Cleaning up a member's hairy (code wise) post that hiccupped

This page is under construction, so you should wait 'til it's done It is difficult to show the code, annotate it and correct it, because it is like switching hats from author to observer every few seconds, so it's going to take more time to finish. Meanwhile it is saved here. The editor's work is in bold; the member's original code and the editor's revised code is normal.

This is a portion of his post. It looks all crammed together, because that's what the forum software does with it. To examine it, the code will be "pretty printed," or straightened out as one would write it, but if it is submitted to the system again, it will cram it back all together. A way around this will be discussed last.

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The code as it appears in the author's post:


For groceries, we have a lot of choices:
Regular grocery stores
[ul type="disc"][li][font size="4" color="#1979e6"][u][a href="https://www.kroger.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]Kroger[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font size="4" color="#1979e6"][u][a href="https://www.meijer.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]Meijer[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font color="#1979e6" size="4"][u][a href="https://www.valumarket.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]Valu Market[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font color="#1979e6" size="4"][u][a href="https://save-a-lot.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]Save-A-Lot[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font size="4" color="#1979e6"][u][a href="https://www.aldi.us/"][font color="#1979e6"]Aldi[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font size="4" color="#1979e6"][u][a href="https://www.iga.com/consumer/default.aspx"][font color="#1979e6"]IGA

[/font][/a][/u][/font]Boutique or specialty grocery stores[/li][/ul][/font][ul type="disc"][li][font size="4" color="#1979e6"][u][a href="https://www.freshthyme.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]Fresh Thyme[/font][/a][/u][/font]
[/li][li][font size="4" color="#1979e6"][u][a href="https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]Whole Foods
[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font size="4" color="#1979e6"][u][a href="http://www.rainbowblossom.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]Rainbow Blossom[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font size="4" color="#1979e6"][u][a href="https://www.traderjoes.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]Trader Joe's[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font color="#1979e6" size="4"][u][a href="https://bourbonbarrelfoods.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]Bourbon Barrel Foods Retail Store[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font color="#1979e6" size="4"][u][a href="https://www.lotsapastalouisville.com/"]Lotsa Pasta[/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font color="#1979e6" size="4"][u][a href="https://www.thefreshmarket.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]The Fresh Market[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font color="#1979e6" size="4"][u][a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChoisAsianFoodMarket/"][font color="#1979e6"]Choi's Asian Food Market[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font color="#1979e6" size="4"][u][font color="#1979e6"][a href="http://www.goldenkeymarket.com/grocery.html"][font color="#1979e6"]Golden Key International Grocery Store[/font]
[/a][/font][/u][/font][/li][/ul]
[a href="http://www.goldenkeymarket.com/grocery.html" style="font-size:10pt;"][font color="#1979e6" size="4"][ul][/ul][/font][/a]
[span style="font-size:large;"]Retail stores that also sell groceries
[/span][ul type="disc"][li][font size="4" color="#1979e6"][u][a href="https://grocery.walmart.com/"][font color="#1979e6"]WalMart[/font][/a][/u][/font][/li][li][font color="#1979e6" size="4"][u][font color="#1979e6"][a href="https://www.target.com/c/grocery/-/N-55e8l"][a href="https://www.target.com/c/grocery/-/N-55e8l"][font color="#1979e6"]Target[/font][/a]
[/a][/font][/u][/font][/li][/ul]

End of original code

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For illustrative purposes, the edited code below must be prevented from executing. This is done here by inserting an illegal character (-) into all the tags. The forum software only acts upon legal tags, so tags with a dash in the wrong place will be ignored. While reading it, you must mentally ignore all inserted dashes, and, of course, they would need to be removed to use the code in a post.¹

Start of edited code:

For groceries, we have a lot of choices:
Regular grocery stores

Here starts a bullet list, followed by the items in the list, which are links to various stores.

[-ul type="disc"]
[-li][-font size="4" color="#1979e6"][-u][-a href="https://www.kroger.com/"][-font color="#1979e6"]Kroger[-/font][-/a][-/u][-/font][-/li]

Comments on the first link (which comments hold for all the links that follow and will not be repeated):
1. Unless there is a special purpose for a bigger-than-default size, the size should be left default. The size tags will be omitted.
2. The default color for links in this forum is a dark blue, so there is no need to specify lighter color blue. Color tags will be omitted.
3. As there is no default underlining of link text in this forum, adding underlining is reasonable to conform to normal Web tradition. Underline tags will be retained.
4. Color was applied to entire links, but it did not work. Only color applied to the link text inside worked.
5. Underlining was applied to entire links, which did reach inside to the link text, but it is cleaner to apply it only to the link text.

