IPS 4.0: The current state of BBCode and its future. Is BBCODE officially abandoned?

[grinler]

4 hours ago, Tracy Perry said:

I think one of his points is that the "authors" may compile the text offline in an editor, integrating the necessary BBcode into said text and then copy/pasting it into a post - instead of doing it all online.  I know that some of the guides I've done for some stuff was done exactly like that.  It was much easier editing it on my desktop and then cut/paste as plain text into the post.  Kind of hard to use that "list button in the editor" when you aren't using the editor.

That is the biggest issue here. BBCode is cross-platform, so someone could create a post using bbcode that would work across multiple different platforms.

This will no longer be possible.

There were ways around this, but its not something that IPS wished to pursue, which is of course their choice.

I and others will probably have to find a new solution for our forums unfortunately. Just wish people had been up front when I asked this last year.

[MADMAN32395]

1 minute ago, grinler said:

That is the biggest issue here. BBCode is cross-platform, so someone could create a post using bbcode that would work across multiple different platforms.

This will no longer be possible.

There were ways around this, but its not something that IPS wished to pursue, which is of course their choice.

I and others will probably have to find a new solution for our forums unfortunately. Just wish people had been up front when I asked this last year.

Uh okay. Must be scared of change or something.... Because everything bbcode did you can do now still if not more and easier with the WYSIWYG. Just let the dieing tech (bbcode) die. This isn't 1998 anymore.

[opentype]

6 minutes ago, grinler said:

BBCode is cross-platform, so someone could create a post using bbcode that would work across multiple different platforms.

But probably not for long. Rich text / HTML will replace that sooner or later and both are valid options to move forward with canned speeches. 

 

6 minutes ago, grinler said:

Just wish people had been up front when I asked this last year.

I have been following this discussion since 4.0 came out and don’t have the impression that there were promises made that weren’t kept. I always understood it just like Lindy explained here. There is some basic support as interims solution, but this just isn’t a system anymore that gets priority over the regular WYSIWYG editor use. 

[grinler]

People need to research the history of this topic before making comments.

For those who are defending IPS, you are missing the point. This is not an issue of a feature being deprecated, because that is company's right to do, but the fact that those who rely on BBCode were being told that it would continue to be fully supported in 4.0 and suddenly we are told that it is not.

Software vendors need to alert their customers when major changes are occurring so that those customers can determine how they are going to continue with the product in the future. Now that 3.4.x is almost at end of life, we are now suddenly being told that what we need from the software will no longer be supported? That is not right and just makes us have to scramble to find an alternative.

Furthermore, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about how important BBCode is or not. What requirements one site has for a forum software may not be the same as yours and you should respect that instead of blindly defending a product like a fanboy.

 

2 minutes ago, opentype said:

I have been following this discussion since 4.0 came out and don’t have the impression that there were promises made that weren’t kept. I always understood it just like Lindy explained here. There is some basic support as interims solution, but this just isn’t a system anymore that gets priority over the regular WYSIWYG editor use. 

This has been a discussion since 2013 and IPS staff have made very different comments then what Lindy had said. See here:

Quote

IPS4 supports BBCode and we have no intention to remove that in the foreseeable future. If you see any issues, please open a bug report or file a support request. It looks like that bug report was closed in error, and I've re-opened it - thanks for letting us know about that  

And here:

 

Quote

Thanks for taking the time to post that, it's definitely given me a lot to think about.

However, our plans are not to remove BBCode in 4, but merely shift all processing to one area.

We continue to fix the BBCode issues that are reported to us. Please take a moment to write up any bugs you come across and we'll make sure they're taken care of.

 

And here:

Quote

 

I apologize for your frustrations, and assure you we are working towards a more stable editor (and overall software lineup) with each release. The overall number of bug reports open is around 60, with editor bug reports comprising less than half of those. As you have indicated, each release resolves many bug reports (sometimes "hundreds" may in fact be true, although this number would include all bugs and not just editor-related bugs), and we certainly do not consider our job done yet.

Let me assure you that we do not deliberately break BBCode, and BBCode is still supported. Bugs that are reported which relate to the use of BBCode are still being investigated and resolved for upcoming maintenance releases. If you are aware of any that are not yet resolved, please do be sure to let us know.

 

[opentype]

4 hours ago, grinler said:

… and you should respect that instead of blindly defending a product like a fanboy.

*rolling eyes*

No one has “blindly defending a product like a fanboy”. No one has shown signs of disrespect. Well, apart from you who is not respectful at all, but who replies with such silly comments to anyone who just shares an opinion(!) which is not in line with yours. But okay. Have it your way. I have no horse in this race. I’m out. 

