Suggestion to admins: please give us format buttons

[JackRiddler]

In all appreciation for the enormous work that goes into maintaining this forum, here is a constructive suggestion:

I've seen many other forums equipped with formatting buttons. While writing your post, you can mark a passage, click an active button next to the posting form, and voila: the desired code is automatically inserted for formats like bold, italic, or quote/excerpt. I would appreciate that greatly here.

(Especially the quote bit. Writing div class="excerpt" and then closing it down the line takes more time than people seem to want to invest, including me, and so often they don't quote and you're not sure which prior comment they're referring to. Also, I'd bet a lot of people have never even looked at the HTML lookup table.)

Anyone want to second or third?

Thank you!

[Common Sense Party]

1. IBTL

[JackRiddler]

3. Please translate. Thanks.

[Demeter]

5. In Before the Lock, I Think

why the poster thinks this thread will be locked, I don't know.

[Jane Austin]

4. Why? ......... n/t

[Common Sense Party]

9. Just joking. I've seen some threads get locked when the OP

seems to be suggesting that DU change its ways. They, however, have more to do with policies, than with software suggestions. That's because of this part of the DU Rules:

If you have a question about DU policies, or if you have a concern about an action a moderator has taken, please contact an admin privately.

[JackRiddler]

11. This isn't a policy suggestion, it's a technical proposal.

I've seen those discussed freely here. But let's see.

(Ack, if you read my suggestion backwards it says, Vote Palin in '08. Ooops!!!)

[Jane Austin]

2. I'll second that.

I don't post too often, but when I do, I miss those shortcuts.

[SoCalDem]

8. I miss

[hr] being in my sig.. I liked being able to distinguish sig
from the body of the post.. 

I also long for an email style hide thread capability..where
you could just click all the boxes and then hit
"enter"..once..

I also long for an option to use keywords to exclude..

type in "Palin"..and all threads with Palin go
poof..

[annabanana]

6. It takes so long to

cut & paste?

[JackRiddler]

7. Well, if you're quoting multiple passages it can.

[uppityperson]

10. There is probably a way to make your own shortcut key, like when using word processing

a "control alt shift p" sort of thing.

[Ohio Joe]

12. Good idea

I would love for that to be available here!

[JackRiddler]

13. kick

I do know how to do this, you know.

[TahitiNut]

14. I have all that client-side. (I.e. I have browser plug-ins that do all of that.)

When people keep adding 'features' to the server-side software, performance dies.

:shrug:

[baldguy]

15. Use the DU-o-matic codificator

http://www.iterapi.com/dccode.html

Sorry, I don't remember who to thank for this tool.

[JVS]

16. And bring back the Block function!

[JackRiddler]

17. kickie

[rug]

18. I'm holding out for a squeezethetesticlesoftheposter button.

[backscatter712]

19. Yeah, sprucing up the post editor would be kind of nice.

Other forum software implements this - obviously, this would take a bit of work, and may cause problems with older web browsers (I make the bad assumption that because I run Firefox 3.0.4, everyone does.) so this should be a feature that can be turned on and off.

The current system of using HTML-like tags seems to work OK for geeks like me, but the syntax is fairly obnoxious (especially when doing things like properly quoting from other posts/articles), and non-computer-geeks will have problems doing things like embedding links and images. Also, trying to do cool things like embedding Youtube videos is impossible, except in certain situations.

A WYSIWYG-style post editor would definitely be welcome. Or even just a few buttons that automagically add things like link: tags or div class="excerpt" tags to make linking and quoting easier.

[1Hippiechick]

20. I second that emotion.

I

like

that

idea