1 (edited by Fire Fusion 2005-09-10 15:40)

Topic: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Edit: Please help with the plugin if you can.

Feel free to disagree but I think Textile should replace BBcode as PunBB's code of choice. BBcode is so bulky and cumbersome, i'm always having to read the help file to remember how to do things. Sure people new to Textile would have to do the same but once you get the hang of it it's so natual and fast. 

I know that the Textpattern forums use PunBB with Textile working.

I think it would further help PunBB's identity as a light, easy and fast message board.

2

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Fire Fusion wrote:

I think Textile should replace BBcode as PunBB's code of choice. BBcode is so bulky and cumbersome

Beg your pardon? wink
There are exactly 9 (nine) different BBcode tags in the standard version.
Bulky?
Cumbersome?
Limited maybe, but no way difficult.

If you are looking for something really cumbersome then I think Textile is the option. smile

No, really, why trying to have a complete html replacement?
Would be easier to actually allow at least some HTML tags than having to learn a complete new markup language smile

Plus, I always have the feeling that too much layout options don't help the readability of a board.
Once you allow people to mess around with different font sizes and so on - some of them will almost certainly overdo it.

Fire Fusion wrote:

I think it would further help PunBB's identity as a light, easy and fast message board.

I think it would make punBB at least more complicated if not slower.

The German PunBB Site:
PunBB-forum.de

3 (edited by Fire Fusion 2005-08-20 15:44)

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Tobi wrote:

There are exactly 9 (nine) different BBcode tags in the standard version.
Bulky?
Cumbersome?
Limited maybe, but no way difficult.

Actually I'm refering to what it take to type them out. A url with Textile involves "Try PunBB":http://punbb.org

That's a total of 3 extra charaters "":

Where as BBcode requires 12 to do the exact same thing. Bold text? Textile requires 2, instead charaters of 6 and so on.

Tobi wrote:

Plus, I always have the feeling that too much layout options don't help the readability of a board.
Once you allow people to mess around with different font sizes and so on - some of them will almost certainly overdo it.

You don't need to include the whole textile language, just the bits that do the same as BBcode.

Once you get the hang of it you'll love it. Plus it would help the whole TextDrive unity that PunBB is apart of and move apps away from the safe and familiar into better things.

4

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

A while ago, I tried to leave a comment on the Spreadfirefox site. It uses CivicSpace and uses Textile for comment formatting.

I'm familiar with bbcode, html, etc. I spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to leave a url in a comment. I read the docs on the SF site, I read the docs at Textpatern, I Googled to no end and never found my answer.

Maybe it was a broken implementation on the SF site, I don't know, but I'm already familair with bbcode and it's used on every forum I frequent. phpBB, PunBB, IPB and vBulletin all use bbcode, no need to retrain the brain when posting.

I'm not putting Textile down, it might be really nice but I could never figure it out.

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

In this case I think it's better to be mainstream. Many users would be confused. I mean, there is people out there never heard of BBCode or whatever and think the [b] tags etc. are standards and take that for granted. Chances are that most users would end up using a BBCode mod instead.

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

hcgtv wrote:

I'm not putting Textile down, it might be really nice but I could never figure it out.

One of the problems with Textile is it is so simple people think there must be some other trick to it.

"Try PunBB":http://punbb.org

That's a URL.

If it didn't work SF must have not done it right.

7

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

If Textile was so better than BBcode, all forums would use textile. BBcode is simply for the final user, and you know all the new generation of users need really simplicity.

Stay BBcode (and sorry, it's very simple to customize)

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Rod wrote:

If Textile was so better than BBcode, all forums would use textile.

So WIndows is worth any unix a hundred times ? roll

BBcode is simply for the final user, and you know all the new generation of users need really simplicity.
Textile is much simpler than bbcode.

