Yea, it seems to be. I went in and checked the permissions, and the only way the software lets me allow users to delete notifications is by also allow them to delete activity, as in everyone's activity. There are no setting for users to delete their own here unfortunately.
Ouch! ☹️ I suspected it might be something like that. Most new software these days tends to be very security conscious which unfortunately it has to be.
Can I use a piece of CC3+ symbol artwork as my Forum avatar here?
The EULA's a bit vague about this, as it's not using it in a map, but it also isn't redistributing the artwork to other people. Plus it would seem apt to reuse something from CC3+ here, if practical.
Thinking TT possibilities presently.
If not, it'll be an age before I can come up with a suitably-drawn alternative... ☹️
Thanks Ralf; as we've discussed before, it's always best to make sure about these things!
Very kind Sue. I'll have a rethink and maybe PM you if something occurs. I had a couple of other ideas, but the TT one came to me earlier today as a simpler possibility.
I was going to ask where the text was scraped from, but I had a look at the html and saw it in the meta data.
I'm wondering, would it be possible in the future to add the option of such meta-data to the gallery images? This would be really good for linking gallery images into the forum, especially when writing a tutorial.
While everything is technically possible, I am not very likely to add features that are not available as an add-on. There are a lot of various requests for all kinds of potential improvements here now, but all of those means that I basically will need to write a new plugin myself.
Is there any way to change the editor I'm currently using without editing my profile? "Rich" is good enough for most things but sometimes I want the flexibility of HTML for a particular item and would prefer to switch back and forth instead of leaving a comment hanging while I edit my profile. (If that would even work and not dump my draft.) Also there are quite a few options on the editor list: an article briefly describing each of them would be very helpful.
No, it is not currently possible to switch them on the fly. There are to many differences between the editors in javascript that has to be loaded, different CSS files and so on. Normally, it isn't possible to switch editors at all, the options to change them via the edit profile was a plugin I wrote myself.
It isn't like the old forum where everything was basically the same editor, the switch on the bottom just told it how to interpret the codes you had in your post, it didn't really change anything on the client side.
And the format these editors use to store the information is VERY different, so I am quite confident that a draft from one of them will not work in the other.
Okay, I suspected that too. Anyway thanks for all the work on the editors; it's always nice to have options. A description of those options and how they work would help me choose which one would work best for me. This seems like too big a topic for a single post here; maybe a dedicated thread or blog article (or a series if you want to be really detailed) would work better. I know you are very busy (the evidence is overwhelming) so there is no rush but I would like some more information on the "Rich" editor I'm using right now. It's new and can get confusing at times.
I am currently in the process of writing some guides, you may have noticed a new post from me popping up every few days. Editors are on the list to come.
The rich text editor is really simple though. Click the paragraph mark that appears to the right of the paragraph to access various paragraph-realated things, like headings, lists, quotes, etc. Select text to get up the formatting toolbar, and use the buttons below to insert things like images/attachments. It is designed to be easy to use, but the downside is very little flexibility.
Of all the other editors, the Wysiwyg one is really the only one you need to bother with imho. It looks more like the classic editor used in many forums, and it has a button to edit the html of the post if needed.
BTW, how do I use the "Attach a poll" button? I wanted to find out if people thought I was crazy to attempt the project that inspired my last question.?
Just click it, and fill out your question an poll options. Shouldn't be more to it than that. The downwards facing arrow is for adding more options, the right facing one to add another question to the poll.
That last point is one I got messed up the first time I tried a poll. Polls seem to have both a title and a question. If you think about it like that, it's easier to work out what to write.
Like this:
Large screens
Do you like them?
[yes/no options as poll]
You can delete a poll if it goes wrong, though people won't really appreciate that if they've already voted (in fact I don't know if you can still delete them once there are votes). And if you have deleted one you can try a new one.
But can you add a poll to an already existing question? When I clicked "Attach Poll" I got the "Edit Discussion" page which displayed my existing question. What specifically do I add or change to create a Poll?
I'm only speaking from memory here, but I think you have to go into edit mode to create a poll anyway. It's an integral part of the initial thread-starting comment.
You could always try one and delete it if it goes wrong. That's one of the advantages of the forum - you can delete stuff that goes wrong.
Try a dummy thread, then delete it once you've worked it out.
Try now, it should be fixed, it was some missing permissions.
As for deleting thing, users can delete their own comments, but not threads. This is because a deleting a thread would also mean deleting any comments in it, which may belong to other people. This is Vanilla's own reasoning for why the system is like that, and not an option I can toggle.
