March 16, 2011

Facebook Requires Shift+Enter To Start New Paragraphs. Only Zuck Knows Why

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Written by: Charlie Pryor
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facebook

Facebook is easily the most popular social gathering spot in the world (digitally speaking). It has grown to be a part of our very culture, and we love it, and hate it, every day. Today, I hate it. There is a long drug out list of things I could say about the recent updates to the way Facebook works, including on how cluttered it is now with the photo banner, how messages are now MORE difficult to keep track of, and now… how annoying talking to somebody can be.

Why is talking to somebody annoying now? Simple… because we are about to get overloaded with notifications because there is about to be an overload of comments. You see, it used to be simple to write in a box. You type what you want in a nice structure, and then hit ENTER to start a new paragraph. Now, that has all stopped. On any wall, it is now required that you hit SHIFT+ENTER to start a new paragraph. The part that annoys me most is that people are going to start commenting all over the place without realizing what is going on. Facebook needs to start telling people when they are making changes. it’s really annoying that they got rid of the send button. It prevented a lot of people from saying the wrong thing. Now, Copy/Paste is our best friend, as we dash to fix what we just messed up on, and delete the old post before anybody sees it.

UPDATED: There is a simple FIX for this nonsense. If you hate this as much as I do, and want to get rid of it, CLICK HERE

This applies to comments only, and does not affect how your status updates and normal wall posts are done. You can still do those the nice way.

This is easily going to annoy the crap out of me for a while, but like all things, I’ll probably get used to it. One thing to point out also, is that if you do make a mistake, and hit Enter to early, you don’t actually have to retype everything, or even Copy/Paste. Instead, hit the “X” immediately (as if to delete it) and Facebook will allow you to have a mulligan on the post. It will actually retract it from the comment thread, and allow you to edit it. The window to do this is pretty small, so you have to be quick about it.

It’s going to annoy me, but what do you think? Is this better? Have you even noticed the changes at all? Let us know on facebook, or in the comments below! Thanks!





About the Author

Charlie Pryor
Charlie is a technology nut, and a big fan of Apple products. While attending college at Grand Valley State, he uses much of his free time every day answering questions on facebook. He founded HotTips! back in January 2010, and believes that anybody can learn anything if they have the right teacher. You can follow his personal blog or subscribe to him on Facebook and Twitter.




 
 

 
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  • bob

    It sucks when you’re on a mobile phone where there’s no way to hit shift+enter
    So yeah expect a lot of posts

  • Jo

    And on iPad, you cannot do shift+enter :-(
    So now I can only talk in one paragraph, or 20 comments..:-(
    Damn FB

  • Carl

    Sucks balls as far as I’m concerned. How about shift+enter = instant post? No, that would make too much sense…

  • http://none kris

    why do you keep messing with things that work! Facebook was easy and pleasant to use and you are just complicating things..you are gettng as bad as yahell! and…you could at least explain what you did before we have to ask or look something up as to WHY you did it.
    I was really enjoying my time on FB..now? i am not so sure..dont fix it if it aint broke!
    thank you.

  • Perry Clease

    This is what happens when programmers do not round out their education with humanities, they don’t think about the consequences of their actions.

  • Dave Reebok

    FB Purity fixes the comment problem for Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari Users, restoring the old Comment button method, it also fixes a whole load of other annoying things that are wrong with Facebook. http://www.fbpurity.com

    • http://charliepryor.net Charlie Pryor

      Thank you Dave! We have reviewed your suggestion, and credited you in a more recent article here on the site, showing people how to use FB Purity to take back the Comment button

  • Mikee

    Dear Mr. Zuckerburg,

    Fuck you.

    Sincerely,

    The English Language

  • http://cgullworld.blogspot.com Chris

    Thanks a lot for the great tip, I was just figuring out how to enter paragraphs with the new system and I found your article. I am using F.B. Purity extension now. Thanks.

  • JoAnne

    My biggest beef is that I can no longer click to get in the middle of a line, it puts me at the beginning, so I have to use my arrow keys to do so. Annoying! Makes it very difficult to edit my post before I hit send.

    • http://charliepryor.net Charlie Pryor

      Good Point! Thanks for stopping by!

      If you would like to fix this, and return to the old system, it can be done using our other article as a guide. Click the “UPDATE” link in the middle of this article for more information.

  • http://www.lgrossman.com/trudel/ Leonard Grossman

    There is also an extension called bettefacebook.com. Unfortunately neither will work on an iPad.