IPB, BBCode, and concerns about it's future

[Marcher Technologies]

maybe there is some kind of (monetary) deal between IPS and CKEditor people...

....

http://cksource.com/ckeditor/buy
of course there is a monetary involvement........ You think this editor is free for commercial use? hardly.

You try walking away from that kind of investment, much less the dev time since.

There is no direct correlation(deal) AFAIK, there need not be, they paid out for CKE OEM, and have had developers twitching out on the CKE source to fit the need(it is likely way more has been invested here than the initial upfront cost at this point -.-).

[broni]

Like in every business sometimes you have to cut the loses and move on to something else.

[Matt]

If I may re-post this:

It outlines some of the challenges we face wrangling HTML into something safe and non-destructive.

[bfarber]

what i don't understand is why IPS don't seem to be listening to its customers at all. I like IPB content is unmatched but the editor is a pain to use so many times ive had broken bbcode and had to fix it. Why not just give the customers what we ask for instead of pushing something we don't want even pushing customers to other software. from what ive read no one is happy with this so why keep going with it.

I've been asking the very same question in different topics since 3.2 came out (over a year ago?) and I never got any straight answer.

I don't want to start palm reading but maybe there is some kind of (monetary) deal between IPS and CKEditor people...

I dunno...

We absolutely are listening, and the last 3 releases have been very very focused on improving the editor. The types of quirks some of you are finding at this stage are NOT simple "I pasted x and y happened", at least not always. Check out the fixed bugs in 3.4.4 and you will see that some of these bugs are extremely complex, and often times are very niche and specific (in IE8 if I do this and this, then the code box inserts instead of opening a popup).

If you are facing issues, please report them to the tracker with instructions how we can reproduce. We can't fix something we don't know about. For instance, I saw someone mention they had trouble with numbered lists, blank lines, and indenting. I have absolutely no trouble with these things, so perhaps you work in a different manner and we just haven't tested the way you are doing these things.

1. one
2. two
   
3. blank line for #2 above
   1. Sub list
   2. sub list item 2
      • This is a sub sub list that I switched to a bulleted list instead of numbered
      • and another item
   3. Back to this list
4. And now back to this list

....

http://cksource.com/ckeditor/buy
of course there is a monetary involvement........ You think this editor is free for commercial use? hardly.

You try walking away from that kind of investment, much less the dev time since.

There is no direct correlation(deal) AFAIK, there need not be, they paid out for CKE OEM, and have had developers twitching out on the CKE source to fit the need(it is likely way more has been invested here than the initial upfront cost at this point -.-).

You are mistaken. We do not have any financial arrangement with CKEditor. That is for premium CKEditor, which primarily includes support. CKEditor itself is released under the LGPL license which allows us to reuse and distribute it with our software. Please be careful about potentially spreading misinformation. :)

[broni]

We absolutely are listening, and the last 3 releases have been very very focused on improving the editor.

It very clearly doesn't work.

It hasn't been since CKEditor had been introduced.

What's more...it's getting worse with every new edition, more bugs.

Which brings (again) my other question which I asked before and to which I never got any answer:

Why not to implement some editor which actually works?

I see all kind of other editors on non-IPB sites and they DO work.

[Ryan H.]

It very clearly doesn't work.

It hasn't been since CKEditor had been introduced.

What's more...it's getting worse with every new edition, more bugs.

Yeah... sorry, but that's pretty blatantly false.

[broni]

I must disagree.

I'm still using 3.2.3 only because I find CKEditor in IPB 3.4 version with more bugs than in my current version.

The only major bug in 3.2.3 version which really bugs me is an issue with copying "code" boxes with IE.

Now if you read the very first post by "grinler" you can see how worse 3.4 version is.

By a mile...

[Marcher Technologies]

You are mistaken. We do not have any financial arrangement with CKEditor. That is for premium CKEditor, which primarily includes support. CKEditor itself is released under the LGPL license which allows us to reuse and distribute it with our software. Please be careful about potentially spreading misinformation. :smile:

Then why? Countless developer hours have gone into this editor. The argument for the change, was reducing development time on the editor. Instead time spent on it exploded.

I'm flat confused, you would have spent the same amount of time or less keeping the code first-party by now.

If there was no upfront, the only cost becomes developer customization. And it keeps getting sunk in, furthering your investment to levels one literally should not reach working with free third-party pre-made solutions.