Okay, it seems to work now. (I asked a real question BTW since I was testing an idea.) I'll try to add the same poll to my other question since you seem to have just answered the test one.
I've noticed there seem to be a few variants on how quoted messages are shown in people's posts. Some minor experimentation suggests the appearance can be amended to a degree by altering the "folding" of quotes used, accessible via an individual's Profile page.
However, none of these methods seem capable of allowing access to edit the quote. So if I try to use a quote in replying to a lengthy query, but wish to use only the fragment of that quote which is relevant to what I want to say, and yet still retain the querent's name and when the quote was posted, how do I do that? Assuming it's still possible at all, of course.
Quotes are one of the weaknesses of the new version. I know the developers of Vanilla have been given feedback that this "embedding the complete post as a quote" was a poor idea. I think they did go a bit overboard with their embedding system here. Becuse it is an embed of the actual post, editing it isn't possible.
What I usually do is just to copy the text to quote to the clipboard, then just select the Quote format in the editor and paste it in. I usually start the first line by typing @username wrote, as that will automatically link to the user (Will also notify the user that a mention was made). This doesn't embed things like time and stuff, but it is usually sufficient for my purposes, as I just use quotes to put things into the right context, not prove anything.
If you use the Wysiwyg editor instead of the Rich editor, it also handles quotes differently.
Thanks Remy. That's a bit disappointing, but trade-offs like this have to happen, I suppose. I'm still just using the Rich editor (that was the default originally, as far as I recall). Don't have a lot of spare time/energy for further experimentation currently...
@Monsen Just saw your Guide: Discussions and Questions. Excellent! How does one decide which category is most appropriate for starting a discussion/question?
Well, given the somewhat technical nature of things that fit as questions, I would say that Mapping with ProFantasy software or Community Support are the natural catecories for most questions. But just as with any question, it does depend on the topic, really, no fixed answer to that one.
I've made a minor update to the forum. Everyone with a gallery now have a link next to their username telling you how many images they have, which you can click to go straight to their gallery.
Comments
There should be an X in the top right of each notification.
This is what I'm seeing.
No X that I can see. Maybe it's an Administrator thing.
Yea, it seems to be. I went in and checked the permissions, and the only way the software lets me allow users to delete notifications is by also allow them to delete activity, as in everyone's activity. There are no setting for users to delete their own here unfortunately.
Ouch! ☹️ I suspected it might be something like that. Most new software these days tends to be very security conscious which unfortunately it has to be.
Can I use a piece of CC3+ symbol artwork as my Forum avatar here?
The EULA's a bit vague about this, as it's not using it in a map, but it also isn't redistributing the artwork to other people. Plus it would seem apt to reuse something from CC3+ here, if practical.
Thinking TT possibilities presently.
If not, it'll be an age before I can come up with a suitably-drawn alternative... ☹️
No please don't use individual pieces. Take a little bit from an actual map you created, that should be fine!
@Wyvern If it's not going to take more than an hour or two, I can draw you something simple? You've done so much for me over the years...
Thanks Ralf; as we've discussed before, it's always best to make sure about these things!
Very kind Sue. I'll have a rethink and maybe PM you if something occurs. I had a couple of other ideas, but the TT one came to me earlier today as a simpler possibility.
Remy in your Posting Maps and Images post, you used the example of creating a rich link like the one below, by pasting https://atlas.monsen.cc/Maps/Corgin into its own line.
I was going to ask where the text was scraped from, but I had a look at the html and saw it in the meta data.
I'm wondering, would it be possible in the future to add the option of such meta-data to the gallery images? This would be really good for linking gallery images into the forum, especially when writing a tutorial.
While everything is technically possible, I am not very likely to add features that are not available as an add-on. There are a lot of various requests for all kinds of potential improvements here now, but all of those means that I basically will need to write a new plugin myself.
Is there any way to change the editor I'm currently using without editing my profile? "Rich" is good enough for most things but sometimes I want the flexibility of HTML for a particular item and would prefer to switch back and forth instead of leaving a comment hanging while I edit my profile. (If that would even work and not dump my draft.) Also there are quite a few options on the editor list: an article briefly describing each of them would be very helpful.
No, it is not currently possible to switch them on the fly. There are to many differences between the editors in javascript that has to be loaded, different CSS files and so on. Normally, it isn't possible to switch editors at all, the options to change them via the edit profile was a plugin I wrote myself.
It isn't like the old forum where everything was basically the same editor, the switch on the bottom just told it how to interpret the codes you had in your post, it didn't really change anything on the client side.
