Mahz's Dev Journal

[AlteredTundra]

In Search of a Better Post Editor

Since the current BBCode editor is so bad (despite a large time investment), I'm thinking of introducing an alternative editor that you can toggle if you prefer. I think the current editor is a real sore point for the Guild. It's just so tedious.

Editors I'm looking at so far:

1. Froala <- I prefer this one
2. Redactor

My criteria for an alternative editor:

- Works (and is usable) on most mobile devices
- No input lag on slower mobile devices
- Nice WYSIWYG editor that's not too painful when it can't read your mind or when you mess up
- Easy for me to extend it with features (quote system, @mentions, dice rolls, image uploads/embeds)

Though I want to emphasize that even if I find another editor that fits the bill, I will keep the existing BBCode editor around for a while time.

If anyone could play with those editors, especially on a mobile device, and lemme know what you think, I'd appreciate it.

@Mahz

I really like the Froala one. It looks better, and it flows better than Redactor imo.

[Ellri]

@Mahz

Could you please remove that non-BBCode URL parser? its making it very hard to help people when they're not getting things to work.
see here for how its consistently in the way:
http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/90795-image-uploading-cheat/ooc#post-3300488

We tried to used code tags, but because the parser overrides BBCode, only half of what we tried to mark out actually was marked out.

In essence, its more frequently in the way than it is helpful so long as it doesn't check for whether it would override BBCode.

[Mahz]

Thanks everyone. I've ruled out Redactor.

- Can't actually find anyone else that particularly likes it online.
- They have a really hostile license which says you can't use it for open-source projects.
- Everyone so far has experienced weird mobile behavior, the main platform I want the new editor to optimize for.

The Froala looks nice so far. Better documentation. I'll continue playing with it on the side.

---

@Mahz

Could you please remove that non-BBCode URL parser? its making it very hard to help people when they're not getting things to work.
see here for how its consistently in the way:
http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/90795-image-uploading-cheat/ooc#post-3300488

We tried to used code tags, but because the parser overrides BBCode, only half of what we tried to mark out actually was marked out.

In essence, its more frequently in the way than it is helpful so long as it doesn't check for whether it would override BBCode.

@Ellri

I've added this issue to today's TODO. I'd like to find a simple solution before resorting to removing autolinking altogether.

---

Some things on my TODO list for the day:

1. [Performance] I'm updating the avatar system to serve avatars from avatars.roleplayerguild.com which will let me do various things that will make the avatars load faster for everyone and thus the whole site.
2. [Bug] Improving the autolinker so that it avoids autolinking URLs contained within CODE/NOPARSE/etc tags.
3. [Feature] Email verification system which will prepare the Guild for email notifications.
4. [Feature] Continuing work on my dice parser.

Though I'm not sure I can make much progress on my dice parser without talking to people that actually want this feature.

[Hank]

Though I'm not sure I can make much progress on my dice parser without talking to people that actually want this feature.

@Mahz

You could consider posting a thread in the Tabletop subforum to ask their opinion. They'd be the ones using the dice roller the most.

[Mahz]

@Hank Agreed.

Brings up another feature nice-to-have on some roleplaying forums: a third tab.

1. Roleplays
2. Interest Checks
3. General Discussion

Could use something like that right about now.

[Ellri]

If you need other things on your to-do list, feel free to drop by that suggestions thread of ours.

Or look into the elusive slowness in typing on some mobile devices.

Granted, with just those two points, we set your daily schedule to need about 1288 hours to complete.

[LegendBegins]

@Mahz
Speaking of Avatars, will there be a point where avatars could be uploaded in a higher resolution?

[Mahz]

Update: Alright, all new avatar uploads going forward will be served from avatars.roleplayerguild.com which will be faster than the old system. Existing avatars won't.

I'll probably script to batch-migrate everyone's avatars.

@LegendBegins I'm altogether down for larger avatars, especially with the performance update I just rolled out regarding them.

Though to allow them any bigger I have to tweak the templates since the current post sidebar only gets so wide.

What height/width dimensions did you have in mind?

[Mahz]

Chat Update: Long continuous messages without spaces will now wrap onto the next line instead of giving everyone horizontal scrollbars.

[Hank]

@Twhirtley reports the fix didn't work on Firefox, but it's working for me on Chrome.

[Mahz]

@Hank Thanks.

I'll look into it, but I created an issue: github.com/danneu/guild/issues/86

[ClocktowerEchos]

Though I'm not sure I can make much progress on my dice parser without talking to people that actually want this feature.

@Mahz

You could consider posting a thread in the Tabletop subforum to ask their opinion. They'd be the ones using the dice roller the most.

@Hank

I know for a fact that people in NRPs could also use this sort of thing; random events and making number-based systems more trust worthy and worthwhile.

[LegendBegins]

@Mahz
I believe that 225X300 would be a nice upgrade. However, is it not possible to increase the resolution without actually increasing the picture size by scaling it up and down with page size/zoom?

[Mahz]

Update: The Friendship box on the homepage sidebar now has a "View All" link that takes you to a page where you can see all of your friendships.



The link takes you here: roleplayerguild.com/me/friendships

[Mahz]

@LegendBegins Oh, I'm misunderstanding your issue.

Are you using the Guild on a retina device or some other hi-res device where the avatars are too small? That's something I need to look into.

[LegendBegins]

@LegendBegins Oh, I'm misunderstanding your issue.

Are you using the Guild on a retina device or some other hi-res device where the avatars are too small? That's something I need to look into.

@Mahz

No, I believe you were interpreting it correctly. I use the Guild on an an iPhone 5 on the go, but I use a self-built Windows 10 PC for tethered. I just believe higher resolutions would look nice.

[AlteredTundra]

@Mahz
So, I noticed that in my pms, only three convos appear per-page. Was that intentional or am I seeing a bug in my pms?

[NuttsnBolts]

@Mahz how is progress going with a report feature when it comes to bots and forum incidents?

[Mahz]

@Mahz
So, I noticed that in my pms, only three convos appear per-page. Was that intentional or am I seeing a bug in my pms?

@Altered Tundra

Oops, I set it to 3 for local testing and must've accidentally pushed it to the server. I just reverted it back to 10 convos per page.

@Mahz how is progress going with a report feature when it comes to bots and forum incidents?

@NuttsnBolts

#willimplement #someday

[Ellri]

Now to delve semi-randomly into our good ol' list...

What about GM/CoGM 0th post, @Mahz? How deep on the list is that?