Chief Technical Officer
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The use of BBCode came up in Clark's thread on RPG Superstar 2009, and I have a few questions.
What causes the "BBCode tags you can use" Show/Hide button not to work? Or what is required to allow it to work? For example, I typically use Firefox 3 with Javascript enabled and Java disabled.
Is the BBCode revealed by the Show/Hide button and documented in Help all that is available on these boards?
If so, how would you recommend formatting columns of text (something which seems common where RPGs are concerned)? Tab doesn't seem to work. Spaces won't work without a fixed font. Entry appears to be fixed font but display is not.
Thank you very much for your help!
I'm pretty sure you just need Javascript (and possibly a browser that understands CSS) for that button to work, but Gary would have to confirm that—it's not really my specialty. A quick test with Firefox suggests that with Javascript off, you can see the button, but it won't work.
The BBCodes that are shown are the only ones accepted.
I have no recommendation on formatted columns, I'm afraid—and even a fixed font wouldn't help, because html automatically strips out multiple spaces.
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Senior Software Developer
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You need to enable JavaScript to get the show/hide button to work. I'm pretty sure that button worked for the RPG Superstar 2009 submission process since it uses our main messageboardpost editor thingy, and I vaguely recall testing it for this season.
We don't currently have any tags that would allow formatting of things like tables or columns of text. I suppose I could look into adding it if someone wants to point me to a set of tags they'd like to see us use.
One workaround I've seen is to use periods instead of spaces, but things still won't line up terribly well, even if you use preview, since every browser will be using a different set of fonts. (e.g., the text entry box on Safari doesn't use a monospaced font).
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The use of BBCode came up in Clark's thread on RPG Superstar 2009, and I have a few questions.
What causes the "BBCode tags you can use" Show/Hide button not to work? Or what is required to allow it to work? For example, I typically use Firefox 3 with Javascript enabled and Java disabled.
Is the BBCode revealed by the Show/Hide button and documented in Help all that is available on these boards?
If so, how would you recommend formatting columns of text (something which seems common where RPGs are concerned)? Tab doesn't seem to work. Spaces won't work without a fixed font. Entry appears to be fixed font but display is not.
Thank you very much for your help!
If you use Firefox 3 and if you switched on Javascript, I can recommend you a Firefox extension which facilitates BBCodes tremendously: it is called bbccodeXtra and can install it on this site.
After installation you can format texts very easily:
1. mark any text you want to format,
2. right click the text,
3. choose the formating you would like (e.g. italic, bold, url creation from any copied internet address).
Another very similar extension is BBCode (link). And finally there is one extension supposed to contain even a graphical user interface: BBComposer (link). Didn't try these extensions yet, though.
The biggest advantage of all of these extensions is that they can be easily installed and deinstalled.
Kr,
Günther
P.S.
Here are some samples of what can be done with these tools:
- Lists:
- argument 1
- argument 2
- argument 3
- Sorted list:
- argument 1
- argument 2
- argument 3
- alphabetical list:
- argument 1
- argument 2
- argument 3
- Links (see above)
- bold text
- italic text
Unfortunately some functions like underlining and other text colours don't seem to be supported by the Paizo boards.
Unfortunately some functions like underlining and other text colours don't seem to be supported by the Paizo boards.Yep. Basically, we don't allow any of the codes that let people make messageboards ugly and painful to read. :-)
AND I THANK YOU HIGHLY FOR THAT! I hate millions of crazy signatures crowding the page. The only thing I would recommend is turning on private messaging if that's possible.
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Chief Technical Officer
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AND I THANK YOU HIGHLY FOR THAT! I hate millions of crazy signatures crowding the page. The only thing I would recommend is turning on private messaging if that's possible.Unfortunately some functions like underlining and other text colours don't seem to be supported by the Paizo boards.Yep. Basically, we don't allow any of the codes that let people make messageboards ugly and painful to read. :-)
We're not using off-the-shelf software, so it's not a "turn it on" thing—it's a "design and program" thing. It's on the to-do list... but it's pretty far down the list.
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Yep. Basically, we don't allow any of the codes that let people make messageboards ugly and painful to read. :-)
Seen from that perspective - I totally agree!! :-)
But in that line of thinking already the "bigger"- and "smaller"-tags are counter-productive... ;-)Any plans to facilitate formating? (no wysiwyg mode, but maybe buttons to enter the tags in front and after any marked words)
Cheers,
Günther
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Chief Technical Officer
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Yep. Basically, we don't allow any of the codes that let people make messageboards ugly and painful to read. :-)Seen from that perspective - I totally agree!! :-)
But in that line of thinking already the "bigger"- and "smaller"-tags are counter-productive... ;-)Any plans to facilitate formating? (no wysiwyg mode, but maybe buttons to enter the tags in front and after any marked words)
Cheers,
Günther
We generally try to avoid things that require Javascript, but we've been slowly adding in the occasional feature here and there. So it's possible that that may get added someday.
We're not using off-the-shelf software, so it's not a "turn it on" thing—it's a "design and program" thing. It's on the to-do list... but it's pretty far down the list.
Um... if that's the case, then can we have a checkbox?
Display email address in profile
To show/hide our email address for anyone who wants to get in touch.
Um... if that's the case, then can we have a checkbox?
Display email address in profile
To show/hide our email address for anyone who wants to get in touch.
Couldn't you just add your email address to your profile?
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I think the checkbox is a good idea. That way we could avoid showing it to bots and people who aren't signed in. (Of course there's nothing preventing a spanner from creating a Paizo.com account to see email addresses...)
Perhaps you could do something that converts the user's email address into a .jpg image when it displays it? That'd keep spambots from picking up any addresses. I don't know how much space/bandwidth doing something like this would take up, though.
How's this: Instead of actually displaying the user's email address, add an 'email this user' button, and display a web form similar to the posting box, that would send an email to the user's registered address, using the sending user's registered email address as the reply-to address.
Obviously, you'd have to opt-in to put that button on your profile. But this way the address is hidden from spambots (unless the bot is written specifically to use the web form.) And further, your actual address is hidden from anyone that you don't contact yourself.
Oh - did you finally find time to interview people?
Yes. Yes he did.
Yes. Yes he did.
You sound as though you were there....
You sound as though you were there....
That'd be a way of putting it, yes.
You sound as though you were there....That'd be a way of putting it, yes.
I will take a WAG, Ross. You are Gary's help? Am I correct?
I will take a WAG, Ross. You are Gary's help? Am I correct?
:-)
I will take a WAG, Ross. You are Gary's help? Am I correct?:-)
Welcome to the group! I for one am almost as glad as Gary will be to have you assisting the fine folks at Paizo! ~cracks the whip~ Now get to work!
~GRINS~
Plus stopping the more esoteric stuff and javascript also stops some of the more 'inventive' members of any online community from ooh, I don't know, cross-site scripting, session hijacking, code injection, malicious file execution, etc etc...
Not that I'd know anything about those things of course...