When you add formatting to your forum posts, what method do you usually use?

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Poll Results

When you add formatting to your forum posts, what method do you usually use?

I manually key in BBcode (square bracket tags like [i] ) Votes: 8
I manually key in HTML Votes: 3
I just use the toolbar Votes: 15
I mix and match about equally Votes: 4
I never use formatting in my posts Votes: 2

(Migrated poll)

N/A
0% (0 votes)
Total votes: 0

Discussion

We’re looking at doing some streamlining to improve the performance and usability of the forums. One option we’re considering is getting rid of BBcode and just using html instead. BBcode is the square bracket stuff the toolbar currently generates.

So here’s the question, do you usually use BBcode manually, key in html manually (like < i > for itealics, etc.) or usually just use the toolbar… or never format at all?

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

I manually enter BBCode, but did not realize that I could use html code instead. I am fine with getting rid of BBCode and keeping html.

p.s. I like and appreciate the new Toggle Preview feature

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I have a plugin for Firefox that allows me to use BBCode or HTML. Whatever makes your life easier.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

To clarify, what the comment area will currently allow is just a few basic html tags… probably plenty for most people. If we switch to a new editor, it’ll be a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), which uses html coding… but it won’t matter because you’ll never “see” the code. Should be possible to to still allow manual bbcode for a while for those who like that.

By the way, did you know there are keyboard shortcuts for the current toolbar? alt+shift+i for italics tags, alt+shift+b for bold, etc. I don’t think Preview has a key yet.

Anyway, nothing’s decided. Might just keep things as they are.

More votes would be helpful for narrowing options (as they say, vote now and don’t complain later :) )

(About FF… I still use it for alot of things because it’s got great plug-ings. But since I checked out Chrome, FF seems sow sluggish by comparison. But I’m in Linux so that may be a factor. Chrome for Linux is beta but man is it fast.)

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

I use the Firefox tool for BB code, or the toolbar when my connection lets it function correctly. Right now I only have buttons for bold, link, insert image and numbered list. *sigh*

"I pray to God this day to make me an extraordinary Christian." --Whitefield http://strengthfortoday.wordpress.com

[Anne Sokol] please put the little clicky buttons. is that what this is talking about? … .

I think so. Do you use the buttons we have now (for bold, italics, etc.)?

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

I use the toolbar and enter the codes in manually. Depends on my mood and if I’m reformatting something I’ve already written.

Hoping to shed more light than heat..

Thanks :bigsmile:

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Chris, good question. Probably it would become < blockquote >

But after doing some more research into options the last couple of days, it’s looking like even if we went to an html WYSISYG editor, bbcode would still be permitted and processed. That would make the “quote” link at the bottom of each post easier to sustain since it wouldn’t have to be reprogrammed to use different tags (though I think that would not be hard to do)

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Sorry I didn’t notice this sooner. Not that it matters a whole lot, but I type BB code manually. I’ve been on message boards so long, and I’m such a keystroke junkie, that I’d 50x rather type the code than leave the keyboard to use the mouse to do it. ;)

(Speaking of keystrokes, did you know its FIVE TABS to reach the “Save” button at the bottom of a post? Sure wish it were just one! :))

I’ll just have ‘em move the Save button up a few notches.

(Actually, there is a way to do that, but I have no idea how… forms are like Voodoo or something—don’t understand them and not sure I should dabble in their dark arts!) But I’ll bet you can hit tab five times very rapidly now. ;)

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

I have a silly question…is there anywhere a person can go to test out the reply, quote, etc. I had a very frustrating thing happen to me recently. I was typing a comment, and clicked the quote button on the bottom of the post I wanted to quote, but instead of inserting that text in my comment, it took me to a page that looked like I had hit reply to that specific post. When I clicked “back” all of the text that I had typed was gone, and I had to start my comment all over (sad story I know, you should be crying at this point, b/c I was).

Serving the Savior, Pastor Wes Helfenbein 2 Cor. 5:17

[pastorwesh] I have a silly question…is there anywhere a person can go to test out the reply, quote, etc. I had a very frustrating thing happen to me recently. I was typing a comment, and clicked the quote button on the bottom of the post I wanted to quote, but instead of inserting that text in my comment, it took me to a page that looked like I had hit reply to that specific post. When I clicked “back” all of the text that I had typed was gone, and I had to start my comment all over (sad story I know, you should be crying at this point, b/c I was).
The “quote” button at the bottom of a post will normally take you to a “reply” screen where you only see the post you’re quoting—and also insert the post you’re replying to inside quote tags.

Using the |” “| button in the toolbar, though, will just insert quote tags around whatever text you have highlighted.

I think you have identified a flaw though. Since we don’t use threading (where replies to posts are indented and placed directly below the post you’re replying to), there is really no reason for the Quote link to take you to a reply page. I’ll add it to the list of issues to work on. Off hand, I’m not sure there is a switch to flip to turn that off. But I can put in a feature request to the developer and see what happens (or find out how to tweak it).

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.