Add code formatting and upload options for topics

Hi Thor!

Re the formatting - I personally like it much, much better than the regular PhpBB style. But I guess that's a matter of personal taste.

Re source code formatting - wonderful. I'm eagerly waiting. :) I'll direct my client to this thread.

Any news on the formatting options?

It would be great to move our Knowledgebase-like articles to GS as well. Without formatting this is very hard to do.

I see you can use standard HTML, but textile would be better!

This means code could be included like this:

require 'ruby-god'

$filter = high


class NewAwesomeJob


  def find_ruby_gods

    reqs = {

  	  :quality => :high, 

  	  :humor => 'DRY'

    }


    seekers = Developer.find_by_non_gimpness(reqs)

    seekers.each |s| do

      unexpectedGimp = true unless s[:curious] == true

      unless unexpectedGimp 

        send_mail("jobs@soocial.com")

      else

        puts "/public/images/chunky_bacon.png"

      end

    end


  end

end

However as you would agree it's not ideal!

I second Textile or Markdown. Seems to be very much in the spirit of GetSatisfaction. Simple and effective.

Textile is awful compared to Markdown, by the way.

Thomas, I would beg to differ - my preference is to the simpler Textile.

GS if you're listening, is it possible to support HTML, Textile and Markdown?

I would definitely be down for implementing *both* markdown and textile as configurable input options. It wouldn't be to hard to do at all, we would simply need to add attributes to our user accounts to track a preference, and attach the content style to each topic/reply so that editing works correctly. After I get back from RailsConf I'll make sure to talk with the team and figure out where it fits into the schedule; I can't promise anything near term, I hope you understand.

I'm hesitant to make one our the other a default, since at one point we did use markdown and we decided to ditch it. Textile could be the same way. Let me explain.

Both markdown and textile have issues with whitespace. Markdown will convert a line that begins with 4 spaces to a pre block. 4 spaces, as in "I just started a paragraph and I'm indenting it like I'm writing a letter". We would see that quite a lot, as well as people mistakenly creating new h1 elements by starting a line with a #. Both of these issues cause readability problems, and the header issue has SEO implications (Google really like you to only have one definitive h1 on a page). Textile has the unfortunate behavior of not putting an indented line inside of a paragraph element. This, IIRC, was the cause of continual formatting issues when we used to use basecamp since the 37signals default style set paragraph text smaller than other text elements. This would cause indented lines to look like headers in your replies. That's an easy fix though; we make our text look good in our out of a p tag.

All of these issues are minor when it is an opt in situation, but they get more serious when the formatting mode is the default. These issues become even more minor when we have a passable posting preview (the PPP, as I like to call it) option.

P.S. Markdown FTW.

So basically:

1. Use HTML for now.
2. Get Satisfcation might or might not add Textile/Markdown in the future.
3. Limited HTML allows bold, italic, not lists, a href and images.

pre, code, blockquote also work. ul, ol, and li don't get stripped out, they just don't have good default styles applied. I'll forward this topic to Ted to see if he can fix that.

Good discussion here. I agree that default formatting using either Markdown or Textile (or even bbcode?) is a slippery slope. The opt-in approach may be the way to go for those power users who tend to format every post and reply. That approach seems like a good way to balance the needs of "friendliness for everyone" with "I post code samples all the time." I look forward to our discussions in the office, post-RailsConf.

Yeah indeed, good discussion however please keep in mind that one of the reasons to support more formatting is to allow GS to be used as a Knowledge Base too.

We'd love to have a single place where our support is, including how to's and FAQ's. Sometimes this means we need good formatting -- for example a list of steps in to do's (using ol's or ul's).

Well let's take a look at what we've got, and then decide what needs some lovin'

Bold (strong or b tag)
I am bold

Italics (em or i tag)
I am italicized

Underline
underlined text

Strike
Strike through

Paragraph
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi ligula magna, dignissim sit amet, posuere vitae, mattis venenatis, turpis. Suspendisse.

Link
Link to Cameron's reply

Img


Ordered List

1. ordered list item


2. ordered list item


3. ordered list item

Unordered List

• unordered list item


• unordered list item


• unordered list item

Code

<% @events.each do |event| %>
<%= event.name %>

<%= event.date %>
<% end %>


Pre

  Same as code

Blockquote

pre, code, blockquote also work. ul, ol, and li don't get stripped out, they just don't have good default styles applied. I'll forward this topic to Ted to see if he can fix that.

Embed, Object, Param


And the attributes we support

href src width height alt title name value type wmode target class flashvars rel

Formatting should be looking better now (though not 100% yet)