[Forum] Add BBCode support for [table][/table]

by **newline** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:36 pm

Official Suggestion:

ender516 wrote:Concise description:
The BBCode constructs of [
, , and allow forum posters to construct tables of information without pasting in images or painful exercises in code boxes with monospaced text. However, the current CC forum does not support this feature.

Specifics/Details:
Modify the phpBB code to support this feature. This may be something already available from phpBB, or we may need some development done. The phpBB website does seem to have an active community, but I am not familiar enough with it to say just what it would entail to implement my suggestion.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
In the Map Foundry in particular, tables of information can be very useful for discussion and development. Being able to avoid the intermediate steps of creating an image, posting it to a sharing site, and inserting an image link would be very welcome.

<-------------------->

<Subject>:

*

BBCode tags

<Body>:

*

BBCode tags
* Would make a table with multiple rows and columns.
* Why it is needed: To help tournament organizers record and display player options in a post. It would tidy up and put all the information in one neat spot, making it easy for entries to make sure their info is correct.

<-------------------->

by **hecter** on Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:43 pm

Something like this may come out with phpBB 3.0, but I don't really know. It is really a suggestion you should be posing to them, as lack won't be implementing it (at least not any time soon). Besides, it would require a lot of coding to be able to just make the table. You're better off with a screenshot of something you made in exel or something like that... I mean, really, what would be more difficult? PrntScrn or:

Code: Select all: [table] [th colspan=5] Tourny Title [/th] [tr] tourny info, row 1 [/tr] *do the above step four more times* *do the same as above for the next row* [/table]

by **yeti_c** on Thu Jan 10, 2008 4:43 am

Create a spredsheet - save as "Formatted Text (Space Delimited) (*.prm)"

Then copy and paste the contents into a [code] tag.

C.

by **Coleman** on Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:25 am

Yeah, but we could nest images into a table tag, we can't do that with code.

by **hecter** on Thu Jan 10, 2008 4:11 pm

Coleman wrote:Yeah, but we could nest images into a table tag, we can't do that with code.

I think an addition to code tags, say, an [BBcode] tag would be neat. It would allow you to use BBcode in Code tags. I think it would be nice... But that's PHP, not CC.

by **yeti_c** on Thu Jan 10, 2008 4:41 pm

Coleman wrote:Yeah, but we could nest images into a table tag, we can't do that with code.

Why you need an image in yer table?!

C.

by **ender516** on Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:32 pm

Concise description:

The BBCode constructs of [table][[/table], [tr][/tr], and [td][/td] allow forum posters to construct tables of information without pasting in images or painful exercises in code boxes with monospaced text. However, the current CC forum does not support this feature.

Specifics/Details:

Modify the phpBB code to support this feature. This may be something already available from phpBB, or we may need some development done. The phpBB website does seem to have an active community, but I am not familiar enough with it to say just what it would entail to implement my suggestion.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:

In the Map Foundry in particular, tables of information can be very useful for discussion and development. Being able to avoid the intermediate steps of creating an image, posting it to a sharing site, and inserting an image link would be very welcome.

by **iamkoolerthanu** on Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:38 pm

I might use this for tournaments, if it wasn't too complicated to use

by **ender516** on Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:47 pm

You can see an example of this on the BBCode Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBCode

Basically, the [table][/table] construct surrounds [tr][/tr] (table row) which surrounds [td][/td] (table data). It might get a bit bulky, but should be straightforward to use.

by **rdsrds2120** on Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:02 pm

I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

by **greenoaks** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 12:41 am

it would make my life easier as a TO. i have a lot of tournaments where i use the code tags to create a table showing win/lost for each player.

great idea

by **natty dread** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 1:35 am

I like this suggestion!

by **AndyDufresne** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:03 am

Blakebowling actually did some work on this, but his solution to getting such BBCode was something like 6 separate BBCodes that work together to make a table, which seemed very un-userfriendly. However, I think he was onto a much better solution with only 1 BBCode. Perhaps I'll see if I can jump start that again.

--Andy

by **Metsfanmax** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:10 am

rdsrds2120 wrote:I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

A latex style table input with "&" separating cells and "\\" ending rows would be a good idea, for example. But then I guess you'd need a way to escape an & symbol if you actually needed it in your table.

by **ender516** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 12:56 pm

Metsfanmax wrote:
rdsrds2120 wrote:I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

A latex style table input with "&" separating cells and "\\" ending rows would be a good idea, for example. But then I guess you'd need a way to escape an & symbol if you actually needed it in your table.