[Marcher Technologies]

If I may re-post this:

It outlines some of the challenges we face wrangling HTML into something safe and non-destructive.

You elaborate my point actually Matt. If you have to parcel out parsing in all cases to custom code, and have to spend so very much time customizing the editor, why have the CKE(likely a phrase that makes you want to do a desk-hide by now :tongue: ) at all?

Curiosity, not accusation, just not getting it after these years. :hairy:

[Ryan H.]

Marcher, making a good WYSIWYG is not a trivial thing. For as much trouble as they've had molding it to fix the exact needs of IP.Board and its rather picky userbase, CKEditor does what it was designed to do very well.

If they hadn't made the move, instead of all of these feedback topics ranting about how the editor sucks, we'd have ones asking why the editor was so dated compared to every other forum software, and why can't we just switch to using one of those fancy ones like CKE or Tiny.

I'm not sure if you've been around long enough to remember pre-CKE days, but it wasn't exactly pretty, and I don't think it was any easier on time.

[Marcher Technologies]

Marcher, making a good WYSIWYG is not a trivial thing. For as much trouble as they've had molding it to fix the exact needs of IP.Board and its rather picky userbase, CKEditor does what it was designed to do very well.

If they hadn't made the move, instead of all of these feedback topics ranting about how the editor sucks, we'd have ones asking why the editor was so dated compared to every other forum software, and why can't we just switch to using one of those fancy ones like CKE or Tiny.

I'm not sure if you've been around long enough to remember pre-CKE days, but it wasn't exactly pretty, and I don't think it was any easier on time.

>.> I do remember those days.

Those were the days where what you put into the editor was always the same when you went back to edit it.

A new line or two at the beginning/end of a post was preserved, not stripped.

Changes to the bbcodes could be retro-actively applied.

Sighs, I'll just go sit in my corner then.

I agree with the idea, not with the current limbo implementation where the admin ends up floating along on whatever wild changes were made for x user request, knowing a bug will actually be saved to database.

[grinler]

I'm not sure if you've been around long enough to remember pre-CKE days, but it wasn't exactly pretty, and I don't think it was any easier on time.

Just coming from IPB 3.1.4 I remember it well. Yes, it had its issues, but as Marcher said, for the most part when you input something into it, you were pretty sure to get what you expect back out. This is definitely not the case now.

IMHO IPB should stop trying to making something work (BBCODE) in something that was just not developed for it (CKE). I for one would be perfectly happy with a very basic standard editor that has nothing to do with CKE to handle bbcode and leave CKE purely for html and WYSIWYG.

Posts made in BBCode will from that point forward need to be edited in the BBCode editor. Those that were made in the WYSIWYG need to be edited in the CKE editor.

Keep everything separate and most of these issues will go away.

Will these create two different development lines? Yes, but once you create the basic standard BBCode editor, I can't see why it would need to be modified going forward.

[Marcher Technologies]

^Nail, Head, hence pluggable and chosen.

Also, on the subject of the CKE itself.

I know how to write a CKE plugin, I have written a couple just to know how properly. It would be very nice to not be forced into what you decide is acceptable plugins without source code changes.

It would also be very nice to be able to alter the filters you currently have strangling the input, which makes many plugins completely infeasible at this time.

You make us fill this gap in functionality with bbcode, when very often one would like to just turn on a plugin that exists.

[Luis Manson]

i what ipb has to say

[bfarber]

Which brings (again) my other question which I asked before and to which I never got any answer:

As has been explained, the bugs you see with our implementation are not related to CKEditor. Switching to another editor is not the solution. Using TinyMCE or any of the half-dozen other editor solutions does not change the fact that we are pushing bbcode support into a WYSIWYG rich text editor, which is where virtually all of the bugs end up stemming from. Coding an editor in-house (something that entire development teams dedicate their entire work experience to, in the case of CKEditor) would take much longer and almost certainly result in many more bugs than using an off-the-shelf package, so that is also not the solution.

Then why? Countless developer hours have gone into this editor. The argument for the change, was reducing development time on the editor. Instead time spent on it exploded.

I'm flat confused, you would have spent the same amount of time or less keeping the code first-party by now.

If there was no upfront, the only cost becomes developer customization. And it keeps getting sunk in, furthering your investment to levels one literally should not reach working with free third-party pre-made solutions.

