›

Thoughts on improving these forums themselves

DreamwriterDreamwriter Posts: 768Member
edited February 2013 in General Discussion

Lately I've come up upon a couple issues that make these forums annoying to use, so I figured I'd make a thread on improvements that could be made to the forums.

Worst of all to me are the super-annoying auto-saved drafts.  Many times I'll have a thought and start typing a response to a thread, then realize it's a stupid thought, or non-productive, or was already answered or something. But the draft has been saved without my pressing the Save Draft button, so every time I go back to that thread, my response is sitting there.  And if I quoted someone in that draft, there seems to be no way at all to ever remove the quote-space. From what I can tell there is no way to ever delete a draft without posting to a thread.

Speaking of which, those quote spaces don't seem to work very well, they seem too automatic, often I'll quote someone or do a double quote, and then go in and edit the quotes so only the pertinent things I'm replying to are mentioned, but one quote will start leaking into another, or leave the quote-box.  And if I want to quote someone from outside these forums, there doesn't seem to be that ability (there is no "quote" button in the button list).

And something I think is rather important to a dev-support forums, source code - there is no built-in method for posting formatted code! I'm still trying to find a good way to use the direct HTML to do it, but really we shouldn't ever have to touch HTML on a message board these days.

I'm not saying there should be an entire software swap, but if there ever is one, I really like forums using vBulletin (like NeoGAF).

Post edited by Dreamwriter on

Comments

  • MoggMogg usa.hawaii.oahu.mililaniPosts: 31Member
    I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding what you're saying about being able to delete a draft but for me if I have a draft it shows up on the right side called "Drafts" and I can click that and mouse over a draft and the little X pops up to delete it... 
  • apLundellapLundell Posts: 35Member
    Dreamwriter said:
    And if I want to quote someone from outside these forums, there doesn't seem to be that ability (there is no "quote" button in the button list).>
    There's an "Edit Source" button. That's easy enough.
    Abraham Lincoln said:
    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
    I'm not sure that I agree that we shouldn't touch HTML. Perhaps the buttons could be better but they'll never be perfect, and better to use HTML than some crazy pidgin language like bbCode.
    @apLundell   <-- Follow me!
  • apLundellapLundell Posts: 35Member
    edited February 2013
    Testing <code> tags

    


public class HelloWorld {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello, World");
    }

}
    Post edited by apLundell on
    @apLundell   <-- Follow me!
  • apLundellapLundell Posts: 35Member

    Testing <pre lang="java"> tags

    public class HelloWorld {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello, World");
    }

}
    Let's see how that works.
    @apLundell   <-- Follow me!
  • apLundellapLundell Posts: 35Member
    edited February 2013
    Sorry for the multi-post.

    Looks like <pre lang="java"> tags work fine, and <code> tags are a little wonky, but not unusable.
    Post edited by apLundell on
    @apLundell   <-- Follow me!
  • DreamwriterDreamwriter Posts: 768Member
    edited February 2013

    apLundell said:
    Dreamwriter said:
    And if I want to quote someone from outside these forums, there doesn't seem to be that ability (there is no "quote" button in the button list).>
    There's an "Edit Source" button. That's easy enough.
    Abraham Lincoln said:
    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
    I'm not sure that I agree that we shouldn't touch HTML. Perhaps the buttons could be better but they'll never be perfect, and better to use HTML than some crazy pidgin language like bbCode.
    Edit Source might be easy enough for experienced HTML coders.  I have no idea how to use that kind of quote in HTML.  And I tried < code > after doing a Google search for how to paste formatted code in HTML, I ended up with a bunch of underlines spacing my words out.  bbCode is a better alternative because it is simpler and much more predictable, and works the same on all browsers.

    I've also run into the issue here where I can't tell if I'm working with HTML or not - sometimes I'll try to put a line between two paragraphs when typing, post the comment, and the line's gone.  I'll then go edit it, show source, and add some < br >'s.  And then those won't be interpreted as HTML, but a bunch of weird characters.  But sometimes it all just works.

    As for Drafts, I never tried clicking that Drafts link in the corner, I'd just go to a thread and my draft would be pre-filled into the comment box, with no apparent way to delete quote blocks from it.  I definitely don't think draft saving should be automatic, not when there's a button to save the draft already.

    Post edited by Dreamwriter on
  • apLundellapLundell Posts: 35Member
    bbCode is a better alternative because it is simpler and much more predictable, and works the same on all browsers.
    ...I'm not sure that I agree with that. Simpler perhaps, but bbCode and all of it's close relatives are a pain to learn, and only useful on certain forums, and tends to behave slightly differently from forum to forum.

    HTML is a much more universal standard, the tricky point is which tags will be allowed.

    I agree that I wish it was more obvious if we were in richText mode or html mode, but here's how I remember it : If the button bar is greyed out, then you're in html mode.

    It's probably all kind of a moot point anyway. Whatever software package these forums are built on would probably not be easy to change.
    @apLundell   <-- Follow me!
  • noctnoct Posts: 122Member
    Personally I'd like to see Markdown comments (which I know Vanilla supports) instead of HTML... a simple task like replying to a portion of a quote is currently a huge pain.
  • GodlyPerfectionGodlyPerfection Posts: 140Member
    apLundell said:

    bbCode is a better alternative because it is simpler and much more predictable, and works the same on all browsers.
    ...I'm not sure that I agree with that. Simpler perhaps, but bbCode and all of it's close relatives are a pain to learn, and only useful on certain forums, and tends to behave slightly differently from forum to forum.



    HTML is a much more universal standard, the tricky point is which tags will be allowed.


    I agree that I wish it was more obvious if we were in richText mode or html mode, but here's how I remember it : If the button bar is greyed out, then you're in html mode.



    It's probably all kind of a moot point anyway. Whatever software package these forums are built on would probably not be easy to change.
    Actually the current setup of the posting system was a change. It was actually much easier when the forums first opened up. There were a couple problems here and there with quotes, but overall I felt it was a much more intuitive system.
    Aggro Tactics - A tactical strategy virtual board game built with Unity3D 4.0, designed around the concept of Threat/Aggro inspired by the mechanics of chess and a customizable party like in table top games.

    Founder of ReachingPerfection.com
Sign In or Register to comment.