May 24 Huddler Platform Update

***iacas*** · May 23, 2011

Quick notes this time around... some nice changes y'all should appreciate.

Features

Here's a quick summary:

Enhanced BBCode Editor - Video Embed, Text Size/Color, Spoilers and other improvements
New Signature Formatting Options - Spoilers, Page Formatting to save space, Configurable Sig Length

Enhanced BBCode Editor

The BBCode Editor is tight and fast and familiar for BBCode veterans. But until now it's been pretty stripped-down, offering just a few toolbar buttons. There are quite a number of BBCode tags that the editor's back end already understands but that don't have a toolbar button yet. In this release we'll be beefing out that toolbar a little bit. We offer this editor as an alternative to CK, and we hope that these changes will make it even more viable for a greater segment of y'all:

The final implementation is still being ironed, but you can expect to see toolbar buttons for things like:

Video embedding
Strikethrough
Text size
Text color
Alignment
Indentation
Spoilers
Numbered Lists
Bulleted Lists

To enable the BBCode Editor, visit your profile and go to "Edit Account Details" where you'll see a menu for "Preferred Editor Type." Now that "video embedding" is enabled, this may be the best way to use The Sand Trap!!!

New Signature Formatting Options

Better use of space for left-postbits

Huddler offers two postbit styles: left and top. A left-postbit site (such as The Sand Trap and NotebookForums, from which these screenshots come) currently looks like this:

If you spend time in a forum like this, you'll notice that the signature and postbit layout leaves a lot of unused space. Due to the way it's constructed, the sig area can't begin until below where the postbit ends.

The result is a space-inefficient layout, and multiplied times 20 posts in a page, this can result in a lot of additional scrolling.

We've re-coded this so that it can be more compact, so that users would not have to scroll so much.

In the example case shown here, the height savings is about 75 pixels, which is significant, especially multiplied times 10 or 20 posts all the way down the page. Notice also that we've restyled content of the signature itself to further differentiate it from the content of the post. The signature is 1 point size smaller and slightly lighter. This not saves even more vertical space, it helps readers visually differentiate what the user is saying in the post from their signature.

A new approach to signature length limiting

Previously, our method of limiting signatures has been:

An absolute limit of 300 characters, not counting html allowed in a signature.
To control height, we allow up to 4 line breaks. Any additional line breaks are ignored.

This second bullet point, in particular, can lead to some confusion and odd formatting.

From now on we'll be using a more straightforward "max height" method to limit how high a signature can get.

A new limit of 720 characters (this may go up or down - please don't abuse).
You can enter as many line breaks as you want
The line breaks you put in will all be respected
However, we will only show a maximum of 144 pixels of height. This will give users just enough space for about 11 lines. After that, anything more added just won't show up.

There are still limits on how much you can enter, but at least you'll get out something that looks more like what you put in. Users have asked for the ability to shrink their sig font size and pack more in. This will allow them to do exactly that.

New Formatting Options

Notice that in the above screenshots, the editor has some options that were not available before.

Font Size : Don't worry, we're only allowing sizes smaller than the default. Users will be able to use small text to get a little more info into their sigs. They won't be able to pump up the text to a larger size than the default 11px. Even if they try to hack the source html, we'll convert it back down to 11px.

Smileys : Did you know that the #1 most used button in the CK editor (after submit) is smileys . Obnoxious smiley graphics pretty much make us cry, but users undeniably love them.

Quotes : Showing a quote from the forums in your signature is extremely popular on many forums. However it can be confusing to see quotes on a thread page that aren't actually part of the conversation, so these will appear in a style that minimizes any such confusion.

Spoilers : Spoilers are a fun and easy way to pack some extra information into a compact expando-box. If users want to make their sigs more compact, more power to 'em. They'll be able to use spoilers to do that. When a sig spoiler is expanded, we will allow it to expand past the 144 pixel max height. We figure this is okay, because it will only happen when a user expressly clicks on one, demonstrating an interest to see what's inside.

Alignment : Centering a sig is actually a great way to visually differentiate it from the post content and reduce confusion for people reading the thread, so we're now including alignment options for users that want them.

That's about it for this...

Bugs

We also have a number of bug fixes that will be included in this release. (These are boring to you guys so I won't list them here).

**MiniBlueDragon** · May 23, 2011

iacas, do you know if any Tapatalk functionality is in the works? I'd love to be able to use the forum properly via the app but currently it's only useful for my "favourites" or "My Topics" or "My Posts" - There's no "new post" functionality. I think it may have been mentioned on another thread too from what I remember but I figured I'd ask.

***iacas*** · May 23, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by MiniBlueDragon

iacas, do you know if any Tapatalk functionality is in the works? I'd love to be able to use the forum properly via the app but currently it's only useful for my "favourites" or "My Topics" or "My Posts" - There's no "new post" functionality. I think it may have been mentioned on another thread too from what I remember but I figured I'd ask.