[Tracy Perry]

10 hours ago, MADMAN32395 said:

Uh okay. Must be scared of change or something.... Because everything bbcode did you can do now still if not more and easier with the WYSIWYG. Just let the dieing tech (bbcode) die. This isn't 1998 anymore.

So, I can use a simple ASCII text editor, and it will automagically do indentantation, bullets, spoiler, bold/italic/font size for me by osmosis?

There HAS to be some way to tell it to, and if one uses pure ASCII text - guess what - you can't.  I can see the point that is being made by him.

And if you paid even 1/2 way attention to my post, you would notice that the current implementation of the cut/paste out of word REALLY is not the cat's meow.  Then when you go in and edit it, it becomes even worse as it adds additional lines in that are not easily removed without being VERY careful of how many times you hit the delete key.  Luckily there are alternatives.

[Lindy]

Grinler - I'm sorry you feel misled and disappointed. I think we should have expanded beyond "we support BBCode" -- it was never our intention to claim we support every facet of BBCode as its existed since 1999 and I know we've indicated elsewhere here that our support would be basic and by that, I mean basic formatting, copying BBCode share URLs, etc. not necessarily advanced, nested, block level functionality. We've really done what we can to support and fix what we can as things have come in, but we're reaching a point where we're needing to get "hacky" with our parser routines to accommodate things like this that come in and I'm afraid we're painting ourselves in a corner. 

For those that remember the editor drama in earlier releases of IPB 3 - you'll recall constant issues because people wanted to be able to use BBCode, but also the RTE and toggle back and forth. We'd make a change to fix something with BBCode and it would break something in the RTE... it was a perpetual game of cat and mouse. Why? Because the two just do not belong together natively. 

So, where do we go? Well, you've sparked an internal, high-level discussion on BBCode as your bug report puts us at an impasse. Fixing your issue and other related nested block codes would require an overhaul, if not rewrite of our parser. This means, an enormous amount of development time would be expended and bugs are most certainly sure to be introduced given the scope of the changes required. Realistically, it's a relatively small demographic such as tech sites and old schooler communities that have a requirement for BBCode and I can understand and appreciate that. Virtually everyone else has made the WYSIWYG a part of their everyday life via mail clients, document processing, content management - even their mobile devices... and I would much rather focus on why you can't copy/paste from Word (I've never had this not work, for what it's worth) - vs dedicating resources to continue shoehorning dying technology into modern technology. 

I do realize others still provide BBCode support. I also know that's not going to be a forever thing and virtually everyone will eventually phase it out completely. 

We're working this out internally over the next week or so as it's an important decision and one not to be taken lightly. I will certainly keep you updated in terms of progress and the outcome. Again, I'm sorry for the mixed messages and confusion. 

[grinler]

4 hours ago, Lindy said:

Why? Because the two just do not belong together natively. 

 

I actually 100% agree with you. That is why I offered a suggestion in the first post of this topic about a possible solution. My thought was to get BBCode entirely out of the ckeditor implementation and instead create a generic BBCode editor that is 100% standalone.  A user when making a post can decide to post in BBCode or WYSIWYG. Once that choice is made and the content posted, they are forever locked into that mode for that particular post. Something like isBBCODE = 1 in the posts table could lock that editor choice in.

Will there be upfront development cost for this? Yes, but it would be a one time cost as whatever solution you make could easily be generated from previous versions before ckeditor that worked well. Furthermore, once this solution is created it never has to be touched again. I am sure there will be other issues that I am not seeing, but I still think once its resolved, its done. No more development cost needed.

I personally think this solution would work better than trying to squeeze bbcode into an implementation that just does not work.

Advantages:

1. You retain clients who require bbcode to work.
2. You potentially gain new clients from other platforms if BBCode is removed.
3. Visitors get to create content in the medium that works best for them.
4. One-time development cost. Once its done, you should not need to work on it again.
5. CKEditor can go back to what is designed for; wywiwyg editing.

Disadvantages:

1. Up front development cost
2. Slightly more code complexity

 

[Lindy]

As a follow-up, we need to rework this area to accommodate some filesystem changes, so we have decided to do what we can to fix current bbcode support -- including your particular issue with lists. 

With that said, I feel compelled to provide a disclaimer: you should not operate on the premise that BBCode within IPS4 will be a perfect science and you should really think about alternatives to BBCode as it may not be there (or anywhere) forever. 

I have no ETA at present, but it's expected within the next release or two. 

Hope that helps.