Forum Overhaul Fix-'em-up Jamboree

Hey gang!

If you've not been on Discord to hear me grumble and post screenshots, I've been quietly plugging away at a Forum Overhaul for a bit now. Main goals are to get old features working after the last big update, to set up some new features, fix old themes that the update broke, and hopefully resolve the recent spambot problem.

As part of the overhaul, I've been implementing some features folks have requested. If there are new formatting features you'd like to have access to when creating content, new or tweaked editor features you'd like, or so on, please let me know. Also, once these changes go live, I'm going to need help bugtesting in different browsers, diagnosing formatting trouble, and so on. Your input is much appreciated!

Lastly, I've been taking time off freelancing work lately to commit a solid block of time to this, and Schazer had me set up a Ko-Fi to help out. If you'd like to donate to support the work that's going into the overhaul, feel free to buy me some coffee! The thing's getting done either way, but any support would definitely help me out.

~ Donation Link ~

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TASK PROGRESS:
I'll try to keep an up-to-date log of things that need fixing, and how that's coming along, up here in the OP.

• Death to Spambots: (In Progress)
  • (5/27/2018) - Spam detection and reporting plugins are all set up, to make manual spam moderation easier. Eventually, once enough data's in, I'm hoping to reliably automate bot detection and banning. Currently trying to figure out if something's wrong with the CAPTCHA configuration which is letting bots register, or if this is human-assisted spam.
    
  • (8/29/2018) - The Spam Analyzer is all set up, and is checking the post content of first-time-posters for spammy behavior. This has solved the majority of spambot issues, and we are flagging or blocking 90% of spambots! Unfortunately it's not 100% reliable, so manual moderation is still needed; the plugin occasionally flagged some new users posts as spam, and can't catch spambots that post innocuous word salad threads and leave a URL in the thread title. I may be able to overhaul the plugin, but that needs some research time. Also researching new solutions, including creating a more powerful Anti-Spambot Bot that can take moderator action against definite spammers, and message any human users who get moderated wrongly, with directions for contacting a moderator to fix it.
    
• Fix Layout and Buttons Broken by Update: (In Progress)
  • (5/27/2018) - Mostly done recreating the main Eagle Time stylesheet. Trying to keep things close to the original, with a few readability and usability tweaks. The links, buttons, and features are pretty much all working again, though they still need to be tested on browsers other than Chrome and Firefox.
    
  • Here's a screenshot of the redone main theme!
    
• Redesign Themes Broken by Update: (Not Started)
  • (5/27/2018) - The Fortuna theme, as well as several other themes, were broken by the update and the subsequent fixes to the Layout. Once the main theme is done, I hope to recreate the rest of the themes to fit the new layout.
    
• Fix the Post Editor: (Not Started)
  • (5/27/2018) - Currently figuring out how the SCEditor works, how to fix broken features, and how to eventually add new features. Hoping to add an optional rich text WYSIWYG editor, so folks who don't want to mess with bbcode can format their posts without fussing with tags too!
    
  • Some WIP icons, including some for new editor features!
    
• Implement New Formatting Tags: (In Progress)
  • (5/27/2018) - Several new tags have been implemented in the testbed server; [alt], [box], [table], [trow], and [tcell]. More info on these below. Other tags are in early testing and implementation stages; colored text outlines, expanded audio and video embedding, float tags to let text flow around images, image-based backgrounds that text can be written over, text mirroring, image/text rotation, and a few others. Mostly pruning over the possibilities, to make sure they're intuitive, unique, useful, and don't break other things.
    

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NEW FORMATTING TAGS:
These tags aren't currently available for post formatting, but they'll be bundled with the official release. If there are other formatting features you'd like to see, please let me know!

Ignore these for now. Some are broken or disabledShow

[noparse]

• [alt=<text>]
  • (5/27/2018) - Adds <text> as on-hover alt text that displays whem mousing over content. Can be used to provide pop-up tooltips, alt text for an image, additional information, or other helpful context!
    
