I have corrected the link. Thank you for pointing out the issue.
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Morten,
During my time in Connect I have made it a practice to write long posts in Google Docs and pasting them into the connect input box. Since the new connect interface came out I have been, for some unknown reason, been active primarily on my phone. (Actually it is probably because of wanting to respond in the moment rather than waiting to get to my computer or Chromebook)
But tonight I crunched some numbers and responded to a post by @TerryPG . I wrote the post in word and pasted sections from a Google sheet. Overall the result was most satisfactory. Pasting from sheets worked much better than I expected. In a few places I added bold text or bulleted lists, but really almost all is a direct paste from docs and sheets. This includes the block text quotes that I pasted from connect posts into the Google doc.
There is one issue I found that you should be aware of. My Google doc default line spacing is 1.15 not 1.0. The connect input box turned this into double spacing, which I had to correct.
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Thanks. I tried reducing the line spacing to single and I still get this annoying error:
It only happens on Mobile.
I asked and got help here
I requested the LG team to fix this so far to no avail.
If you donât get this error then maybe we could collaborate on finding a workaround.
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Hi @Rednewt74
There is now a better reply re too long links when it comes to internal links:
We can use:
/t/-/357867/3865
Here is the test:
See this
It works, but we manually need to remove the https:// in the composer.
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@Rednewt74 I was on the task force so I can speak for that section, however, please keep in mind that I donât speak for the Local Guides team and some of my comments below will be just guesses.
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throughout the life of the old Connect, the Local Guides team have been receiving feedback, making notes on issues etc. So when they decided on the new Connect, they had those notes to refer to. The new Connect is not based solely on feature requests given by the task force members. Personally, I didnât ask for anything very specific but I suggested high level concepts like better mobile experience, and better meet-up submission process.
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one of the primary objectives is to make the site more mobile friendly as a large portion of the community access Connect via mobile. I didnât spend a lot of time on the old Connect on mobile so my opinion may not count, but I do feel like the current mobile experience is an improvement and the composer is more stable.
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the Local Guides team chose this platform because it offered more options to add new features more âeasilyâ in the future. Hence, them asking for feedback. On this platform, adding features should be as easy as installing plugins and then enabling the feature(s). However, if tweaking the feature is required that will take time. Also, adding new features may break existing stuff. The UI for this site is heavily customised towards Googleâs signature look. So, it may be easier (compared to old Connect) to add new features but it may still not be easy. Personally, I wouldnât expect any big changes. This new Connect forms the foundation moving forward so anything new will be small tweaks, small fixes to issues. Brand new features will take time to implement.
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the main structure of the new Connect was decided by the Local Guides team. Task force members provided feedback, making small changes here and there. We also had very early access to root out bugs etc. Then, the Connect Moderator group had early access too to find any leftover bugs.
So thatâs it. Thatâs about all that I can share. I hope I donât get into trouble if I accidentally revealed too much. But I wanted to clear the misconception that the task force members played a huge part in shaping the new Connect as the team already had years of feedback from the community to work on.
Also, a lot of âissuesâ that the community are having are down to getting used to the changes. We now have a more advanced composer (more features), more settings to play with, a more advanced notifications system etc. Itâs an improvement in many areas but all the extras are now too overwhelming. So, itâs just a matter of time to get used to the new Connect, to understand how the new platform works, to play around with all the new stuff etc.
Likewise, for categories and tags, we went from 7 specific categories to 25 specific tags, grouped under 4 broad categories. All the old posts that were transferred over could be re-categorised and tagged so we didnât lose the original 7 categories. We just have more ways to describe a post.
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Thatâs an interesting find but I fail to understand the benefits.
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from a readerâs perspective, itâs better to hide the link behind the text as we normally do. There are few reasons to show the link in full view.
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from the authorâs perspective, we have to edit a copied link to remove the title of the post. That just feels like more work thatâs unnecessary. You could ask the Local Guides team to tweak the share post button and use the shorter link style butâŚ
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you lose the ability to check that youâve copied/pasted the correct link because the title is stripped from the link
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Dear @MortenCopenhagen ,
I also came to this error when copy and paste! This resolved when I recopied the same text !
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This part of our discussion stems from Alfred pointing out the long URLs are stealing too much of the composer window when authoring.
Currently, Iâm still working on my macros and there the shorter internal links could be handy, but it is certainly not ideal.
Please elaborate on this.
When using mobile browser, I copy paste from Doc to connect (without copying photo). Some time it shows error like you mentioned. I then go to Doc and recopy it and paste to Connect (then the error wonât be showing).
For sometime I thought itâs because I put emoji/icon in the text I copied from Doc. But error also came when no emoji/icon where used in the text where I copied!
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Interesting, @Rahul001
I tried again and did what you suggested but unfortunately the same error message keeps popping up.
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Hy @MortenCopenhagen , to save time, I mostly put desktop mode ( by clicking desktop version on chrome) on my mobile . ( Most errors wonât show up , only the reload one pops up now and then)
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Thanks for another good suggestion. I tried but unfortunately the error persists. I appreciate your help.
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With reference your line:
âAll stories on Connect now need to relate to Google Maps or actions we take as a local guide.â
I understand what we do on Google Maps.
Can you please elaborate on what action we take as a local guide?
Isnât it same as what we do on Google Maps?
I can think of Meetups as an example.
What else?
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Always there to help fellow local guides!
Great question, @TusharSuradkar
How about:
- Building community with fellow LGs on Connect
- Organizing and participating in projects like #LGCTM, TRAC, Assecebility, etc.
- Supporting and recruiting LGs on other platforms like Facebook and Reddit.
- Producing videos like @AdrianLunsong does.
- Developing educational resources like tutorials etc.
- Interacting with and helping local businesses.
- Encourage local authorities to set up geodata partnerships with Google Maps.
- Organizing the leaderboards.
- Creating and maintaining local LG communities on Telegram, WhatsApp.
- Going on photo walks.
The list is long. It could be extended by listing all the different âprojectsâ individually.
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In that case, I think these are excellent topics - each deserving a separate post to educate and guide local guides on how to get involved in these activities.
I can take up some of these topics since I am involved in photo walks, accessibility checks, tutorials, etc.
We can have a separate series on these topics, similar to the spotlight series.
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I think the Spotlight post by Jesi is touching nicely on some aspects of creating community also outside Connect.
But it would be fantastic with more spotlight on these interesting LG actions beyond working inside Google Maps.
Take the lead on this, please.
Yes, I noticed that @MortenCopenhagen
Hope you have seen this:
Actions we can take as a Local Guide - Index
Letâs take this series ahead independent of the spotlight series.
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