYWHERE on the opened page.

MikeEdgerton
Mar-15-2009, 5:06pm
Take a look at this (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49185) thread.

Scott Tichenor
Mar-15-2009, 5:28pm
The titles are plain text--not an image. It's nothing more than simple HTML and the title is in what's called an h1 tag which is one of the most common simple HTML tags in use on the internet behind the paragraph tag. The fact that adblocker can't figure out plain text on a web page without some additional configuration makes me think those folks using it are not seeing a lot of what's on the internet and don't even know it.

foldedpath
Mar-16-2009, 5:04pm
The titles are plain text--not an image. It's nothing more than simple HTML and the title is in what's called an h1 tag which is one of the most common simple HTML tags in use on the internet behind the paragraph tag. The fact that adblocker can't figure out plain text on a web page without some additional configuration makes me think those folks using it are not seeing a lot of what's on the internet and don't even know it.

Scott, I looked at what Adblock Plus was blocking on Firefox, and I don't think it's the H1 tag as such. My default ABP installation showed both these style sheets in the blocked list (using a Classifieds ad page as example):

http://www.mandolincafe.com/classifieds/classifieds.css

http://www.mandolincafe.com/mandolins.css

I can't figure out what it doesn't like about classifieds.css, but I notice there's a class right at the bottom of mandolins.css named ".adheader h1" which modifies the H1 tag. It might be that ABP automatically blocks anything with that particular name, by default.

Your call, but it might be worthwhile to try using a different name for that H1 class, if it doesn't break anything else. A lot of people use ABP or similar software with Firefox and won't know the details of how to set up exception filters. Most won't even know something's broken, since they're not seeing the missing header. I didn't notice the missing Classified headers until it was mentioned in the recent thread.

MikeEdgerton
Mar-16-2009, 5:21pm
Let's all keep in mind that ads keep the cafe free.

Scott Tichenor
Mar-16-2009, 8:24pm
We can test this. I've changed the class for that heading. Using this logic, which I don't disagree with, I'd assume you can't see the Reply To background image that is behind the reply to function. It has a class titled "adreply". Here's what an ad should look like now minus some of the content on the right side of the page that I've removed. If you're not seeing the burgundy color on the Classifieds then it's blocking that as well.

I have to point out here that some of you are running ad blocking software on... a resource that is literally nothing but ads. Anyone else see the irony in that? :)

I don't mind making changes, but if some of you are running add-on software and are unfamiliar with how it operates then that sets the stage for a lot of issues for you when tripping about the web. I get occasional complaints that ads aren't visible on the classifieds and elsewhere. My suggested test is, turn off your anti-virus software, refresh, and if that's the problem, make sure you turn the anti-virus software back on and then research how that gets sorted out. That's the issue in 99% of those queries.