[Forum] Add BBCode support for [table][/table]

[ender516]

Concise description:

• The BBCode constructs of [table][[/table], [tr][/tr], and [td][/td] allow forum posters to construct tables of information without pasting in images or painful exercises in code boxes with monospaced text. However, the current CC forum does not support this feature.

Specifics/Details:

• Modify the phpBB code to support this feature. This may be something already available from phpBB, or we may need some development done. The phpBB website does seem to have an active community, but I am not familiar enough with it to say just what it would entail to implement my suggestion.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:

• In the Map Foundry in particular, tables of information can be very useful for discussion and development. Being able to avoid the intermediate steps of creating an image, posting it to a sharing site, and inserting an image link would be very welcome.

[iamkoolerthanu]

I might use this for tournaments, if it wasn't too complicated to use

[ender516]

You can see an example of this on the BBCode Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBCode

Basically, the [table][/table] construct surrounds [tr][/tr] (table row) which surrounds [td][/td] (table data). It might get a bit bulky, but should be straightforward to use.

[rdsrds2120]

I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

[greenoaks]

it would make my life easier as a TO. i have a lot of tournaments where i use the code tags to create a table showing win/lost for each player.

great idea

[natty dread]

I like this suggestion!

[AndyDufresne]

Blakebowling actually did some work on this, but his solution to getting such BBCode was something like 6 separate BBCodes that work together to make a table, which seemed very un-userfriendly. However, I think he was onto a much better solution with only 1 BBCode. Perhaps I'll see if I can jump start that again.


--Andy

[Metsfanmax]

I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

A latex style table input with "&" separating cells and "\\" ending rows would be a good idea, for example. But then I guess you'd need a way to escape an & symbol if you actually needed it in your table.

[ender516]

I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

A latex style table input with "&" separating cells and "\\" ending rows would be a good idea, for example. But then I guess you'd need a way to escape an & symbol if you actually needed it in your table.

The standard(?) method of [td][/td] around cells and [tr][/tr] around rows would not be much more to type, and the system already has to recognize [anything][/anything]. It's probably better not to throw different syntactical forms into the mix.

[greenoaks]

I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

A latex style table input with "&" separating cells and "\\" ending rows would be a good idea, for example. But then I guess you'd need a way to escape an & symbol if you actually needed it in your table.

The standard(?) method of [td][/td] around cells and [tr][/tr] around rows would not be much more to type, and the system already has to recognize [anything][/anything]. It's probably better not to throw different syntactical forms into the mix.

i'd be happy to use the 3 codes to bring a table together if they implement it as i can't imagine how 1 BBCode would know where my cells & rows end

[Metsfanmax]

I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

A latex style table input with "&" separating cells and "\\" ending rows would be a good idea, for example. But then I guess you'd need a way to escape an & symbol if you actually needed it in your table.

The standard(?) method of [td][/td] around cells and [tr][/tr] around rows would not be much more to type, and the system already has to recognize [anything][/anything]. It's probably better not to throw different syntactical forms into the mix.

You or I might think that, having worked with, say, HTML for many years. But I'm not convinced that the "average" forum-goer would find this mix of syntax confusing, since many don't have a reasonable expectation of what code should look like anyway.

[dowian2]

I'm in favor of this suggestion as well. Would be very useful for tournaments.

[ender516]

I had brought this up to Andy a while ago, and I think they put it down to be worked on so that it could be operable with less tags. Good suggestion nonetheless, however.

-rd

A latex style table input with "&" separating cells and "\\" ending rows would be a good idea, for example. But then I guess you'd need a way to escape an & symbol if you actually needed it in your table.

The standard(?) method of [td][/td] around cells and [tr][/tr] around rows would not be much more to type, and the system already has to recognize [anything][/anything]. It's probably better not to throw different syntactical forms into the mix.

You or I might think that, having worked with, say, HTML for many years. But I'm not convinced that the "average" forum-goer would find this mix of syntax confusing, since many don't have a reasonable expectation of what code should look like anyway.

Maybe so, but mixing syntax leads to weird stuff. As it is now, if your post has something in square brackets, it is special, otherwise it is plain text. I wouldn't want to have to watch for other special strings as well. But, in the end, what really matters is a feature that works. The rest is detail.

[Metsfanmax]

Maybe so, but mixing syntax leads to weird stuff. As it is now, if your post has something in square brackets, it is special, otherwise it is plain text. I wouldn't want to have to watch for other special strings as well. But, in the end, what really matters is a feature that works. The rest is detail.

Absolutely. I don't want to bog this thread down with syntax discussions anyway. Let it suffice to say that this would be a neat thing to implement, although perhaps with not too grand of a scope outside Tournaments.

[rdsrds2120]

The Academy might be able to find use for this. Keeping charts of progress for students, perhaps.

-rd

[greenoaks]

The Academy might be able to find use for this. Keeping charts of progress for students, perhaps.

-rd

Clans and Usergroups could use it much the same way to track & display their member's activities.

[rdsrds2120]

To expand on this, I think that having 2 tags would be sufficient. We already have the list function, which can use two (one for bullets, one for [list]), and this probably is one of those things that could be used similarly. Just a thought, as it would be incredibly useful!

-rd

[ender516]

I think you will need three tags. With the list, you have the tag around the whole list and the tags that mark the separations. In a sense, it marks positions in one dimension. WIth a table, you need to mark positions in two dimensions: row markers and column markers.

[jpcloet]

If you are going for a display all you really need is a single bbcode and a javascript to go with it. I'm not sure what you think people are going to do with the [th] anyways.

[ender516]

I think you have to have something to separate rows from one another and cells within a row, so if you use only one code, you need some special syntax inside the code. Why make it special? Just use the [].

I don't know what you mean by [th].

[blakebowling]

My original idea was to have BBCodes that went along with the HTML <table>, <tr>, <td>, and <th> tags. It was requested that I come up with a solution that uses only one BBCode. The only solution that fit this would be a CSV sort of system. So you would have a table tag [table], each set of cells would be Comma-Separated, and each set of rows would be semi-colon separated.

So input would look something like:
[table]1,2,3;A,B,C;[/table]
And output would look something like:
1 | 2 | 3
A | B | C

To summarize, my original solution would provide a wider array of options, and more customization, at the cost of ease-of-use. The second solution would provide an easier option to use, at the cost of options and customization.

I'm for the first solution, however I'm willing to pursue whatever the community is most supportive of.

If you want this done, please keep this suggestion afloat guys.

[ender516]

Using commas and semicolons to delimit the cells and rows would mean that those characters would need special treatment to appear in a cell. I would much prefer the first solution as well, as it seems to be the standard as described at BBCode.org. I didn't know about the [th] codes until just now, and they would be nice, but are hardly necessary, if, for example, the bold BBCode still works inside the [td] tag.

[greenoaks]

i am in favour of the 1st option. i can handle having to use 3 codes.

how difficult would it be to implement, with or without the buttons as i use strikethrough and color and there is no button for them

[iamkoolerthanu]

There are buttons for color

I really want this implemented lol

[blakebowling]

The first BBCode option would take literally a few minutes to implement (considering I've already written the codes, and all that needs to be done is Andy installing them on the website)

The second option would require a wholly new mod in phpBB (eg a bunch of code changes), so it would take much longer to implement.