It's mostly old text-only (usenet-like) markup, with some more for the complex things :

*strong emphasis*
_emphasis_
??cite??
"text":http://url
bq. a quotation block

and so on. Once you get it, you won't find simpler or faster to use.

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Jérémie wrote:

So WIndows is worth any unix a hundred times ? roll

for the average user yes

10 (edited by Rod 2005-08-28 11:33)

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Linux is the best, but all people don't want to enter line codes : and it's normal. Same thing here. Textile is simply not at all explicit. And after, when these people learn html, the logic way of bbcode help them. Textile ... not intuitive, sorry.

11

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

I beg to differ. From what Jeremie (plus some accents) wrote the textile seem at least as intuitive and explicit as bbcode or even more so. For example making links with custom link text is quite cumbersome in bbcode because in different forums you might or might not need the quotes around the link text. Same goes with the quote tag with quoted name. Personally I have to check the syntax most of the time when I post and yes, I've been around the block few times. You would think that 10k posts in phpBB, Invision and now Pun would teach you how to post links, but using the edit button afterwards is no exception.

Textile on the other hand seems already familiar. I've stumbled across it once before and having used text only forums (not as in forum software) like e-mail, usenet, news and bbs' (again not as in forum software) from the beginning with 2k baud modems I believe that would be quite natural form of expression to me. However the problem is the new generation of internet users who barely never see plain text in the internet nowadays.
Also I think every forum system uses bbcode because very few of the developers even think about having something else. It has more or less become the defacto standard in forums and therefore the functionality should remain. While replacing bbcode with textile could be refreshing it's quite impossible nowadays.

Looking forward a mod.

12

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

The best thing for final user would be a WYSIWYG and not a textarea ... all in dhtml with directly the form. But dev would say "yes but it's not compatible with Mosaic".

That's the life smile

13

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Rod wrote:

But dev would say "yes but it's not compatible with Mosaic".

That's the life smile

Well, aside from the fact that of course a board has to look nice on Lynx as well wink
I used to switch off the DHTML wysiwyg editor in my last board after a while.
Too many people found it extremely funky to spoil their messages with huge, green, red, blue, bold, italic and possibly blinking text.
If you give people tools you must trust them that they know how to handle these tools, that's what I think.
And from my experience 50% of all users don't use them and the other half overdo it.
And having only minimal layout possibilities keeps the board readable smile

The German PunBB Site:
PunBB-forum.de

14

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Tobi wrote:
Rod wrote:

But dev would say "yes but it's not compatible with Mosaic".

That's the life smile

Well, aside from the fact that of course a board has to look nice on Lynx as well wink
I used to switch off the DHTML wysiwyg editor in my last board after a while.
Too many people found it extremely funky to spoil their messages with huge, green, red, blue, bold, italic and possibly blinking text.
If you give people tools you must trust them that they know how to handle these tools, that's what I think.
And from my experience 50% of all users don't use them and the other half overdo it.
And having only minimal layout possibilities keeps the board readable smile

a dhtml area with only possibility to do links, bold, underline ... is perfect : or in my case, use the css of my nucleus to have the same layout between nucleus and punBB for example ... smile

there are 2 webmasters :
- who using dhtml to have stars around its mouse all over the screen
- who using dhtml for a better and intuitive navigation smile

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Rod wrote:

The best thing for final user would be a WYSIWYG and not a textarea ... all in dhtml with directly the form. But dev would say "yes but it's not compatible with Mosaic".

That's the life smile

Actually he'd probably say it would slow the boards down too much. PunBB is meant to be light, not full of bloated DHTML.

Textile is fast to write, and so it would fit in nicely here. PunBB could help other forum makes adopt this awesomely simple language.

16

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Wouldn't it be an option to make a Textile mod?
So that people can chose wether they want to offer bbcode or textile?
This is going to become someting like Windows vs. linux otherwise.

The German PunBB Site:
PunBB-forum.de

17

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Fire Fusion wrote:
Rod wrote:

The best thing for final user would be a WYSIWYG and not a textarea ... all in dhtml with directly the form. But dev would say "yes but it's not compatible with Mosaic".

