Holy.... wow, this is helpful, thank you so much for kicking this off, Dude!

BluShadow I know you are in favor of reenabling code formatting and ditching the Syntax Highlighter altogether. I've also heard that users would prefer the advanced editor to open by default. Anything else on the wishlist?

moniquevdb_oracle wrote:

 

Holy.... wow, this is helpful, thank you so much for kicking this off, Dude!

 

BluShadow I know you are in favor of reenabling code formatting and ditching the Syntax Highlighter altogether. I've also heard that users would prefer the advanced editor to open by default. Anything else on the wishlist?

correction, I would certainly be in favour (favor to you ) of reenabling code tags, mainly because I work quicker by copy/paste and by keyboard than by having to click through a load of buttons (that currently don't do what they should).  I've not said that syntax highlighting should be ditched altogether, and I'd certainly be in favour of it being there, just so long as it provided a decent formatting that was appropriate, so code actually looked like code, and the ability for people to copy/paste the code out of the forum to their own environment wasn't corrupted with double line spacing (as dude has already mentioned) and the addition of the line numbers it puts in (the line numbers are useful for reference on the forum, e.g. when we want to say "you're problem is on line X", but not good when you copy/paste code out to your environment and have to spend ages deleting them all to get the code to do anything).  If it's too difficult, then removing the line numbers from the code formatting would be preferable to having them there and not being able to copy the code out without them.

I agree with dude that it would be good to be able to highlight portions of code with bold or colours, which the old forum didn't allow, but this one does, so it's really a combination of old and new that's needed.  And as dude highlights, the supressing of blank lines is a pain as it can make the posting of multiple code commands become all compressed and difficult to read, and is not representative of what we have in our interfaces such as SQL*Plus etc.

Basic example:

Copy paste from my SQL*Plus window into the forum (and me applying courier new and quoting it)...

SQL> select * from emp;

     EMPNO ENAME      JOB              MGR HIREDATE                    SAL       COMM     DEPTNO
---------- ---------- --------- ---------- -------------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
      7369 SMITH      CLERK           7902 17-DEC-1980 00:00:00        800                    20
      7499 ALLEN      SALESMAN        7698 20-FEB-1981 00:00:00       1600        300         30
      7521 WARD       SALESMAN        7698 22-FEB-1981 00:00:00       1250        500         30
      7566 JONES      MANAGER         7839 02-APR-1981 00:00:00       2975                    20
      7654 MARTIN     SALESMAN        7698 28-SEP-1981 00:00:00       1250       1400         30
      7698 BLAKE      MANAGER         7839 01-MAY-1981 00:00:00       2850                    30
      7782 CLARK      MANAGER         7839 09-JUN-1981 00:00:00       2450                    10
      7788 SCOTT      ANALYST         7566 19-APR-1987 00:00:00       3000                    20
      7839 KING       PRESIDENT            17-NOV-1981 00:00:00       5000                    10
      7844 TURNER     SALESMAN        7698 08-SEP-1981 00:00:00       1500          0         30
      7876 ADAMS      CLERK           7788 23-MAY-1987 00:00:00       1100                    20
      7900 JAMES      CLERK           7698 03-DEC-1981 00:00:00        950                    30
      7902 FORD       ANALYST         7566 03-DEC-1981 00:00:00       3000                    20
      7934 MILLER     CLERK           7782 23-JAN-1982 00:00:00       1300                    10

14 rows selected.

SQL> select * from dept;

    DEPTNO DNAME          LOC
---------- -------------- -------------
        10 ACCOUNTING     NEW YORK
        20 RESEARCH       DALLAS
        30 SALES          CHICAGO
        40 OPERATIONS     BOSTON

SQL>

but in my SQL*Plus window it looks like.

