I've completely rebuilt the 'New Reply' page and the 'Edit Post' page from the ground up. The old ones were faulty, ugly, exploitable and just an overall mess. The new one, in my opinion, is far cleaner, more reliable, and loaded with features. The 'New Thread' and 'Edit Thread' pages will get a similar treatment in the near future and will utilize the same format.
There's so much to talk about and I more than likely will forget to mention a lot of the things worth mentioning. It's also still not completely finished and I haven't had anyone help thoroughly test it out so if you notice any issues, report it ASAP. Below is a list of all the things worth mentioning.
Side by Side Split View
This new layout allows you to browse through the posts while typing up your reply to them. It helps keep your thoughts organized and offers many benefits which I'll list below. And if you don't like this format, simply change the posting layout from the 'Reply Layout' drop down in the 'Change Posting Settings' box at the top of the posting page.
The Thread Replies Box
Reply to Multiple Posts with Summons
As your reading the replies of the thread, you can simply click the 'Reply' link next to each post and a summon to that user will be filled out in your post, allowing you to more easily respond to each individual user.
Like Posts While Responding
You can Like (or Dislike) a post from the replies box by simply clicking the Heart for a Like and the Downward Arrow for a dislike. The changes are made instantly, allowing you to stay on the page (you might not see feedback for giving the Like or Dislike but it's happening).
See New Posts As They're Made
The replies box automatically
updates every 15 seconds. This means that if a new post is made to the thread that you're responding to, you'll see the new post pop up which allows you to read and respond to it before you submit your post. This ensures that you don't miss any posts and are seeing all of the most up to date content.
The New Post Editor
Colorized Tags and HTML
Any HTML that you type in gets colorized to help you differentiate your content from your HTML.
Tool Tips Help You Write HTML
As soon as you type in a <, the post editor will give recommendations of all the available HTML tags. Once you choose a tag, then it'll give you a list of all the available options.
Automatic Spell Checker
The post editor automatically spell checks your post and places a red line underneath words that are potentially spelt wrong. Right clicking the word will give you a list of possible options to choose from. Right clicking for a suggestion currently has issues in some browsers such as Firefox but should work fine in Google Chrome.
The Thread Reply Box
Post Autosaving
Your posts are automatically saved as a browser session so that you don't accidentally leave the page and lose your post. If this does happen, all you have to do is come back to the page and your post should still be there. This works on Thread Replying and Post Editing. The saved content is exclusive to the individual post that you're editing and the Thread you're replying to. The saved content gets saved every time you press enter or backspace. The saved posts are unique to each thread and that stored data gets cleared as soon as you view a thread. You can also manually clear the autosave data by clicking the 'Clear Post' or 'Revert Edit' links.
Post Previewing
You can click the 'Preview Post' link to see a preview of your post, without having to leave or reload the page. The post preview shows what your post will look like and will also render your post layout with it. When you preview a post editor, it'll do the same but it'll also render any changes you make to the layout of that post (the header and footer).
Post Buttons
I've added a bunch of buttons that add various tags to the post that you can embed into your post. This makes it quicker to utilize these tags and doesn't depend on your memory of how to use them. It's also a great way of exposing some of the available tags that you can use in your post. I plan to add more buttons to this in the future.
Change The Post Editor Theme
The
Theme Editor has some options that affect the look and feel of the post editor, specifically the options relating to anything involving the term 'input'. I plan to add some more options to the
Theme Editor in the future so that users can change the way the Posting page looks to fit their liking a little more.
I've got a few more features coming to this page and I still have a few things to fix. Some of the upcoming features include:
-New File Uploader
-Full Screen Mode for Posting
-Some more customization options
-A few other little but helpful features
This was a big project. This was one of the most outdated features of the site and it feels really good to get it rebuilt. So many users over the years had various issues with the old post editor and sometimes it just didn't work at all, resulting into some users not being able to post.