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When making a comment for the first time, if you paste in code like so:

alt text http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/9916/65370402.png

Then it does not highlight as code, see below:

alt text http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7518/66392876.png But if you go back and edit it again, you'll see that it is now all one line:

alt text http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/4033/54880563.png and then after clicking Save Your Edits, it will display properly:

alt text http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/2186/35498463.png

This works properly when previewing your post before asking a question.

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  • 7
    I see screenshots but I don't see freehand circles. Is your freehand-circle key broken?
    – Welbog
    Commented Dec 30, 2009 at 18:53
  • What browser do you use? In Firefox, when I go to edit this comment, I will see it in the multiline form In which I wrote it.
    – John Rudy
    Commented Dec 30, 2009 at 19:16
  • Internet Explorer 8
    – Engineer2021
    Commented Dec 30, 2009 at 19:17
  • Hrm. So you go to edit, it's collapsed down (the way it should be), thus you only have to save and you're good. I, on the other hand, have to actually go back and manually fix all the newlines (as Firefox kept them in). Yours is less intuitive, but mine is more annoying. :) In any event, I avoid using newlines in comments to begin with ...
    – John Rudy
    Commented Dec 30, 2009 at 19:22
  • It's more of an annoyance really but since others can't go and fix the code in the comment so it looks right (like 2K users can edit posts), it will sit unfixed until someone comes by and deletes it or edits it
    – Engineer2021
    Commented Dec 30, 2009 at 19:24
  • Well, mods can edit comments, I believe. (I don't know if they're subject to the same 5-minute limit we are for self-edits.)
    – John Rudy
    Commented Dec 30, 2009 at 19:28

2 Answers 2

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multiple lines are not supported in comments, and will never be.

edit: the ENTER key now submits the comment as well, so if you absolutely must have newlines for some odd reason (even though they aren't displayed..) use SHIFT+ENTER

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  • 1
    Why to prevent them, please give me an convincing answer, thanks.
    – Saw
    Commented Oct 17, 2010 at 15:07
  • 2
    @Mohammad to keep comments comments -- they're less important than answers.
    – badp
    Commented Oct 18, 2010 at 6:01
  • 2
    It seems like shift+enter should just not work at all
    – Michael Mrozek
    Commented Oct 18, 2010 at 6:23
  • @badp Since when being less important implies not having new lines?
    – BartoszKP
    Commented Jan 21, 2014 at 13:27
  • @BartoszKP It means you're getting less space on the page. The impact of comments on the overall structure of the site is limited.
    – badp
    Commented Jan 21, 2014 at 13:34
  • @badp Isn't space determined by the character count limit? I understand that you favour vertical space implicitly when you speak about site structure. But if you do, then the comment count should be limited too. This doesn't make sense - comments should deleted afterwards anyway, so why not make them convenient?
    – BartoszKP
    Commented Jan 21, 2014 at 13:38
  • @BartoszKP The site does limit the comment count on a per-page basis by not showing them by default.
    – badp
    Commented Jan 21, 2014 at 13:59
  • @badp So, if that was the only problem (as opposed the unfolded comments), doesn't that answer your requirement about the "impact on the overall structure"?
    – BartoszKP
    Commented Jan 21, 2014 at 14:02
  • @BartoszKP No; that doesn't help if every comment is arbitrarily tall.
    – badp
    Commented Jan 21, 2014 at 15:14
  • @badp Comments can't be "arbitrarily tall", because of character count limit (they can be quite tall anyway: see here). In general concept of comment folding does help in this case - it should be dependent on comments height, not comment count (still following your "site structure" requirement, which frankly speaking I find strange anyway). Abusive cases are anyway possible using Zalgo text for example (again refer to this thread).
    – BartoszKP
    Commented Jan 21, 2014 at 15:21
  • @BartoszKP Abusive comments like that are likely going to be flagged to oblivion on normal questions. The whole point of that question is to stretch the system as far as possible.
    – badp
    Commented Jan 21, 2014 at 16:15
  • @badp I know. I mentioned that just be because it is a thing that comes to mind as a counter-argument to my argument above. If you agree, then this part is irrelevant.
    – BartoszKP
    Commented Jan 21, 2014 at 16:27
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When I went back to edit my comment, it was still multi-line. I suspect that is part of the issue -- the multiline part.

Given that (once displayed) comments don't support multiple lines (the text area is only large because you can type 600 characters), I think this is probably a fairly low-priority bug. It is still valid bug, I think, but probably low-priority.

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