And the format these editors use to store the information is VERY different, so I am quite confident that a draft from one of them will not work in the other.
Okay, I suspected that too. Anyway thanks for all the work on the editors; it's always nice to have options. A description of those options and how they work would help me choose which one would work best for me. This seems like too big a topic for a single post here; maybe a dedicated thread or blog article (or a series if you want to be really detailed) would work better. I know you are very busy (the evidence is overwhelming) so there is no rush but I would like some more information on the "Rich" editor I'm using right now. It's new and can get confusing at times.
I am currently in the process of writing some guides, you may have noticed a new post from me popping up every few days. Editors are on the list to come.
The rich text editor is really simple though. Click the paragraph mark that appears to the right of the paragraph to access various paragraph-realated things, like headings, lists, quotes, etc. Select text to get up the formatting toolbar, and use the buttons below to insert things like images/attachments. It is designed to be easy to use, but the downside is very little flexibility.
Of all the other editors, the Wysiwyg one is really the only one you need to bother with imho. It looks more like the classic editor used in many forums, and it has a button to edit the html of the post if needed.
BTW, how do I use the "Attach a poll" button? I wanted to find out if people thought I was crazy to attempt the project that inspired my last question.?
Just click it, and fill out your question an poll options. Shouldn't be more to it than that. The downwards facing arrow is for adding more options, the right facing one to add another question to the poll.
Note that the "Poll title" is not the question.
That last point is one I got messed up the first time I tried a poll. Polls seem to have both a title and a question. If you think about it like that, it's easier to work out what to write.
Like this:
Large screens
Do you like them?
[yes/no options as poll]
You can delete a poll if it goes wrong, though people won't really appreciate that if they've already voted (in fact I don't know if you can still delete them once there are votes). And if you have deleted one you can try a new one.
But can you add a poll to an already existing question? When I clicked "Attach Poll" I got the "Edit Discussion" page which displayed my existing question. What specifically do I add or change to create a Poll?
I'm only speaking from memory here, but I think you have to go into edit mode to create a poll anyway. It's an integral part of the initial thread-starting comment.
You could always try one and delete it if it goes wrong. That's one of the advantages of the forum - you can delete stuff that goes wrong.
Try a dummy thread, then delete it once you've worked it out.
@DaltonSpence I see what you mean!
I can't create one either, and I can't delete the test thread I just created to try it.
Try now, it should be fixed, it was some missing permissions.
As for deleting thing, users can delete their own comments, but not threads. This is because a deleting a thread would also mean deleting any comments in it, which may belong to other people. This is Vanilla's own reasoning for why the system is like that, and not an option I can toggle.
Okay, it seems to work now. (I asked a real question BTW since I was testing an idea.) I'll try to add the same poll to my other question since you seem to have just answered the test one.
I've noticed there seem to be a few variants on how quoted messages are shown in people's posts. Some minor experimentation suggests the appearance can be amended to a degree by altering the "folding" of quotes used, accessible via an individual's Profile page.
However, none of these methods seem capable of allowing access to edit the quote. So if I try to use a quote in replying to a lengthy query, but wish to use only the fragment of that quote which is relevant to what I want to say, and yet still retain the querent's name and when the quote was posted, how do I do that? Assuming it's still possible at all, of course.
Quotes are one of the weaknesses of the new version. I know the developers of Vanilla have been given feedback that this "embedding the complete post as a quote" was a poor idea. I think they did go a bit overboard with their embedding system here. Becuse it is an embed of the actual post, editing it isn't possible.
What I usually do is just to copy the text to quote to the clipboard, then just select the Quote format in the editor and paste it in. I usually start the first line by typing @username wrote, as that will automatically link to the user (Will also notify the user that a mention was made). This doesn't embed things like time and stuff, but it is usually sufficient for my purposes, as I just use quotes to put things into the right context, not prove anything.
If you use the Wysiwyg editor instead of the Rich editor, it also handles quotes differently.
Love the new look and function, thanks Remy!
Thanks Remy. That's a bit disappointing, but trade-offs like this have to happen, I suppose. I'm still just using the Rich editor (that was the default originally, as far as I recall). Don't have a lot of spare time/energy for further experimentation currently...
@Monsen Just saw your Guide: Discussions and Questions. Excellent! How does one decide which category is most appropriate for starting a discussion/question?
Well, given the somewhat technical nature of things that fit as questions, I would say that Mapping with ProFantasy software or Community Support are the natural catecories for most questions. But just as with any question, it does depend on the topic, really, no fixed answer to that one.
Thank you so much, Remy :)