• [table], [trow], and [tcell]
  • (5/27/2018) - Used together to define the rows and cells that make up a table. Can be used for making a table of info, for arranging images side-by-side with a text block to create dialogue windows, for putting spoilers/quotes/codeblocks side by side, for creating a game board or grid map, or all kinds of other layout-related things! (Considering adding optional colored borders and backgrounds, multi-row/column cells, and manual % widths for tables and cells.)
    
    Example 3x3 Table: Made of 3 Rows with 3 Cells each
    [table]    [trow]        [tcell]TOP LEFT[/tcell] [tcell]TOP CENTER[/tcell] [tcell]TOP RIGHT[/tcell]    [/trow]    [trow]        [tcell]MIDDLE LEFT[/tcell] [tcell]MIDDLE CENTER[/tcell] [tcell]MIDDLE RIGHT[/tcell]    [/trow]    [trow]        [tcell]BOTTOM LEFT[/tcell] [tcell]BOTTOM CENTER[/tcell] [tcell]BOTTOM RIGHT[/tcell]    [/trow][/table]
    
• [box=<#color1> bg=<#color2>]
  • (5/27/2018) - A simple full-width box in the style of Quote and Code boxes, without a header or formatting. Can set the border and background by adding optional <color> parameters. Useful for separating or highlighting a block of text, formatting a console-like text log, or creating a fixed-color background, to make sure transparent images will show up properly against different forum themes. (Considering adding an option to set a manual width, add a scrollbar, or an option to auto-shink the box to fit it's content.)
    

[spoiler="Ignore these for now. Some are broken or disabled"][/noparse]

Can we have the ability to add a new poll to threads that already have one, keeping the old poll archived somewhere but unvotable?

*sigh* someday, transhumanism will include spambots.

Thanks for the hard work so far Sunspider! You are an amazing human being

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Not sure if this is just me, but I wouldn't mind the forum preserving multiple spaces (ex. keeping a double space as a double space when displayed). But that is a very niche request that isn't important...

I can definitely look into preserving leading spaces and double-spaces; I'm pretty sure they're being taken out when the bbcode is parsed into HTML. I'll need to futz with that stuff anyway to get nested tables and such working, so it shouldn't be too crazy.

Also, I can look into how polls are stored, to see if they can easily be archived and kept visible somehow. It might involve working with the database some, which I'm not quite as confident in just yet. I'm not sure how practical it'd be to archive former polls, but if it's easy enough, I'll see what I can do!

Aside, but it's kinda funny that the three people who were quoted in the Layout Redesign Screenshot are the first three people to post in this thread. And y'all even posted in reverse order. Such choreography!

Would it be possible to allow users to create shortcut tags, either on a per-thread or per-user basis? So, for example, for Officequest I could define an [oq] tag that was shorthand for [font=times new roman][b][bg=yellow] and just use [oq] instead of having to write out the multiple tags every time. This could be really useful for any adventure or such that requires a lot of formatting, and I'd imagine it'd be handy in Grand Battles as well.

No pressure, because I know you're currently on the road and already have a lot on your plate when you get back, and I don't even know whether this can be done, but it could be really useful if it was around.

Hypothetically doable? Yes. But I can't think of any easy way to do that that'd feel worth the effort, relative to just having people write a few more tags. Writing custom menus, databases of alternate bbcodes that'd need to be parsed with a custom system, etc., is kind of a pain in the bum, and would probably have a negative impact on load times for every thread on the forum, regardless of if they used the system.

If it helps, the solution I used when working on formatting-heavy adventures such as this was to keep a text file of BBCodes for each adventure, with a ton of codeblocks that I could copy-paste in for the different formatting or content types I used. That's how I did the the chat logs, dice roll popups, item and skill menus, the next post/previous post links in the header, etc. in Ashwood Cross. That ought to work still!

Sunspider's done a lot of work on the forum lately (update should release around the weekend), and it's all been for free! So please send her some bux to support her efforts, either now or when it releases in a few days!

Minor bug: in the full post editor, most emoji are showing up as the emoji. is not. It works fine in posts, however.