SQL> select * from emp;

 

     EMPNO ENAME      JOB              MGR HIREDATE                    SAL       COMM     DEPTNO
---------- ---------- --------- ---------- -------------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
      7369 SMITH      CLERK           7902 17-DEC-1980 00:00:00        800                    20
      7499 ALLEN      SALESMAN        7698 20-FEB-1981 00:00:00       1600        300         30
      7521 WARD       SALESMAN        7698 22-FEB-1981 00:00:00       1250        500         30
      7566 JONES      MANAGER         7839 02-APR-1981 00:00:00       2975                    20
      7654 MARTIN     SALESMAN        7698 28-SEP-1981 00:00:00       1250       1400         30
      7698 BLAKE      MANAGER         7839 01-MAY-1981 00:00:00       2850                    30
      7782 CLARK      MANAGER         7839 09-JUN-1981 00:00:00       2450                    10
      7788 SCOTT      ANALYST         7566 19-APR-1987 00:00:00       3000                    20
      7839 KING       PRESIDENT            17-NOV-1981 00:00:00       5000                    10
      7844 TURNER     SALESMAN        7698 08-SEP-1981 00:00:00       1500          0         30
      7876 ADAMS      CLERK           7788 23-MAY-1987 00:00:00       1100                    20
      7900 JAMES      CLERK           7698 03-DEC-1981 00:00:00        950                    30
      7902 FORD       ANALYST         7566 03-DEC-1981 00:00:00       3000                    20
      7934 MILLER     CLERK           7782 23-JAN-1982 00:00:00       1300                    10

 

14 rows selected.

 

SQL> select * from dept;

 

    DEPTNO DNAME          LOC
---------- -------------- -------------
        10 ACCOUNTING     NEW YORK
        20 RESEARCH       DALLAS
        30 SALES          CHICAGO
        40 OPERATIONS     BOSTON

 

SQL>

Obviously that's a basic example; in reality we can be providing a solution to someone, explaining multiple steps and commands to demonstrate their issue and the solution, and having to go back through the code once we've pasted it adding back in all the line spacings, is a real pain and time consuming.

Certainly, having the advanced editor options available immediately for replying would be better than having to switch to it manually, especially as most people using these forums are going to want to paste code in (what with it being a technical forum and not really a social forum), and the basic editor just doesn't allow for any suitable code formatting (unless the person is mad enough to switch to HTML mode).

I would certainly be in favour (favor to you ) of reenabling code tags, mainly because I work quicker by copy/paste and by keyboard than by having to click through a load of buttons (that currently don't do what they should).

+1. I really miss the [code] (or {code}) tags.

Just a wish for the syntax highlighting (I understand if it isn't possible at all): it might be plagiarism, but the code plugin of dokuwiki allows to set the used syntax highlighting in the code tag as well like:

<code plsql>

some_plsql_code;

</code>

or

<code cpp>

some_cplusplus_code;

</code>

maybe something like that could prove useful to the non-WYSIWYG editor zealots like me?

cheers

Dude! wrote:

  

Whether to type {code} tags or selecting text and pushing a button does not really make a different to me. Typing {code} tags as opposed to pushing a button may conflict with the WYSIWIG feature of the editor. I doubt that you can have both options at the same time.

 

No reason you can't have both options.  After all the editor seems quite happy to convert : ) into as you type. 

BluShadow wrote:

 

 

Certainly, having the advanced editor options available immediately for replying would be better than having to switch to it manually, especially as most people using these forums are going to want to paste code in (what with it being a technical forum and not really a social forum), and the basic editor just doesn't allow for any suitable code formatting (unless the person is mad enough to switch to HTML mode).

It looks to me like switching into the advanced editor is actually doing some HTML pre-processing (that window that appears on the left with a bunch of HTML code, before it presents the post in the editor).  Perhaps that is the source of all the problems.

I'd like to have the advanced editor options available immediately too, just not an editor this "advanced."  (Now humming "Jocko Homo.")

Thanks, this makes sense. Keep the ideas coming in this thread and in the meantime I will keep working on it from my end and see what we can do.

Dude! wrote:

 

I think I'm pretty much done covering the issues I have run into without doing anything fancy or advanced. If anybody can add something to the list, please reply.

 

I'm not sure if it makes sense to continue to test the results in different browsers, because I think the editor should work with all common browsers and recent versions worth mentioning.

Yeah, a lot of the issues you've posted for Firefox I see in Internet Explorer 9.

I think it's just a case of indicating what issues have been found, and that those issues have are reproduced in one of the 'standard' web browsers.

+1 for improving syntax highlighting process. It's fundamental to the operation of the site and should be made as simple as can be to apply, but options available.

I'm in favour of bringing back the {code} option, but also having a one click icon to apply the same formatting via the default menu.

Monospace characters is a must, but perhaps allow for varation in formatting with tags like {sql}  {css}  ?