It definitely doesn't hurt to ask. Here's Huddler's answer:

Quote:

Tapatalk is an independent piece of software. We don't have any control over how their interface works, unfortunately.

Creating better mobile interfaces is a medium to long term goal for us- we are hoping to have better integration with iOS and Android soon, so we can get away from Tapatalk, which does have some limitations.

For now, you'll have to be happy with the improved signature stuff and the better BB Code editor.

**B-Con** · May 24, 2011

The signature update is a welcome improvement. :-) [edit] Both of them, actually, are quite nice. The display and the content changes.

**MiniBlueDragon** · May 24, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas

It definitely doesn't hurt to ask. Here's Huddler's answer:

Quote:

Tapatalk is an independent piece of software. We don't have any control over how their interface works, unfortunately.

Creating better mobile interfaces is a medium to long term goal for us- we are hoping to have better integration with iOS and Android soon, so we can get away from Tapatalk, which does have some limitations.

For now, you'll have to be happy with the improved signature stuff and the better BB Code editor.

The following screenshots are from the Planted Tank forum as viewed through Tapatalk. They have not only the same "Forum", "Favourites", "Profile", "Online" and "Statistics" as TheSandTrap displays but additionally there are icons for "Latest" and "Messages" section for PM's. The "Latest" section also has a number for the amount of new posts:

The "Forum" section shows "New" icons next to those forums with new posts:

To my mind it's unlikely to be the case whereby the app is limiting the functionality more than the tech team not wanting to add the functionality or not being able to for some reason. It's not a big deal at all, I just really prefer browsing forums through there if possible and if you don't ask you don't get.

The new functionality's nice but I have signatures turned off. Better BB code could be good though so good job on that.

***iacas*** · May 24, 2011

Originally Posted by B-Con

Both of them, actually, are quite nice. The display and the content changes.

The sizing will be really noticeable, I think.

Originally Posted by MiniBlueDragon

To my mind it's unlikely to be the case whereby the app is limiting the functionality more than the tech team not wanting to add the functionality or not being able to for some reason. It's not a big deal at all, I just really prefer browsing forums through there if possible and if you don't ask you don't get.

I know. I'm just passing along what they said. And I'll leave it at that.

Tapatalk worked really well on the site when the site was running vBulletin.

**MiniBlueDragon** · May 24, 2011

Originally Posted by iacas

I know. I'm just passing along what they said. And I'll leave it at that.

Tapatalk worked really well on the site when the site was running vBulletin.

Well fingers crossed but nothing is expected. Thanks for letting me know though!

***iacas*** · May 24, 2011

Bump. Check this out, guys.

P.S. There may currently be a bug with spaces between paragraphs in the new signatures. For now, you might want to edit the source and replace the

series with a pair of break tags like

.

**WUTiger** · May 26, 2011

iacas, You might take a look at font color function. I selected the new BBCode editor last night, but now get either black text, or [COLOR=#FF00AA]pink text [/COLOR]if I click the AColor icon. (Doesn't allow for a choice.) Also, good job on recoding to squeeze out the wasted space in the new threads and reply postings.

***iacas*** · May 26, 2011

Originally Posted by WUTiger

You might take a look at font color function. I selected the new BBCode editor last night, but now get either black text, or pink text if I click the AColor icon. (Doesn't allow for a choice.)

Also, good job on recoding to squeeze out the wasted space in the new threads and reply postings.

Thanks. I think someone reported that color issue already.

The coding one wasn't me... but I did point out the spacing "bug" back in December. It's only been five months! :-)

**B-Con** · May 27, 2011

Did something happen to handicaps? I no longer see them listed listed in people's profiles on the left-hand side.

***iacas*** · May 27, 2011

Originally Posted by B-Con

Did something happen to handicaps? I no longer see them listed listed in people's profiles on the left-hand side.

Good eye. They did a point release and I think that may have turned them off, because (correct me if I'm wrong) they were here Tuesday night and Wednesday (I remember because there was conversation about the advice a 20.0 handicap was giving about getting better and improving ). I've put in the request that they be turned back on - ASAP - because that feature is important to our site.

***iacas*** · May 28, 2011

Originally Posted by B-Con

Did something happen to handicaps? I no longer see them listed listed in people's profiles on the left-hand side.

They're back now.

**B-Con** · May 28, 2011

They're back now.

Nice. Yeah, I think it was the upgrade, because I check the handicaps every time I read and that was the first time I noticed it missing. Hence I tacked it onto this thread.

Sign In

May 24 Huddler Platform Update

Recommended Posts

Features

Enhanced BBCode Editor

New Signature Formatting Options

Bugs

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in

Topics Being Discussed Right Now on The Sand Trap

TST Partners

Posts

Important Information