Edit boxes, formatters and quotes... oh my!

Eggwhite

Hi Guys.

I've been using vanilla on and off for a while, and since it looks like no fix for the MultiRoles extension is forthcoming that will let me meet my original requirements(alas), I've changed those requirements. This means I can try to get my forum up and running using a different approach to the one I was originally after, and have been getting some of my core users to test stuff out for me.

One of the things that has come up is that for one user, for no reason either of us can fathom, my combination of HTML formatter, formatting buttons and quote tools just does not work for him. I can copy the text of his posts into one of mine and they work fine... but if he posts the same thing, it converts the HTML tag angle brackets to entities and the code appears in the final post.

So I'm going to ask for recommendations:

I want people to be able to enter HTML that can get tidied up if it's b0Rked. I also want them to have some simple buttons at the top of the edit window for things like bold, italic, links, etc... I also want a quote facility.

At the moment I've got the following extensions installed and active that should be messing about with people's comments as they enter them:

Html Formatter 2.0.6
Quicktags 0.5
Quotations 1.6

As far as I know, it's ony those three that jigger about with comments as users posts them. I've looked at using a WYSIWYG editor, and tested TinyMCE (couldn't make it behave properly in IE, and its appearance was too inconsistent across other browsers).

So... What extensions would people recommend I use to get what I need out of Vanilla? It needs to be light, fast and cross platform/cross browser. Or what would people suggest that either I or my friend might be doing wrong, and how would you suggest I diagnose or fix it?

Eggwhite

For reference, here's the full list of extensions that I've got active, just in case some of them are problematic when combined or anything. I'm running Vanilla 1.1.2 on a windows based server (alas).

Announcement 1.2
Applicant Email Verification 0.4.0
Atom Feed 1.0
Buy A Drink 1.0
Category Filter 1.1
Category Icons 1.0.1
Category Jumper 1.0
ConfirmGoBack 0.1
Dice Roller 0.3
Discussion Filters 1.0
Discussion Pages 1.0
Guest Welcome Message 1.0
Html Formatter 2.0.6
Invite Friends 0.3
LiveSearch 1.1
Member List 1.2
New Applicants 1
Notify 0.2
Page Management 2.3
Panel Lists 1.0
Private Accounts 1.0
Quicktags 0.5
Quotations 1.6
RSS2 Feed 1.0
Role History 1.0

WallPhone

Not sure what could be the issue--but you might want to identify what is different between your setup and his--os, browser, versions and see if you can duplicate the issue.

Another thing to try would be Kses instead of the HTML formatter--but I don't believe it would resolve this issue. It appears to be something unique with his setup.

Eggwhite

It does seem that he's tried using firefox 2 (exact version currently unknown) on a linux box, and Firefox 2.0.3 on an XP box... same problem with both. I've been able to test the second and can't replicate the problem from my end.

Cheers for the suggestion about Kses, though. I may give it a look and see how it behaves...

Gauzy

okay, just a quick pre-flight here, he is making sure he selects to format the posts at HTML, right?

it's like the old "my computer won't turn on"
'well, is it plugged in?'

i remember we had this problem too, esp with quotes (if users didn't select the appropriate formatter it would just display as code, 'twas nasty. once everybody remembered to selected the right format, all was well.

Eggwhite

He is indeed setting it to HTML. I'm not sure he did every time, but he has been doing so in general. It seems to encode any HTML he enters manually as well. But only for him. Nobody else seems to have the problem... I'm hopefully going to get the chance to have a rummage around in his account settings soon, so I can check he's not tweaked some bizarre setting or anything...

lech

Just out of curiosity, does the role he currently has have rights to even post HTML comments?

Eggwhite

He should have - I'll double check, but as far as I know his role does indeed have that access.

Eggwhite

Heh - it had to be simple, didn't it.

Looks like I had him in an obscure custom role for some reason when I was trying to use multiroles - it should have been a role that added some permissions, rather than defining them completely. Since I've now ditched multiroles, that role wasn't adding to his permissions but being the sole defining role instead.

Since I've restructured to not use multiroles, that's obviously not going to work anymore - so he's back to the normal roles now and all seems well.

Cheers guys...

lech

*flex*

Minisweeper

Good point, lech. Then again, if a role doesnt have permission to use HTML (what sort of core permission is that, anyway? Surely it should come with the HTML formatter?) surely they shouldn't even be offered the option? I think that's a kind of mini bug. Maybe a flea or something..

lech

Yeah, it's probably a bug in the HTML Formatter extension itself. Probably best to bring it up with SirNot to have him include a function that checks to see whether or not the user has the proper role permissions before giving them an option to use the formatter. Now that I think of it, I could have sworn this was an option before.

NickE

hmm, I could make the formatter only display text as html if the comment author has that permission, but I'm afraid it's not really possible to hide the formatter option in the form (the list is retrieved from the internal array of formatters, which is also used to determine if a formatter even exists or not, so there's not really any way to work as a formatter and stay hidden simultaneously).

...but to be honest I'm not entirely sure if that permission plays much of a relevant role in vanilla any more. As far as I can remember, nothing refering to it was included in the original html formatter (ie. before I sort of hijacked development of it :-P ), and upon searching through the vanilla files the only time it's actually used as a permission is in displaying a user's picture. It seems to me to be something of a leftover from the software vanilla evolved from.

Minisweeper

Fair enough. I've drawn this to Marks attention so we'll see what he says...

Mark

Hmmmm. Eenteresting. Actually, that role permission was intended to disable html for users no matter what formatter they choose - the idea being that if someone is being a moron, you can put them into a role where they can't do things like mess with the css, post images, etc.

Minisweeper

In that case should it give them the option? And does/should it block other formatters?

lech

Mark, would there be any good way without sacrificing speed to check whether or not a user has the proper role permissions before being allowed to even see things like formatter options?

NickE

@mark: well by all means I can implement a check within the formatter when parsing text, but as I said it would still show up in the formatter options. especially considering the permission is already so well integrated within the application, implementing this in the core itself may be a better option (eg. checking the permission before calling any formatter, display the options, etc). that would also eliminate the need for extension authors to check the permission themselves (but then again, maybe you'd want to give them that freedom, I don't know...).