Coding Problems & Solutions

On January 31st, 2011, the Neopets filters 'asploded' on everybody. The next day, we discovered these changes are permanent. I've put together a list of solutions to some petpage problems. I highly recommend you save your current coding before doing anything. If you have any questions, neomail me via my userlookup. Remember, replace all of these [ ] with these

[May 22 2011] Please Note: Since everyone has now adjusted to the new filters, this page will no longer be updated. However, I'm working on a new coding guide, so stay tuned for that!

Textareas are WORKING! As of late February 8th, textareas are fully functional once again! You must use textarea as oppose to text _ area . This wasn't working before (it used to mess up the editing page - see the update below), but now it works. I have tested this myself! Thank you, TNT.

News about textareas: (Feb 8 2011) Please note, textareas are NOT back. Yes, you can use them if you write TEXTAREA with no underscore, but this messes up your entire "edit homepage" page (and isn't supposed to be done to begin with), and you've been able to do this since the filters went crazy - in other words, this is no new development. Please, don't spread the word around that textareas are back. They're not.

TEXTAREAS SHALL RETURN! Click here for the editorial in which TNT said themselves that textareas will, indeed, be returning!

IMPORTANT NEWS: As of late February 2nd, display and margin codes are working again! This gives me hope that textareas will soon return as well! Keep your fingers crossed everyone!

UPDATE (Feb.1.2011): Many were shocked at the discovery that the new filters are permanent. Many people who sent tickets, myself included, received a reply telling us TNT was "working to have your Pet page back to normal as soon as possible!". This, apparently and sadly, isn't the case.

PLEASE READ THE FAQ BEFORE NEOMAILING ME!
New questions are added frequently.

Useful Note

On your site, if you want to refer to carrot brackets (

), you can display them as an image, like the ones in this sentence. I've posted three images below. Just right-click + copy image location to get the url.

Premades Sites - Solution!

My friend, tatooinejedi (owner of Decoded) and I were discussing possible solutions for premades sites, and she had a brilliant idea! Copy + pasted from our conversation, here it is: "Copy each code into notepad and using the replace tool to replace

with ( ) or [ ] and then putting them in DIVs and then telling users how to use the replace tool in notepad to make it work again."
Although this is a complex and rather annoying solution, it does work!

Note: Rita1111 sent me a neomail about why using square brackets to replace these is better: "Because parentheses are commonly used in code, your users will have incorrectly placed angle brackets when they revert the code back to angle brackets. Since square brackets are not used in CSS or HTML, that would be the wiser choice."

PLEASE NOTE; There has been a lot of confusion here. This solution is for PREMADES SITES ONLY, for how they offer their codes because textareas are not working! I did not say anywhere that you had to replace ALL these with these [ ] on your whole site.

Layout ASPLODE

The main problem is the CSS completely going crazy and showing up all over your page. The solution is very simple.

DON'T DO: [style /] and [/style /]

DO: [style] and [/style]

No "Save" Button?

Just add 25-38 [br]'s at the very beginning of all your coding. If you know how to code on a more advanced level, you could also go through all of your divs and add this:

style="z-index:-1;"

If you do this, there is no need for the [br]'s and the save button will appear on top of the whole layout.
*NOTE: If you have an image layout with anchor codes, add style="z-index:-2;" to the layout image code and style="z-index:-1;" to the divs on top of it.

No Textareas?

Sadly, textareas are not working at all. For now, it's best to just use a small div box for your codes and use these [ ], and notify people to replace them with these

This goes in the style tags (change numbers/color to suit your needs):

#textbox {width:88px;height:30px;padding:1px;overflow:auto;border: 2px solid #cccccc;font:5pt verdana;}

This goes where you want to place the DIV:

[div id="textbox"] Your code goes here! [/div]

If you use the code above, this is what you should be getting:

Your code goes here! Your code goes here! Your code goes here!

If you want the box to be as small as possible, it won't scroll, so you'll have to make the font very small by adding this in: font:3.5pt small fonts;. You can go as small as you like, of course, and change the font to whatever you like, as long as the whole code is visible. You can also adjust the height of the div. This is what it could look like:

Your code goes here! Your code goes here! Your code goes here!

My page isn't scrolling!