If you think, even for a moment, that maintaining our OWN editor solves that problem, you are mistaken. :) Not only would we have to deal with the issues we have dealt with to date, but we would ALSO have to write and maintain the underlying rich text editor experience, and frankly, that's a challenge. Take a look at the size of the CKEditor package. Look at how much development goes into CKEditor alone (as an individual piece of software from its developers). To recreate just what we need entirely from scratch would take a very, very long time. By using a third party package such as CKEditor, we don't have to write the underlying rich text editing experience, which indeed does save us much time and bugs - this just isn't seen because of the separate issues that have surfaced while supporting bbcode within the framework.

^Nail, Head, hence pluggable and chosen.

Also, on the subject of the CKE itself.

I know how to write a CKE plugin, I have written a couple just to know how properly. It would be very nice to not be forced into what you decide is acceptable plugins without source code changes.

It would also be very nice to be able to alter the filters you currently have strangling the input, which makes many plugins completely infeasible at this time.

You make us fill this gap in functionality with bbcode, when very often one would like to just turn on a plugin that exists.

All of this will become much smoother with 4.0 (that is, adding your own plugins and managing the editor plugins that exist easier). We have several ideas on that front, and naturally the editor and posting experience will be a top priority.

[broni]

the bugs you see with our implementation are not related to CKEditor. Switching to another editor is not the solution. Using TinyMCE or any of the half-dozen other editor solutions does not change the fact that we are pushing bbcode support into a WYSIWYG rich text editor, which is where virtually all of the bugs end up stemming from.

I'm surely not an expert but why other boards are not having same issues?

For instance at TechSpot: http://www.techspot.com/community/ they use mceEditor, it has all functions I need including all kinds of BBCode and it works perfectly fine

[Planète Smartphones]

Hi,

Just a simple question. I bought a licence IP Board for its comfort to write posts (some years ago it was really comfortable), and from now on (3.4.3) I can't see the "quotes" tags when I'm writing. Is there a solution to see them ? I hate this WYSIWYG text-editor, which is everything except ergonomic. Can I replace it with a traditionnal BBCode text-editor ? Will this function be back soon ?

IMHO, the BBcode code is easy to understand, even for newbies. What we need in a forum is to quote and code. The aim is to communicate ideas and discuss, not to create a wiki page with all the layout constraints.

Regards.

[bfarber]

the bugs you see with our implementation are not related to CKEditor. Switching to another editor is not the solution. Using TinyMCE or any of the half-dozen other editor solutions does not change the fact that we are pushing bbcode support into a WYSIWYG rich text editor, which is where virtually all of the bugs end up stemming from.

I'm surely not an expert but why other boards are not having same issues?

For instance at TechSpot: http://www.techspot.com/community/ they use mceEditor, it has all functions I need including all kinds of BBCode and it works perfectly fine

There are a lot of ways to answer this, however I'll keep it simple. Are you still experiencing issues with our editor? If so, please report them to our bug tracker so that we can fix them. :) We have roughly 4 open bbcode-related bug reports, and some of them are pretty niche (i.e. related to editing complex broken legacy data, or performing specific actions with code boxes). If you are aware of bugs that are not resolved yet, I encourage you to report them so that they can be resolved.

Hi,

Just a simple question. I bought a licence IP Board for its comfort to write posts (some years ago it was really comfortable), and from now on (3.4.3) I can't see the "quotes" tags when I'm writing. Is there a solution to see them ? I hate this WYSIWYG text-editor, which is everything except ergonomic. Can I replace it with a traditionnal BBCode text-editor ? Will this function be back soon ?

IMHO, the BBcode code is easy to understand, even for newbies. What we need in a forum is to quote and code. The aim is to communicate ideas and discuss, not to create a wiki page with all the layout constraints.

Regards.

I am not sure what you mean by not being able to see the quote tags when you are writing. You should see them like so basically:

" alt="2013-04-10_1106.png">

If you do not, you should submit a ticket so that one of our support technicians can look into the issue for you.

[Mikey B]

I can't see the "quotes" tags when I'm writing. Is there a solution to see them ?

