šŸ“Œ BBS Style Manual!

FYI, This came about through a discussion between several of the regulars. Many of us made reference / linked to to the common markup, BBcode, Discourse wiki, etc. So many people linked to the same things it started to look like the explosion of articles about Rob Fordā€™s death we had a few days ago.

While this post may be redundant, does it really hurt anything?

ETA: Oh, and we can wiki in Discourse. We donā€™t have many wiki pages on the BBS so farā€¦

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It does when you open with tips on making your posts look like ransom notes :frowning:

Just use the semantic headings in markdown rather than encouraging giant font abuse. See http://commonmark.org/help

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Iā€™m a little lost here. Are we talking about bugs, features, creativity, or standards at this point?

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sir,
youā€™ll find that I already added that link to the wiki, right there at the top. because the OP said to add to the wiki, not comments.

youā€™re welcome.

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But last time I checked http://commonmark.org/help didnā€™t teach you how to do spoilers or strikethrough, also whats the harm? I know when I first tried to experiment with formatting in my BBS posts I was too embarrassed to ask anyone so I looked it up under meta and nothing came up, it took me a while to finally figure everything out and even at that and having looked through all of the resources like http://commonmark.org/help and such I still donā€™t know how a lot of the formatting actually works and I doubt I know how to do everything [Thats why this is wikied people, so you can add to it! @noahdjango gets it.]. Having a wiki with all the basic formatting info that is easily accessible, easy to understand, and easy to find [please pin @beschizza, pretty please with a cherry on top :cry:] as it actually exists on the BBS under meta instead of as a completely separate site seems like a good thing. No?

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The bbcode for size shouldnā€™t even be supported. I will have it pulled from this release. Problem solved.

Now, as to why you would want your posts to look like ransom notes instead of words and paragraphs, I havenā€™t the foggiest idea.

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ā€œWhat post of mine looks like a ransom note?ā€@TailOfTruth sputtered indignantly.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2CVbJbxnEDQ/VcQZneRD_mI/AAAAAAABhoU/kLvjvHZKsF0/w452-h308/ice_cube_wtf.gif


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GIVE US OUR FREEDOM TO SHOUT OR THE PUPPY GETS IT!!!

(Seriously, is that your takeaway from this?)

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Sighā€¦ 'cause we like to have fun here. Remember fun? The message isnā€™t always just in the text qua text. The words carry most of the meaning, but how the words are presented can be important, too. Otherwise, you could as well display every single post and comment in 18-point Comic Sans, because who cares what it looks like as long as all the words are there?

You want the place to look as dry and tidy as an actuarial table, thatā€™s your business. You might think @OtherMichaelā€™s shtick would translate perfectly to 12-point Courier, or you might personally dislike the aesthetic effect of a wide range of font sizes (that ā€œransom noteā€ effect). Only you know for sure.

But when it comes down to it, do you really need to make us tuck in our shirts every single moment of every day? Is it really so annoying when we play with (of all things) font sizes in Discourse?

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[size=30] DoNā€™t [/size] [size=20] yoU [/size] [size=40] dARe[/size] [size=10] evEn [/size] [size=35] THinK [/size] [size=25] aBoUT [/size] [size=18] puLLiNg [/size] [size=40] tHE [/size] [size=10] bbcODE [/size] [size=15] fOR [/size] [size=32] sIZe [/size] [size=40] ! [/size]

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I am all for fun, but pinning this is a bit much (why does everyone need to learn about all ninja options when they hit #meta category?). Also not our call this would be up @beschizza

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Well Iā€™ll do it myself then, or at least till @beschizza gives me a solid response on pinning or not pinning this.

EDIT: How about that for a workaround :wink:? Topic :round_pushpin: pinned :round_pushpin:!

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I gotta say, that response from CH seems unnecessarily hostile to forum members trying to just make the forum formatting specific to BB better documented, using their own time and effort. The response of ā€œHulk Smash Formatting Choice!!!ā€ seems a bit over the top. On the other hand, I still remember the horror that was MySpace, where users had a bit too much control over how to tastelessly decorate their pages and I agree that the ill considered use of multiple font sizes is a potential way to douche up the place. Even so, removing the option in its entirely, when its use in the forum has been so benign that CH didnā€™t even consider it until now, seems a bit of an over reaction.

CH, if you want to get rid of a useless formatting choice, get rid of the stupid divider rule. Those went out with GeoCities :smile:

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So, since this thread is to compile BB/Discourse specific formatting methods, is there a way (on my mac running Firefox) to paste text into the post composition window without having Discourse add awkward hard returns after every line? Iā€™m really not getting why Discourse does this - no other commenting system Iā€™ve used does this and I have no idea if it is supposed to be a feature (how could it be?) or a bug.

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Thatā€™s a PITAā€¦ The workaround is to paste into a text editor first and copy it again.

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This is a site setting, our default is to add hard returns, cause if you do not, newbies get MEGA confused.

Ī¹ ŠŗєєĻ Š½Ī¹Ń‚Ń‚Ī¹Ī·g єĪ·Ń‚Ń”Ń Š²Ļ…Ń‚ Ī¹Ń‚ āˆ‚ĻƒĪ·ā€™Ń‚ Ļ‰ĻƒŃŠŗŲŸ

Maybe, one day we could make this a user pref, people that are into soft returns are pretty religious about wanting then. It gets a bit weird as a user pref, cause then when someone goes to edit your stuff they need to be across this rule.

Also, what is the repro here? Are you simply expecting returns to be soft as the original markdown spec has?

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Did you mean to reply to me? Also, I really like that fancy font! What is it? Just something copied and pasted into the BBS?

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Typed text:
Well, it isnā€™t really a blockquote issue - thatā€™s just where I happen to note the effect since when I paste text it is usually into a block quote. My issue is how to stop Discourse from putting in hard line returns when I paste text. It doesnā€™t reflow properly when the text window is scaled, unlike text that is typed.

Iā€™m still not getting why the automatic hard returns are a benefit for pasted text but not typed text.

Pasted Text:
Pellentesque id sodales augue. Cras vel nisi dictum nunc porta molestie
ut in leo. Vivamus dapibus tortor velit, nec luctus libero malesuada
vitae. Nam sit amet enim lectus. Etiam ac ornare turpis, eget tincidunt
orci. Phasellus tincidunt mollis vehicula. Sed non consectetur nunc.

(Those are not the original line wraps, either, but ones imposed by Discourse. I can delete the returns manually, but Iā€™m not getting why they are there in the first placeā€¦)

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Oops yeah meant to reply to @skeptic but was fat fingered

The font is a Unicode font, cut and paste job, terrible for search

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