Backslashes
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I have been blogging about computer issues on WordPress for seven years. I have hundreds of posts, many of which are long and detailed, comprising the equivalent of thousands of pages of text. In innumerable instances, the text refers to file and folder locations (e.g., C:Windows). I have reviewed these posts many times. Just now I discovered that backslashes are being removed from my posts. This makes it impossible to know what is meant by a reference to e.g., D:isthisafolderorfoursubfolders. It is not possible that I have overlooked this. It is also not possible for me to go back in there and restore the backslashes, assuming they would not be removed again. Could someone please explain what has happened and why?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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I don’t know why this site appended a reference to that raywoodcockbio blog. It is irrelevant to this. An example from the computer blog is at https://raywoodcockslatest.wordpress.com/2019/10/06/win10-secure-install/. The backslashes have been removed throughout that very long post.
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Hi there!
Could you tell us some more details about this issue?
Are you writing your posts directly in the WordPress editor, or rather using another text creating software and copying and pasting from there?Also, you mentioned that you’ve reviewed the posts many times, I understand from this that the backslashes disappeared just recently?
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Hi. Thanks for replying. It appears that the problem exists in some but not all posts. The one linked above is an example. I only use the WordPress editor. Possibly the question is, which one? Ordinarily, almost always for composing and usually for revising as well, I use the classic version of the WordPress editor, enabled through Tampermonkey, in Opera. I don’t seem to have had any problems with that.
I think I may have retouched that particular post using the new WordPress editor in Firefox. I have used that new editor to revise other posts — rarely if ever to compose. I don’t know which posts I might have retouched in the new editor, at this point, or how many of them may have had backslashes in them.
Examples of removed backslashes, in that particular post, appear at most of the text’s references to C:. I have added back a few backslashes — again, I think, using the new editor — and those still seem to be there. There are also a few surviving single backslashes where, previously, there were double backslashes.
That really freaked me out — the prospect that years of work have been wiped out by some arbitrary decision at WordPress. Several years ago, I had another regrettable encounter with their coders’ arbitrary and nonsensical reasoning.
I have been afraid to look at how many other posts may have been similarly corrupted. “Devastating” may be too strong a word, but “debilitating” isn’t. When I saw that, I just sat here and stared at the computer for quite some time.
But yes, I do often revisit my posts, to review their contents for my own use and also to revise them in light of subsequent information, and I haven’t seen anything like this before. It’s really a mystery.
Thank you again for replying.
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Hi @raywoodcock,
I only use the WordPress editor. Possibly the question is, which one?
That is a good point indeed.
I haven’t been able to duplicate this myself though, regardless of which editor I use.
Are you pasting from another program into WordPress, by chance? If I type c:whatever in the visual editor, the backslash persists.
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I noticed, by the way, that your initial post does not have backslashes either:
In innumerable instances, the text refers to file and folder locations (e.g., C:Windows)
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The backslashes seem to be removed from my posts in this forum as well. Here’s a test: I’ll retype C:Windows. As I’m typing it, that’s C colon backslash Windows.
I’m not pasting into WordPress. I’m typing straight into the editor, regardless of whether I use the classic editor or the new one.
I’ve recently been working on my laptop, rather than my desktop. But other recent posts in the blog in question (e.g., https://raywoodcockslatest.wordpress.com/2019/11/20/a-customized-restorable-windows-start-menu/), whether composed in the classic editor or (I think) revised in the new one, seem now not to have lost their backslashes.
Maybe I’ll work up the courage to try to edit another post in the new editor. Preferably one without a lot of backslashes. Or maybe the solution is just to find why backslashes seem to be disappearing from my posts in this forum as well.
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OK, well, now the backslashes are not disappearing here. One more try: C: is C colon backslash.
It’s a mystery.
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Hi there,
The editor in this forum is a bit different than the WordPress editor. Can you please use a different browser or another computer and try to edit some of your posts to see if the backslash is getting omitted?
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