Thus the first link is simplified to:

[-li][-a href="https://www.kroger.com/"][-u]Kroger[-/u][-/a][-/li]

It can be seen that the tags start in the middle at the link text and work their way outward symmetrically, with starting tags on the left and ending tags on the right: u, a, li. Likewise the rest of the list items are similarly simplified:

[-li][-a href="https://www.meijer.com/"][-u]Meijer[-/u][-/a][-/li]
[-li][-a href="https://www.valumarket.com/"][-u]Valu Market[-/u][-/a][-/li]
[-li][-a href="https://save-a-lot.com/"][-u]Save-A-Lot[-/u][-/a][-/li]
[-li][-a href="https://www.aldi.us/"][-u]Aldi[-/u][-/a][-/li]
[-li][-a href="https://www.iga.com/consumer/default.aspx"][-u]IGA[-/u][-/a]
Boutique or specialty grocery stores[-/li][-/a]

Now here the author has extended the use of the sixth list item to publish the title for what is essentially a second list. This may not cause problems, but it is jarring to the psyche. Then the remaining links continue until the end of the list. It would be cleaner to simply end first list and begin a second one. We start by cleaning up the sixth link:

[-li][-a href="https://www.iga.com/consumer/default.aspx"][-u]IGA[-/u][-/a][-li]

We end the first list.

[-/ul]

The title for the second list is now shown standalone.

Boutique or specialty grocery stores:

[-ul type="disc"]
[-li][-a href="https://www.freshthyme.com/"][-u]Fresh Thyme[-/u][-/a][-/li]
[-li][-a href="https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/"][-u]Whole Foods[-/u][-/a][-/li]
[-li][-a href="http://www.rainbowblossom.com/"][-u]Rainbow Blossom[-/u][-/a][-/li]
[-li][-a href="https://www.traderjoes.com/"][-u]Trader Joe's[-/u][-/a][-/li]
[-li][-a href="https://bourbonbarrelfoods.com/"][-u]Bourbon Barrel Foods Retail Store[-/u][-/a][-/li]

The next link, instead of blue, shows up in the list in black:{/b]

[li]Lotsa Pasta

[/li]

[-li][-a href="https://www.lotsapastalouisville.com/"]Lotsa Pasta[/a][/li]
[-li][-a href="https://www.thefreshmarket.com/"][-u]The Fresh Market[-/u][-/a][-/u][-/li]
[-li][-a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChoisAsianFoodMarket/"]Choi's Asian Food Market[-/u][-/a][-/li]

Notice that the next link contains three color tags, thus coloring the colorer coloring the link text, all unnecessarily:

[-li][-font color="#1979e6" size="4"][-u][-font color="#1979e6"][-a href="http://www.goldenkeymarket.com/grocery.html"][-font color="#1979e6"]Golden Key International Grocery Store[-/font][-/a][-/font][-/u][/-font][-/li]

Like all the others, this link is simplified to:

[-li][-a href="http://www.goldenkeymarket.com/grocery.html"][-u]Golden Key International Grocery Store[-/u][-/a][-/li]

[-/ul]

The third list uses a span tag to alter the size of the list title:

[-/font][-/a]
[-span style="font-size:large;"]Retail stores that also sell groceries
[-/span]

And the title too will be stripped of unnecessary "taggage:"

Retail stores that also sell groceries

The third list is a short one:

[-ul type="disc"]
[-li][-a href="https://grocery.walmart.com/"][-u]WalMart[-/u][-/a][-/li]
[-li][-a href="https://www.target.com/c/grocery/-/N-55e8l"][/a]Target[/font][/u][/font][/b][/b][/b][/u][/li]
[/ul]

[/code]

[b}Notes:[/b]

1. The normal technique to prevent execution is to enclose the code in BBCode "code" tags, which is what was done to the original code above. Unfortunately, the software places such code in a separate block from the surrounding text. That would normally be OK, but in this work, editor comments are interspersed in the code and it would be a mess. Thus the dash technique is used instead.)[/p]