The Goblins Fan Forum

Problem: In a few of my forum games, I post in a colour that isn't a simple click. Eg grey (#727272) is my go-to colour. In another game I post in bold, with size set at 95, like this. Having to type in BBCode for every speaking sentence can be a bit time consuming, especially on a phone.

Suggestion: Is there any way to save a font colour, or have 5 presets of BBCode? If I could have 5 presets that I just click for each of my characters it would be awesome! I know some GMs who use special colours and glowing text for some of their NPCs could find this useful too.
I have absolutely no idea if this is even possible or not, so please disregard if its impossible Maybe its already doable and I'm just looking in the wrong place?

Not a bad idea, but I'm not sure how it'd be possible. You'd need to have separate presets attached to every user, and I don't know that's possible without a substantial amount of work, if at all. I'll take a look around though to see if there is anything like that out there already.

Hitting 'quote' my previous post, then preserving the formatting is how I get around it... Do that while on computer too.

Yeah thats how I do it too, but I think it could be pretty neat if you could have an extra column of five font colours that you could set, save and preserve, which could include not only colour but also font size or weight, or glow etc. For example you could have one colour square set for Mantagar, which has his colour and text size, and would save you quoting then copy-pasting.

Well, how are avatars and signatures saved for each user?

That is a very good question. I'll admit I don't fully understand how the databases are connected, but I have a better understanding of the BBCode system. The BBCodes are essentially placeholders for html code. However, it's a separate system from the user databases.

You could do a workaround by adding copy-and-paste text into the spoiler in your signature (just double the tags).
When you hit "preview" you'll get the signature shown too, and then you can open the spoiler in your signature and select the copy/paste text there...
becomes:
Dreamer and Comes-too-late speak in colour, Size 95 bold text

You can select the elements you need, and copy them, you have the correct tags immediately. Still annoying on phone and other mobile devices w/o keyboard is the need to position the cursor and delete the placeholder text....

I don't think the phpBBboard has entries in the user database to modify the general editor according to a users wish.
That might require a major rewrite of the editor system (which is the same for everyone, but does not interact with the user database until you try to post with a tag that you're not allowed to use).
edit: some tools allow an adaptation of the editor according to user-groups, but none seems to allow according to specific user. See below


BTW: which version of phpBB is running? They published in February a new, security updated version of 3.1.X

I did a quick scan of available (and validated) mods for 3.1.X, and found one add-on with "custom BBCodes" (link), but I think that installs a drop-down menu to select and show all available (installed) custom codes (like

Krulle wrote: That might require a major rewrite of the editor system

Generally this is not true, but knowing phpBB it might well be.

Well, apparently it is possible to add drop-down menus with installed tags (dependent on user groups), so it might be possible to install drop-down menus with user-defined pre-sets.
The editor itself seems to be unaffected. I wrote that part before I looked for mods ...
But I'm not into php, so I won't even start looking at how.
The phpBB forum might know more,...

Why don't you just have the codes and whatnot saved to a word document on your computer?

That's what I would do; also what I have done for things like inventory tabs that are long and fiddly and the same over and over again! Not the most intuitive but also probably the easiest in terms of work and time. I know its no good if you're not on your main computer though - like I'm on my phone right now, so that wouldn't work for me atm, but also I wouldn't be trying to do inventory tabs from my phone.

I save inventory tabs to a Google doc, so I can work on it from any computer. Of course, I have a laptop, desk top, and access to any number of lab and university computers.

Wolfie wrote:Why don't you just have the codes and whatnot saved to a word document on your computer?

That wouldn't help if they aren't using a computer. And then it would be easier to type it in manually than bother with copypaste.
Also why on earth would you use a word document? To wait 5 minutes for it to open? Or to keep it open all the time so it can get in your way? A simple text file is quite enough for the task.

A word document, to me, can be a Google doc, a MS Word doc, or any other text document. No need to get rude. It was simply a question.

Besides, spider caught the gist of what I meant.

The same flaw remains though.

Krulle wrote: I don't think the phpBBboard has entries in the user database to modify the general editor according to a users wish.
That might require a major rewrite of the editor system (which is the same for everyone, but does not interact with the user database until you try to post with a tag that you're not allowed to use).
edit: some tools allow an adaptation of the editor according to user-groups, but none seems to allow according to specific user. See below


BTW: which version of phpBB is running? They published in February a new, security updated version of 3.1.X

I did a quick scan of available (and validated) mods for 3.1.X, and found one add-on with "custom BBCodes" (link), but I think that installs a drop-down menu to select and show all available (installed) custom codes (like

and [glow]), but does still now allow custom codes per user.
The same for "Advanced BBCodes box", which seems to allow an editing of which BBCodes are available to which user group. But again, no reference that users may pre-set something for themselves.

Is an "about us" a possible thing for us? We could place a link to the comic page there, and add other legal things or links to the rules of the board there again).

For games, tooltips might be a playful thing... I do not really see further use in that, as it might not be so use-able for mobile gadget users... (I just ran across it)
For PM-heavy users, this tool might be useful, as it shows more visibly how full or empty their PM box is than just a line with some numbers.

We are running 3.0.11, we really do need to update it, but I need to have Duke put together a test forum for me so that I can make sure I can restore the forum if something goes wrong and make sure nothing breaks with the update. As for BBCodes, we do have Advanced BBCodes installed and I've even added a few custom BBCodes. Either way, what Synch is requesting goes far beyond what I am capable of. (although I do appreciate the overestimation of my skills )

No worries, I fully expected what I was asking to be a pipe dream

I use a Google doc for all my GM resources like tabs and stuff (thanks Spider) but it was more just quick replies to other games. Unfortunately I use a custom colour in all of my games bar one (grey in most games, an easy-to-read light blue in PTU, small bold font in Quarg's game) so a quick reply on the phone involves a bit more typing etc. I do big game updates and rolls from the computer, but quick text only responses from my phone or tablet. So copy+paste isn't ideal. Also, a click on a colour on the forum here adds the [/colour] as well, but you have to copy+paste both the opening and closing code for every sentence so its usually quicker just to type it out by hand.

Thanks all for your suggestions