That's the life smile

Actually he'd probably say it would slow the boards down too much. PunBB is meant to be light, not full of bloated DHTML.

Textile is fast to write, and so it would fit in nicely here. PunBB could help other forum makes adopt this awesomely simple language.

false.

A dhtml textarea is about 10 ko ... once cached, it's perfect.

I think the dev' don't see the new generation of Internet, which discovers Internet and PC world in same time. When I began in 1998, I had played with TO9 when I was 7 ... it's a finished time.

18

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Personally I don't see anything wrong with plain text. Apart from quote and code tags who needs anything else.

One major drawback of something like textile or similar is that they only work on forums where there are regular visitors who are willing to take the time to learn. On support forums and such like where visitors are just passing through then anything other than basic bbcode (which they might already have some familiarity with) is pointless.

19

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

where there are regular visitors who are willing to take the time to learn

The Key sentence : new generation doesn't want to learn. One example.

On my site, you can win a lot places for cinema or concert.

The only thing is to put your name/firstname (only seen by me) and your real photo.

All new users don't do this basic thing to win. I think Paul you have a too big optimism about new generation smile

20 (edited by Neko 2005-08-29 17:52)

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Rod wrote:

BBcode is simply for the final user

BBcode is actually difficult for the final user.

Now, if you said that final user is somewhat accustomed to it, then fine, I could agree, but that's entirely different from being "simple" (as in easy to use). Just the fact that user has to type "[]" is a pain in the ass. Just the fact that user has to remember to close tags with "/" is a pain in the ass. Posting URLs is difficult [url=http://omfg as well as posting images and creating lists.

Also, forget about advanced text styling via CSS, advanced text alignement, the ability to apply classes and ids to elements (all of which are available in Textile), and the fact that BBcode still outputs meaningless tags, such as <i> and <b> .

And then you miss all the advanced characters conversion, meaning that if user type "apple", with Textile quotes are converted into the actual HTML entities. Same for ellipsis, apostrophes, en dashes and em dashes, not to mention special charatcters such as à è ì ù ò and so on. And no, you don't have to learn tags for all of these, Textile does it for you in a transparent way. So, your posts are nicer and easier to read.

The selling point of BBcose is that's quite popular (for no apparent reason). But it is no better that any other parser. But if you're objective, you can even say that BBcode is actually the worst, most unuseable, difficult of the basket.

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

problem with replacing it is IMO textile is just like bbcode its just a different syntax you need to learn, and since people know bbcode you put them all out by changing,

and anyway bbcode is hardly ever used, except for quote (and code quite alot on this forum)

Rod: DHTML text area... you have loads of problems, it requires javascript which means lots of people can't use it, cross browser compatibility is a pain, chances are it sends html to the server which then needs to be converted to bbcode/textile or filtered. All this for making forum posts which 99% of the time are just text

anyway i was trying not to post in here as i didn't want to get involved lol, however my real point is bbcode isn't used that much and it does the job, why change it? if PunBB was just starting i might think yeh go for it, but i think changes upset people.

22 (edited by bluearc21 2005-08-30 02:41)

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Connorhd wrote:

and anyway bbcode is hardly ever used, except for quote (and code quite alot on this forum)

Maybe doing italics and bold emphasis with BBCode takes too long for people to bother?

I vote for a Textile and/or Markdown and BBCode option.

23

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

bluearc21 wrote:

Maybe doing italics and bold emphasis with BBCode takes too long for people to bother? ...

Or maybe most people can get their point across using unstyled text.

24

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

Paul wrote:

Or maybe most people can get their point across using unstyled text.

THEY CAN ALLWAYS LEAVE THE CAPS LOCK ON ... to be completely ignored tongue.

Re: I think Textile should replace BBcode

maybe thisis just too annoying tongue