I can copy and paste fine when I use Mozilla. It seems to be a problem with IE.

yeah, i noticed this yesterday too. lame, lame, lame.

I would argue that, in fact, MT doesn't correctly support the code for those buttons, because it could easily be coded to work in all three browsers (Ikonboard, a discussion board software, does so, for instance).

But, I'll stop being a pedant now. What you could always try is opening up ESPN in Mozilla and keep your blogging in IE - you should be able to cut & paste between applications unless ESPN has done something truly odd.

Yes, you are probably right. I just assumed they were taking advantage of Microsoft calls. Still it's a pain having two browsers when one should do. If MT fixes their problems, I'd be happy to move to Mozilla or Safari.

Yeah, Safari still works but IE Mac doesn't. Funky.

The odd thing is, I've been looking at the code for that Rick Reed article for a few minutes and I can't figure out how they're blocking cut/paste. Perhaps they're forking code depending on your browser. Try turning off JavaScript in IE and visiting (of course, that would probably also break the buttons in MT).

ESPN.com used to be my favorite page to visit. I say used to be. It, to me, has become the most clunky site on the web that I visit. I have high speed but a lot of times that doesnt matter to ESPN. Even within the site links seem to be unresponsive a large percentage of the time. Sure it looks nice but I go there for content. I am now of course seeking info elsewhere. Good work ESPN. Not very user friendly, but hey its fancy and thats all that matters right ?

Agree on all counts ... and more reason to switch to Mozilla (or Safari!)

Unlike IE, there's not really a better option to switch to from ESPN. I can't see switching over to Fox and Yahoo's just TOO minimal for my taste. Anyone have suggestions?

Here is a workaround, albeit cumbersome.

1. Locate the file in your Temporary Internet Files folder. It will have a name such as "story?id=########"

The Rick Reed story is "story?id=1717047"

(Sort your Temporary Internet files folder by "Last Accessed" to float all of your recently cached files to the top.)

2. drag the file to another folder. It will probably appear there as simply "story(1)" or similar.

3. Open the file from that folder in Microsoft Word.

When I did the above, the page formatting was funky, because Word couldn't find the style sheets, but I could easily select and copy text.

3.

Or, much easier, just click on the Print Story link and c&p as usual from a cleaner page.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if they fixed that next.

You can still copy text from the "print this article" version of the story. That is actully a beter page to link to anyway - its cleaner and easier to read without all the moving ads, etc.

Chris -

duh! Of course!( insert sound and image of dumb Swede (me) slapping his palm against his forehead)

Another thing ESPN.com has restricted is saving the page. I haven't tried to save one off ESPN.com in a while but it gives me an error if I try to now through IE (although I use Mozilla now, mainly).

I surf the web with Mozilla (actually Mozilla Firebird) because I think that the tabs feature in Mozilla is indispensable. When I decide to blog something I open IE. For me it works well to have two browsers open at the same time. You could just surf in Mozilla and blog using a client like W.Bloggar.

Just to play devil's advocate here, I was able to save the page and most included files using IE. I wasn't able to copy and paste text, however I think this may be a bug either in the way the page is rendered in IE or in some javascript that they might have added recently. With the amount of code forking they do to serve certain things to certain clients, why wouldn't they have implemented similar techniques in other browsers?

Other reasons to think this is an accident: copy and paste works in the lite site, it works in the print preview, and select all is still enabled in the right click menu. If they were really trying to limit people's abilities to c&p content, and they wanted to use IE to do it, I'm sure that they would have used vbscript to chop up the right click menu a little more.

I reported this as a bug using the form linked at the bottom of the page. If anyone has a more direct email address, please post it as it would be cool for concerned parties to email. The more people they hear from the better, bug or "feature".

Yes, tabbed browsing is one of those things that has become a must for me. I could never go back to a browser that didn't use it.

And Safari (the best browser on the planet IMO) can copy/paste that article just fine.

There is another option. ESPN's "lite" version. It doesn't have all the geegaws, but cuts straight to the text.

http://lite.espn.go.com/mlb/index

I didn't have a problem with cut&paste. The article you mention is here:

http://lite.espn.go.com/mlb/news?id=1717047

(For some browsers it does have a bit of a problem formatting the main picture on the index page.)

You can also disable Java/Javascript in Tools->Internet Options.

Or you can click View -> Source. It will open a .txt file, and you can c&p from there.

John Y.

This is the code keeping us from c&p:

body bgcolor="#ffffff" ondragstart="return false" onselectstart="return false"

It is located just after the header ends.

Are the ondragstart and onselectstart attributes new? I've worked as a web developer but never come across those. It's purely a Microsoft thing, right?

I'm sort of stunned that ESPN would want to disallow selecting text and that evidently Microsoft would include a way to do it in their proprietary HTML interpreter. Maybe the upshot is that if this gains popularity, people will start to abandon IE.

I was hoping this would turn out to be a bug, but now it looks like it is intentional. That's too bad.

tools > internet options > security > custom levels > then disable active scripting

close and re open all your browser wimdows

I think the lite site is the best option, though.

http://lite.espn.go.com/mlb/index

I'm in Mozilla and OS X and I can select ESPN's text just fine.

I've been contemplating a move to MT, but one of the reasons I've stuck with Blogger is that in Mozilla/OS X, the formatting buttons for bold, ital and URL are supported -- in fact, that's the only combination of OS and browser which I can use those buttons.

Can anybody tell me if that's not the case in MT and OS X? Inquiring minds want to know.

You can also cut/paste directly from the source code. (right click, "View source," ctrl-f for the text). Not too difficult...

Yeah, I'm sick of the slowness, the popups . . . there are a lot of deterrents to hitting the ESPN site, which is a shame given the quality of the content.

I thought this probably had something to do with ActiveX controls which are supported only in IE. However, turning off ActiveX didn't fix the problem (although I get prompts every time I load ESPN now that the page will not display properly because ActiveX is not enabled). I did notice that the newer pages I can copy and paste from fine. So maybe they changed it back.

Frankly, there's no reason ESPN needs to be using ActiveX other than the ESPN motion stuff. Even then, they could be using Java, which is cross platform.

I'd suggest Mozilla or Firebird for Browsing. While the B, U, and I buttons in MT do not work by default, you can edit the code to make it work. For details, you can start at: http://www.deftone.com/blogzilla/archives/rich_text_editing_in_movable_type.html

I don't know what is different on my computer, but I am using IE 6.0.2800.1106 and I seem to be able to copy and paste perfectly fine.