easy quote

JamesU

just a suggestion. something I've seen on other forums. where you highlight the text you want to quote, click the 'e-quote' button, and the text is automatically quoted in the quick reply box.

dduardo

Let me bring your attention to this firefox extension:

https://addons.mozilla.org/extension...nfo.php?id=491

All you do is copy the text you want to quote, then with the right mouse button go to clipboard->quote under bbcode context menu.

Moonbear

Is that any faster or easier than just hitting the green "quote" button?

Or will it let you quote multiple people's posts more easily than copying and pasting and typing in your own quote tags? If so, then it would be a nice feature to have.

While we're on the subject of quotes, that reminds me of something I meant to ask about a long time ago. An earlier version used to include the quoted text within another person's post when you quoted them. Would it be possible to add that back here? Sometimes when they're quoting another source and you want to comment both on what they quoted and what they said about the quote, you need to include both. Right now it's kind of a pain to have to hit quote and than have to go back and copy and paste, especially if there's formatting in the original text that doesn't copy with a simple copy/paste.

dduardo

I guess it's faster if you only want to quote part of a post. But yeah, in most cases your just better off hitting the quote button.

This is what the extension does when you quote within a quote:

It isn't exactly perfect.

[edit] Give me a few minutes and I'll update the source code to the extension to print quotes within quotes properly.

[edit2]

1) Install bbcodextra from mozilla website
2) Download file and rename bbcodextra.zip to bbcodextra.jar
3) mv bbcodextra.jar into proper chrome directory under extension.

Attached Files

bbcodextra.zip (35.3 KB, 0 views)

hypnagogue

I know what you mean, but from my experience on other forums, we should be glad for the forced parsimony. When nested quotes are automatically included, the burden is on the poster to delete all the extraneous stuff-- all the old quotes within quotes that the post being replied to has accrued-- and oftentimes that extra step is never carried out. What results is posts where you have something like 10 nested quotes in one reply, with a lot of extraneous information that also looks ugly. Ultimately, I think the better burden to place on a poster is to create nested quotes where deemed appropriate, rather than to edit them out-- this way, you don't get an unnecessary mess of long and poorly formatted text to wade through, and nested quotes are only seen when they are really needed.

Moonbear

Good point about people who never delete out the extraneous stuff. I wonder if there's a way to find a compromise.

Where it really becomes an issue is if there are links or other code used in the quote and you can only see that to copy it if you can quote it. For plain text, it's not so hard to copy and paste.
One thing that might work would be to only allow "first-order" quotes, so that if someone quoted something with embedded quotes, only the first order quotes would be automatically included (if you needed something from an earlier quote/post, you can go back to the first person who cited it to quote that content). Alternatively, maybe a less prominent (i.e., not the first one people see and click) "quote all" button in addition to the current "quote" button would make it possible (then again, there are always those people who can't tell the difference between "reply" and "reply all" on their email who will probably screw up on the quote buttons too).

JamesU

the 'quote' button does not quote specified text. nor does it do it in the quick-reply box. so yes, it is easier. (hence the name 'easyquote')

Evo

Perhaps we can start dinging people with points if they can't use "quotes" correctly. I hate the posts where the member quotes someone but fails to put it in quotes and you can't tell the difference between what they're writing and what they've copied from another member that they're responding to.