Additional post editing options

[Tsar]

(topic may not be as refined as should be, I'm not a native english speaker)

 

Hello.

As a long-time user of Tip.it, I've seen the evolution of the forums over the years. From humble Scapeboard, to the old PhpBB architecture, to the present IPB system. What I've read about IPB implies that it gives the forum user a great number of tools how to customize their threads and posts, from simple text colouring to more intricate options like tables, threadwide custom CSS, in-thread navigation, media integration and so much more. The forum system comes as a whole package, meaning every option or tool is already installed. When setting up a forum, the administrator(s) can choose to disable some options, should they find them unnecessary. But here's the thing. Where do you draw the line what's necessary and what's not?

 

This being a Runescape-themed forum, it seems only natural that users want to create topics showing their daily lives in-game. And every one of them does it for a reason - to get noticed, and gain support, to carry on with their goals and adventures and make new friends. A simple real-life example illustrates it. Let's say you're going to a book store, and choosing a book. You don't have any pre-determined criteria to look for. So you'll pick up a random book. First thing you'll do is look at the cover, and then the back, and only then do you flip through it to get a glimpse of how it's written. Maybe even buy it, if you like it. We can actually draw a comparison to the Blogscape subforum from this. There are hundreds of blogs there, like there are hundreds of books on a shelf inside a store. You click on a random thread, the page loads. The next minute or two, you're staring at what can only be described as a plain field of text, including some basic content grouping in the form of hide tags, with a few ingame screenshots thrown in for good measure. Thread after thread, the blandness continues. The text written may be good, even entertaining. However, it reminds you of the websites back in the 90s. Amateurish, limited and unwelcoming. The first assumption to make is that the users simply don't bother with design and layout. It being a waste of time maybe But then you want to create a thread of your own and it all comes together to you. TIF just doesn't give it's users any tools whatsoever. To me, it's basically the same list we had when we were still running on the PhpBB architecture.

 

Another RS fansite, Zybez, has the exact same IP Boards forum system, on which they built their Runescape Community (RSC) forums. Now, when one looks at the topics in their Runescape Achievements subforum, it becomes crystal clear that the admins of Zybez have given their users much more freedom and choice. Every blog is beautifully finished, you have little to no loosely put together topics, and even they are work-in-progress. The list of tools are over twice the size of Tip.it's. If I wanted to make a blog about my goals and achievements, what forum would I choose? The answer is - not Tip.it. I don't want to move over to RSC. Tip.it has grown too much on me, to discard it. But here's my suggestion.

 

Enable more options in the Other Styles list when a user creates/edits a thread.

Must-haves in my opinion would be:

• Anchor
• Jump-To
• Table making options including Table, TR, TD, etc...
• Hide (currently you'll have to write the code to trigger it manually)
• P (as in Paragraph)

These are just some of the features available, disabled in Tip.it, but enabled in RSC. I see no reason whatsoever why they were left out in the first place.

 

To illustrate what I suggested, here are a few broad examples.

Random thread from Blogscape: http://forum.tip.it/...s-diyer-thread/

Random thread from RSC Achievements (with suggested options enabled): http://forums.zybez....s-achievements/

Choice was completely random, there was no picking one over another. Simply showing the comparison between our forums and theirs.

 

Ok, that's my 5 cents.

Open for discussion. I hope not for flaming, though.

[Hegelstad]

Agreed, but Tip.it forums have a lot better Graphics. I use them both regularly!

[Gandorf61]

We actually already have a hide shortcut button, it's the H just below the bold button.

 

The other options seem like they could be quite useful, especially tables and jump-to which could also be helpful for guidemakers in the Archive of Wisdom Forum.

[tripsis]

I'm down :)

[The Observer]

I wouldn't mind the table idea for signatures.

 

I'm for it. :thumbup:

[Bows]

Great ideas Tsar. :thumbup:

[essiw]

just want to say that adding tables isn't always wise. I have seen many forums that did allow tables. If you would make a table and not use the end tag it would mess up the whole lay-out of the page. So if tip.it would like to add tables, it should test those things.

[Kaphias]

just want to say that adding tables isn't always wise. I have seen many forums that did allow tables. If you would make a table and not use the end tag it would mess up the whole lay-out of the page. So if tip.it would like to add tables, it should test those things.

I swear I've seen some forums that either automatically close your tags when you hit post or have a pop-up reminding you to do so (if you hadn't already). This would certainly be handy in this case...

[D. V. Devnull]

Consider my support added, everyone. As long as it has the checks to prevent bad layouts, it would all be nice and helpful to users of this fine forum. Heck, I would be very surprised if there was any naysayers. :huh:

 

~D. V. "I really don't think we could go wrong with adding these." Devnull

[tripsis]

just want to say that adding tables isn't always wise. I have seen many forums that did allow tables. If you would make a table and not use the end tag it would mess up the whole lay-out of the page. So if tip.it would like to add tables, it should test those things.

I spoke to our techie and he is going to look into the above (and possible solutions) before considering these changes :) Hopefully we can figure something out!