Some Message Posting Recommendations

[jamestl2]

Hey everyone, I just had two questions with the posting interface:

1) Why aren't the WYSIWYG Controls enabled?

It's kind of annoying when you have to post things like URL's, bulleted lists, etc. with the actual code. I think it'd be a lot easier if you enable it, especially for newer members that don't understand how the vBulletin code works.

2) Why is Quick Reply disabled?

QR is just another thing I think would make posting messages and replies easier for the community...

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by jamestl2

Hey everyone, I just had two questions with the posting interface:

1) Why aren't the WYSIWYG Controls enabled?

It's kind of annoying when you have to post things like URL's, bulleted lists, etc. with the actual code. I think it'd be a lot easier if you enable it, especially for newer members that don't understand how the vBulletin code works.

2) Why is Quick Reply disabled?

QR is just another thing I think would make posting messages and replies easier for the community...

1. WYSIWYG Controls seem to be enabled for me?

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Do you mean so that the posts hide the tags?

You know, I've had to turn that off on every wordpress site I've ran because it always generates the code wrong, and then you can't fix it. Besides, you have a preview setting here to modify all that in.

I think the current forum setup here is pretty straightforward, myself.


2. Quick reply works for me, its the fourth icon. Edit / Quote / Multi-quote / Quick Reply.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

Do you mean so that the posts hide the tags?

That's what the WYSIWYG option does (and automatically displays what it'll look like when you write everything in), it'll automatically display the lists, font changes among other things in the box you use to type your post up, instead of seeing the code formatting.

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

You know, I've had to turn that off on every wordpress site I've ran because it always generates the code wrong, and then you can't fix it. Besides, you have a preview setting here to modify all that in.

I've never really looked into the WP code changes, but the vB formatting doesn't rewrite the post's code or anything, it works just fine on my forum, and a few others I belong to, just how you'd expect it to.

It just makes it much simpler for us posters .

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

2. Quick reply works for me, its the fourth icon. Edit / Quote / Multi-quote / Quick Reply.

By "Quick Reply", I meant the feature embedded right within the thread, below all the posts currently made.

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by jamestl2

That's what the WYSIWYG option does (and automatically displays what it'll look like when you write everything in), it'll automatically display the lists, font changes among other things in the box you use to type your post up, instead of seeing the code formatting.

It just makes it much simpler for us posters .

I don't like the idea of an obfuscation of tags. If all the tags are hidden then how to you do something like quote two different people from two threads in one post reply?

Right now, I can do this:

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

You can give up control, but you can't give up responsibility. Responsibility will still be yours.

I can post that quote in a custom format because I can set the tag myself. A WYSIWYG sounds great in theory, but since you can't see the tags you can't make any small custom changes when they are needed.

Its more like "What You See Is What The Computer Thinks You Want, And Good Luck If Its Something Different." WYSIWTCTYW.

I think tags in one window and a preview one click away is pretty fair. Merging those two operations has its own issues because you can't make custom changes when needed, because you can't see the tags you need to work with.

Its like when word keeps auto-correcting something when you don't want it to, but with WYSIWTCTYW editors there is no way to make them stop.

Originally Posted by jamestl2

By "Quick Reply", I meant the feature embedded right within the thread, below all the posts currently made.

What would the difference be? I hit quick-reply, the ajax box below the thread highlights, I type in the reply, click submit and its done. It even has an option to quote the original message in the reply.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

If all the tags are hidden how to you do something like, say quote two different people in one post?

You can always use the multi-quote feature vB offers. Just click on it's image ( ) for each post you want to quote.

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

I think tags in one window and a preview one click away is pretty fair. Merging the two has its own issues because you can't make custom changes, because you can't see the tags you need to work with.

I understand that you want to see what your doing, but I don't think there's that much code you could potentially mess up.

And many people probably don't understand how the code formatting functions, they're not programming experts.

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

What would the difference be?

It would just save us some time instead of going to a whole new page to reply .

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by jamestl2

You can always use the multi-quote feature vB offers.

Ahhh, but what if I only want to reply to just one part of your message at a time, like the partial quote of yours I am replying to now? What if I want to do quotes from two different threads? Multi-quote won't work by default in either case.

Originally Posted by jamestl2

And many people probably don't understand how the code formatting functions, they're not programming experts.

You'd be surprised. We (mods) don't have to correct many formatting issues here at all. People pretty much seem to pick the tags right up.

Originally Posted by jamestl2

It would just save us some time instead of going to a whole new page to reply .

You don't have to go to a new page for the quick-reply to work. Hit the fourth button, , then scroll to the quick-reply box at the end of the thread and type in it.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

Ahhh, but what if I only want to reply to just one part of your message at a time, like the partial quote of yours I am replying to now? What if I want to do quotes from two different threads? Multi-quote won't work then either.

Well, for this, whether the WYSIWYG is enabled or not wouldn't make a difference. Besides , how often do we have posts with quotes from *two different* threads?

The quoting thing like multiple parts of one quote you'd have to know the formatting for, like what I'm doing right now (just copying the [ QUOTE ] tags and wrapping it around different portions of your post).

The WYSIWYG would still be useful for other things, like emoticons, hyperlinks, and *especially* lists. Having to go through that crazy process just to ist different things can be a pain.

The WYSIWYG editor doesn't affect quotations, you'll still see the [ QUOTE ] tags with it enabled.

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

You'd be surprised, we don't have to correct many formatting issues here at all. People pretty much seem to pick the tags right up.

Maybe, I guess I was just assuming most people would have a difficult time learning them, as most aren't familiar with the code like us .

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

You don't have to go to a new page for the quick-reply to work. Hit the fourth button, , then scroll to the quick-reply box at the end of the thread and type in it.

OK, then why have that box in the first place? Why not just enable that feature automatically rather than having to click on a box to get it?

[jamestl2]

One more thing I wanted to say here was that if you DO enable the WYSIWYG editor, it doesn't render normal code formatting impossible, because you'll still be able to use all the same tags, text, etc. as being used now.

[jamestl2]

OK, I don't know if Steve already enabled both or not since then (if so Thank You! ), but if you click on this icon in the top right corner ( ), it automatically switches the editing mode for you (and I can format all the posts the way I preferred, with WYSIWYG)

So thanks again and hope others can find this useful too .