In addition to what Brandon said - could you try clearing your cache and cookies for this domain and see if this solves the problem? You should see the quote in the editor like so:

" alt="Screen%20Shot%202013-04-10%20at%2017.11.">

[GreenLinks]

I didn't use IPB on old days so i can't comment about the old editor. however when 3.4 was released i was upset because the released editor was buggy as hell. However in 3-4 different focused release the current editor works really good. We've been testing it for some time now on our development board and the editor on 3.4.3 is absolutely adored by our staff.

The only complain they have is regarding Auto Save feature , they made tons of different tests but still no one can easily explain how the auto save feature works :)

But i have one request from IPB for future.

Please don't make another release like original 3.4.0 . Make sure to test that updated/new implemented feature detailed so no board will face the chaotic period they had within 3.4.0 - 3.4.3

[Wolfie]

In addition to what Brandon said - could you try clearing your cache and cookies for this domain and see if this solves the problem? You should see the quote in the editor like so:

When clearing the cache.. Not only clear the cache, but also exit/restart the browser and even do a CTRL F5 to really make sure you're using the latest content. Wouldn't hurt to make sure you're using the latest browser as well.

Please don't make another release like original 3.4.0 . Make sure to test that updated/new implemented feature detailed so no board will face the chaotic period they had within 3.4.0 - 3.4.3

You are forgetting the first rule of programming (okay maybe not the first but certainly an important one).. There is ALWAYS another bug. In other words, no matter how much testing goes on, most of them will still end up being discovered after it's released as a final.

[GreenLinks]

You are forgetting the first rule of programming (okay maybe not the first but certainly an important one).. There is ALWAYS another bug. In other words, no matter how much testing goes on, most of them will still end up being discovered after it's released as a final.

I am not forgetting that one in fact i know that pretty well as i am also an ex developer. However thing is there are acceptable bugs and non acceptable bugs. There is a reason why vBulletin is being doomed at the moment. Releasing a bug free product is impossible but if your product has critical bugs that can effect boards activity , then you'll have a problem.

We had a small development team within vBSEO , we always tried to deliver quality products with no bugs but we knew that was not possible as there is no way to test all possible combinations customers face. But if i don't recall wrong , we never released a vBSEO version that had a bug on URL Rewrite system. Because that was a key functionality and key functionalities needs to be tested way way detailed.

A very active board can face major issues if the editor they have is not functioning correctly. Because users will not sit and wait long to see the implemented fixes. They will find a competitor board with no issues. That's why if key front end functionality receives an update , that needs to be tested way more.

[Wolfie]

I am not forgetting that one in fact i know that pretty well as i am also an ex developer. However thing is there are acceptable bugs and non acceptable bugs. There is a reason why vBulletin is being doomed at the moment. Releasing a bug free product is impossible but if your product has critical bugs that can effect boards activity , then you'll have a problem.

To a degree, I agree. But keep in mind, it's not like they went from Alpha to Final without any testing being done. It was installed here for a period of time and was even available for people to download to test out, all so that people could find and report issues before it went final. If people fail to report the issues or if people don't try to break it, then what more can IPS do to ensure that as many bugs have been found and fixed as possible? Let's say that in the editor, the one function that doesn't get tested is the button to break/remove a link from highlighted text. It's on here for a couple of months and people are able to download and test a pre-final release of their own for a couple of weeks, but yet no one tests it. It's released as final and some unsuspecting user tries to use it only to have it force a refresh of the page so they end up losing all of their work. That would seem like a rather drastic bug to have missed, but if no one tested it or if someone did but they didn't report it, then how does it get fixed?

Yeah I find it rather annoying that some seemingly obvious bugs make it into a final, but it's not like it's from being careless. It's simply the way it happens to work out.

[grinler]

I am sorry, but it's not our job to test their software. That is why software companies have quality control groups.

Some of the BBCode bugs that made it through simply should not have. These should have been tested and found internally before it even hit beta as far as I am concerned. Some of these bugs totally broke bbcode, especially ones with codeboxes.

I am glad IPS is starting to get committed to fixing these BBCode bugs, but to say "It's simply the way it happens to work out. " does not fly for me.

[Planète Smartphones]

I am not sure what you mean by not being able to see the quote tags when you are writing. You should see them like so basically:

Solved with the maj in 3.4.4 and a cookies cleanup. :) Thank you for this quick answer. :thumbsup:

It's more readable now, but I still have a suggestion, a good one : when we choose the BBCode mode, why can't we push the buttons like image or link, or code, or bold... and get the BBCode written ?