The standard(?) method of [td][/td] around cells and [tr][/tr] around rows would not be much more to type, and the system already has to recognize [anything][/anything]. It's probably better not to throw different syntactical forms into the mix.

by **greenoaks** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 1:33 pm

ender516 wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
rdsrds2120 wrote:I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

A latex style table input with "&" separating cells and "\\" ending rows would be a good idea, for example. But then I guess you'd need a way to escape an & symbol if you actually needed it in your table.

The standard(?) method of [td][/td] around cells and [tr][/tr] around rows would not be much more to type, and the system already has to recognize [anything][/anything]. It's probably better not to throw different syntactical forms into the mix.

i'd be happy to use the 3 codes to bring a table together if they implement it as i can't imagine how 1 BBCode would know where my cells & rows end

by **Metsfanmax** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 3:07 pm

ender516 wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
rdsrds2120 wrote:I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

A latex style table input with "&" separating cells and "\\" ending rows would be a good idea, for example. But then I guess you'd need a way to escape an & symbol if you actually needed it in your table.

The standard(?) method of [td][/td] around cells and [tr][/tr] around rows would not be much more to type, and the system already has to recognize [anything][/anything]. It's probably better not to throw different syntactical forms into the mix.

You or I might think that, having worked with, say, HTML for many years. But I'm not convinced that the "average" forum-goer would find this mix of syntax confusing, since many don't have a reasonable expectation of what code should look like anyway.

by **dowian2** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:57 pm

I'm in favor of this suggestion as well. Would be very useful for tournaments.

by **ender516** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:00 pm

Metsfanmax wrote:
ender516 wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
rdsrds2120 wrote:I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

A latex style table input with "&" separating cells and "\\" ending rows would be a good idea, for example. But then I guess you'd need a way to escape an & symbol if you actually needed it in your table.

The standard(?) method of [td][/td] around cells and [tr][/tr] around rows would not be much more to type, and the system already has to recognize [anything][/anything]. It's probably better not to throw different syntactical forms into the mix.

You or I might think that, having worked with, say, HTML for many years. But I'm not convinced that the "average" forum-goer would find this mix of syntax confusing, since many don't have a reasonable expectation of what code should look like anyway.

Maybe so, but mixing syntax leads to weird stuff. As it is now, if your post has something in square brackets, it is special, otherwise it is plain text. I wouldn't want to have to watch for other special strings as well. But, in the end, what really matters is a feature that works. The rest is detail.

by **Metsfanmax** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:02 pm

ender516 wrote:Maybe so, but mixing syntax leads to weird stuff. As it is now, if your post has something in square brackets, it is special, otherwise it is plain text. I wouldn't want to have to watch for other special strings as well. But, in the end, what really matters is a feature that works. The rest is detail.

Absolutely. I don't want to bog this thread down with syntax discussions anyway. Let it suffice to say that this would be a neat thing to implement, although perhaps with not too grand of a scope outside Tournaments.

by **rdsrds2120** on Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:14 pm

The Academy might be able to find use for this. Keeping charts of progress for students, perhaps.

-rd

by **greenoaks** on Wed Jun 22, 2011 1:05 am

rdsrds2120 wrote:The Academy might be able to find use for this. Keeping charts of progress for students, perhaps.

-rd

Clans and Usergroups could use it much the same way to track & display their member's activities.

by **rdsrds2120** on Sat Jun 25, 2011 12:03 am

To expand on this, I think that having 2 tags would be sufficient. We already have the list function, which can use two (one for bullets, one for [list]), and this probably is one of those things that could be used similarly. Just a thought, as it would be incredibly useful!

-rd

by **ender516** on Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:45 am

I think you will need three tags. With the list, you have the tag around the whole list and the tags that mark the separations. In a sense, it marks positions in one dimension. WIth a table, you need to mark positions in two dimensions: row markers and column markers.

by **jpcloet** on Sat Jun 25, 2011 1:01 pm

If you are going for a display all you really need is a single bbcode and a javascript to go with it. I'm not sure what you think people are going to do with the [th] anyways.