Minor bug: in the full post editor, most emoji are showing up as the emoji. is not. It works fine in posts, however.

Also, when it isnt displaying a specific date the “time the post was posted” is outside the brackets
But I love this lineless style for the forums!! It makes me feel so freeeee wheeeee like a true eaaagleeeeeeeee

While this isn't a problem in the general new Eagle-Time appearance, the one in the Fortuna forum makes the thing showing that there are new posts in the threads hard to see. I think it might be because they're only bold, and there's no colour difference? If it's not too much trouble, I think editing that would help a lot.

Previously, this little bit with the name and the navigation up to it was at both the top and the bottom of the thread, and now it's just at the top, which is a bit unfortunate, because usually when i finish reading a thread I'm at the bottom, and keep looking for the link to the subforum the thread is in.

I have the little question mark/jump to page button next to page numbers of a thread on mobile, but not desktop?

Another small thing: we seem to be missing our friendly tab eagle, that shows up as an image in tabs (at least on Firefox):



(note the icon dealie is ok on the quicktopic tab, but the eagle tabs are just text)

• There are two spoiler buttons and yet neither of them just put spoiler tags around highlighted text, rather, they prompt for what you want to insert and remove the highlighted text. This is less than helpful.
  

Slightly related, in the editor preview, if I use the spoiler buttons to add something I see the content of a spoiler but not the actual button for it, until I hit Preview Post. This isn't really significant but it is kind of weird.


By the way, in case anyone else didn't realize it, the "View Source" button in the full editor switches between seeing the post as it's going to be posted (other than a few minor glitches like that) and seeing the BB Code for the post.

Not so sure about the new look, but that's really just a me problem. I can always just make a new css theme if it bugs me too much.

More seriously, we're still missing some of the emotes from the discord server (:adlorphable:, and :her: are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, and works but doesn't appear in either emote menu), and the [noparse][/noparse] tag (shorthand for [noparse][/noparse]) no longer works.

Also this happens when you try to quick reply on mobile.

Could we have the <<next oldest | next newest >> buttons at the bottom of a thread be removed, please? They're not a particularly useful way to navigate the site and I do so loathe clutter.

Just a heads up to everyone who's posting requests/reports in this thread: Day's taking a well-earned break after rolling out this update (and is also going to be working on some other personal projects of theirs that have been taking a back seat while they've been working on the forum).

As such, they won't be immediately checking in on this thread but will address+fix any issues people are experiencing once they've had a chance to recharge.

(psst if you like what she's done so far please toss a coffee her way!)

Thank you for all the feedback so far. And thanks to everyone who sent a tip my way; it helps a lot! I'll prioritize the worst of these issues, and get fixes rolled out as quick as I can. I won't be able to pull all nighters like I have been, but I'm gonna be putting in hours as often as I can in the near future, until the bugs are stamped out.

Also, the new tags have been enabled. If you'd like to see how to use them, check out this thread, which details their use. Once they're finalized and guaranteed non-buggy, I'll update the intro to BBCode page with the new tags too.

New BBCode Primer: https://eagle-time.org/showthread.php?tid=3876

Multiquote's there (yay!!), but single quote's not. It's not as useful as multiquote, but it can be nice to have to press fewer buttons if you're only quoting a single person.

Multiquote's there (yay!!), but single quote's not. It's not as useful as multiquote, but it can be nice to have to press fewer buttons if you're only quoting a single person.

That's what the 'reply' button does!

Multiquote's there (yay!!), but single quote's not. It's not as useful as multiquote, but it can be nice to have to press fewer buttons if you're only quoting a single person.

That's what the 'reply' button does!

!

The "who has posted?" Link at the top of each thread page is going to the testbed site instead of Eagle time proper.

E: This is fixed! Thank you as always Sunspider

The "who has posted?" Link at the top of each thread page is going to the testbed site instead of Eagle time proper.

Oh my god I clicked on that link and then the banner at the top and I felt like I was transported into some alternate dimension/timeline