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UPDATE Quoting System Improvements

TCC

Tokyo Cycling Club
Jun 30, 2013
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Following a few comments recently about the limitations of the quoting system on the forum, we have decided to roll out the updates we have made so far.

The aim eventually, is to have the ability to quote from posts over multiple pages. While we haven't got to that stage yet, we have managed make a step in the right direction with a new highlight and quote fucntionality, which will be part of the cross-page quoting system when finished.

So, currently, here is how it works;

Single Quote

Highlight some text in a quote, and you will see a small 'Quote ME!' button pop up. Click this, and the highlighted text, complete with user attribution will be put in the comment box.

This is not the full solution to the current problem, but it is part of the fix, so we thought it would be good to go live with it how it is at the moment.

Cross-Page Multi-Quoting

This function is in its' infancy, but works to an extent now, so we thought it OK to go live. It is a little complex, but we will simplify it in time. For now, here is what you do;

1. Highlight the text you want, then click the 'Quote ME!' pop-up.
2. Find any other text you want to quote, highlight it and click the 'Quote ME!' pop-up.
3. Do this as many times are you require.

Go to the comment box, and at the bottom left should now be a small line of text saying, 'get quotes' with a number next to it. The number will match the number of quotes you have in memory. Clicking this will paste everything you have into the comment box.

This is rather 'hacky' at the moment, but will become more refined with time. If you find any bugs, etc. please post them in this thread. As with any feature, it takes time to develop, so your patience is valued as ever.

Thanks.
 
Thanks for testing so quickly.

Now, I have managed to get cross-page quoting working, but only on the browsers I have access to. Without wanting to get too technical, quoting from multiple pages involves storing the quoted text in memory, and as any programmer knows, when you start messing with memory allocation, things can get messy. I will activate what I have made now, so if any of you can test it, and post back your result with a mention to which browser - OS combination you are using, that would be extremely helpful.

It goes without saying that I have not even started considering mobile devices yet, other than a very quick fix, but if anybody would like to try it out on their Android / iOS / Whatever, that too would be great.

Thanks.
 
Current Functionality; please read the first post in the thread for an update on how multiple, cross-page quoting currently works
 
Now, I have managed to get cross-page quoting working, but only on the browsers I have access to.
Very cool, thanks!

I will activate what I have made now, so if any of you can test it, and post back your result with a mention to which browser - OS combination you are using, that would be extremely helpful.
Safari 6.0.5 (on Mac OS X)
 
I can confirm it doesn't work on the iPad version of Safari. The QUOTE ME popup... doesn't; perhaps because iOS's contextual menu takes precedence.

But it's a great step forward. Thank you. Possible bug: my post above had three quotes 'saved', but the Get Quotes counter said there were four. (I don't care, but thought you should know.)
 
Highlight some text in a quote, and you will see a small 'Quote ME!' button pop up.

That worked, and then I hit "get quotes" (or similar) in this box, and got the quote. Then in a different tab I thought I'd grab the immortal quote

I can clear that up. Franz is the King, everyone else the cycling serfs.

but it didn't work. (I got it in the regular way.) Well, the new system isn't claimed to grab stuff from other pages, so what was I expecting?

Anyway, it looks pretty good, and this "TCC" bloke surely merits more than a measly one (1) trophy point.

Iceweasel (i.e. Firefox) 20.0, with Adblock Plus, Ghostery, and perhaps one or two other plug-ins.
 
Thank you all for the feedback so far.

Some further information.

-This is currently untested and undeveloped/migrated to any mobile device, so expect it not to work on your iPad/iPod/Android tablet, phone, etc. Once we have the functionality working on standard computer browsers, and everything works smoothly, then will be the time to get it working on mobile devices. We appreciate your understanding on this point.

-Multi-page quoting; we do claim to be able to grab things from other pages. There are currently some limitations to this functionality, however. Multi-page quoting only works if you collect all of the quotes you require, before you hit the 'Get Quotes' feature at the comment box. Currently there is no way to add extra quotes to the collection you have already, once you commit the initial 'batch' to the comment box.

We are working on the ability to add quotes after the main batch have been committed, and will roll this extra functionality out as soon as it is stable.

Thanks again.
 
We are working on the ability to add quotes after the main batch have been committed, and will roll this extra functionality out as soon as it is stable.
Very impressive. Is the backend of this forum open source? Would be great if you can offer your code back to the community.

If not, make some money from it! :D
 
The software which the forum runs on is a commercial product which we license. It is not open source.
 
Yes, the old standard quoting system still remains, which is what Tapatalk will be utilising. The new additional quoting functionality is a separate system to the old standard quotation engine at the moment. Once the functionality is complete, I will integrate it into the standard quotation system.

Thanks.
 
The software which the forum runs on is a commercial product which we license. It is not open source.

Bugger.

Very impressive.

indeed.

Chrome on OS X 10.6.8

same.

Yes, the old standard quoting system still remains, which is what Tapatalk will be utilising. The new additional quoting functionality is a separate system to the old standard quotation engine at the moment. Once the functionality is complete, I will integrate it into the standard quotation system.

Nice stuff :) I like it!
 
Sorry for my late comment on this, but back in heady MA days I often used browser emulators. If site admin still need to do cross-browser testing, drop me a line and I'll find some good testing platforms for you.

Thanks for testing so quickly.

Now, I have managed to get cross-page quoting working, but only on the browsers I have access to. Without wanting to get too technical, quoting from multiple pages involves storing the quoted text in memory, and as any programmer knows, when you start messing with memory allocation, things can get messy. I will activate what I have made now, so if any of you can test it, and post back your result with a mention to which browser - OS combination you are using, that would be extremely helpful.

It goes without saying that I have not even started considering mobile devices yet, other than a very quick fix, but if anybody would like to try it out on their Android / iOS / Whatever, that too would be great.

Thanks.
 
Thanks for the offer, but we have access to everything we need now.

Update.

A few graphical changes to the new quoting system;

-The 'Get Quotes' text under the comment box is now larger, for ease of use.
-The green pop-up button now has white text and a shadow, matching it to the rest of the site and making it easier to read / locate. Also, it now appears immediately next to your mouse pointer when you release the left mouse button after dragging a quote, so you never need to search the screen for it. Please feel free to give feedback on this last feature; the distance and position from the mouse was merely a 'default' we quickly went with, so your preferences / opinions on where it should be would be useful.

Looking over the site, it seems this new addition is used by a lot of people already, so it will remain. As mentioned before, this is only the beginning of a complete upgrade to the quoting system, so expect improvements in the near future.
 
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