This is most likely because you have overflow-x:hidden; overflow-y:auto; in your CSS or HTML. Remove all that and replace it with overflow:auto; or overflow:hidden;.
If your anchor codes aren't working, the solution above should fix that as well. Hunkymonky777 sent in a possible solution. Drag and drop the following image to your address bar:

Neopets Credits

The big Neo credits text is visible on your page now, and there is no way to remove it using .sf {display:none;} or .sf {visibility:hidden;}, because those codes no longer work in the style tags. I've discovered a good way to hide them (more or less), but remember, you must type them somewhere on your page. Removing them completely isn't allowed.

.sf {color:#E4E4E4;}
.sf a:link, a:visited {color:#E4E4E4;}

To make the Neopets credits as small as possible, do this:

.sf {color:#f3f3f3;font:1pt small fonts;}
.sf a:link, a:visited {color:#f3f3f3;}

This code goes into the style tags. You have to change the color hex code to the same color as the background the Neopets credits are on. For example, the background of this page is #f3f3f3. If you highlight the empty space below this whole content box, you will see the real Neopets credits.

You could also do this; this solution was contributed by Chevrolette__xx:

.sf{font-size: 1%;line-height: 1px;color:#E4E4E4;}
.sf a:link, a:visited {font-size: 1%;line-height: 1px;color:#E4E4E4;}

UPDATE: As of late February 2nd, display codes are functioning again! This means you now can hide the Neopets credits by adding .sf {display:none;}, and block navigation has also returned! Please remember: if you do hide the Neopets credits, you must write them somewhere on your page.

Align=center isn't working!

Unfortunately, all the "align=" tags don't work. To center something, add [center] before it and [/center] after it. To align an image to the left, add style="float:left;" . Since margins also don't work, for images, you will have to add padding, like this: padding:1px;. Change the number to whatever you like. You can also change it to have padding on one side, like so: padding-left:1px; - it can be left, right, top, or bottom.

UPDATE: As of February 2nd, margins are functioning again! You can now add margin:1px; as oppose to padding, which is much better.

The final product should look something like this:

img src="URL.png" style="float:left;padding:1px;"

Remember, text-align:left; is different from align=, and still works.

Table Backgrounds & Borders

You cannot add backgrounds or borders doing this: bgcolor="COLOR" or border="BORDERSTYLE" . I believe this has little to do with the new filters (although I'm not certain), but since this question has come up so often, I will explain it here.

The correct way to make your tables look fancy is with inline CSS.

[table style="border:1px solid #COLOR;background:#COLOR/url(URL);"]

Of course, you can choose between solid, dashed, and dotted for the border style. Change the 1px to the number that suits your needs, and replace #COLOR with an actual hex code. For the background, choose to make it a solid color or a background image.

Frequently Asked Questions

My page is messed up! I tried everything you said to do on your guide, but it isn't working. Help?
If you did everything on this page and it's still not working, there's a 99.9% chance that your problem has nothing to do with the new filters, and you are actually doing something wrong. If this is the case, please don't neomail me. I will only answer questions about the new filters and the problems they are causing.

Whenever I try to save my page, this message appears: "Invalid words or disallowed property names found in your style tags. position". How do I fix this?
The word "position" is in your style tags. This hasn't been allowed for months and has nothing to do with the new filters, so I'm surprised at the number of times this has been asked. The solution is simple: remove the word "position" from your style tags. You will have to add it with inline CSS. For more information on this, visit this page.

I replaced all these with these [ ] like you said, but it looks worse! Am I doing something wrong?
I am surprised at the number of times this has come up. I did not say anywhere on this page that you had you replace your whole site's carrot brackets with square brackets, so I'm confused as to why so many people are doing this. If you got confused at the Premades sites - solution! section, as the header implies, that is for premades sites only, and if you don't offer premades on your site, that section has nothing to do with you.

Why is my anchor navigation not working?
Try adding style="z-index:2;" to your navigation div. This worked for me, and hopefully it works for you. If it fixes your navigation, please contact me via my userlookup and let me know it worked for you as well!

Help me with my userlookup?
I'm so, so sorry, I know nothing of userlookup coding. There are many users out there, especially the owners of premade userlookup sites, who would be much better suited to help you. I apologize for any inconvenience! I will not give out any of their usernames; I wouldn't want them to be swarmed with questions because of me.

So, are these problems permanent?
I am extremely upset to say yes, they are. This is what TNT said on their official board: "We've recently updated our filters on Pet Pages and User Lookups so that they are the same as the filters on shops. If you have added any extra html to those pages to make them more interesting and more unique please make sure that you go and look at your code as you may need to make a few changes. -The Fun Neopets Code Filtering Team".