Hey there Scratch Team and other Scratchers!
I came up with an idea…. I was thinking that maybe we could have bbCode in project comments!
Don't know what bbCode is? Well bbCode is what allows one to do cool things in forum posts like Bold or Italics!
I'm not sure if this has ever been suggested before or maybe even rejected before but I wanted to see if we could give it a shot!
The reason I am after bbCode in comments is so that we could maybe embed a link in a comment like Community Guidelines instead of http://scratch.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/community_guidelines/
Or we could put a smiley face in the comments like ‘That was a really cool idea! ’
We could also quote people in our comments!
For example:

From Unrealisation…
'It doesn't matter how ‘advanced’ your project is, as long as you've tried your best, it is the best'

Here's an example comment we could do with bbCode in Scratch comments!
Example:

Skizzors

Wow! That was a really cool project, tcodina!
I like how you used cloning and other effects that Scratch has available! It seems like you really know your Scratching!
It reminds me of this quote…

From Unrealisation…
'It doesn't matter how ‘advanced’ your project is, as long as you've tried your best, it is the best'

I hope you keep getting better and better at Scratch programming!

Sincerely,
Skizzors

Wouldn't that be a really cool comment to see on one of your projects?
bbCode would really liven up comments!

I hope you deeply consider putting bbCode in Scratch comments!

Thanks,
Skizzors

(long unnecessary quote removed by moderator - please don't spam)

I really like the quoting in the comments idea! However, I can see it getting it quite annoying if there's a long chain of quotes - it would take a long time to scroll down to see other comments. As for the smiley face idea, I personally really don't like having those in the comments. I think it's the fact that it's a different color that annoys me, I'm not sure. I don't mind them in forum posts though

I like the idea of being able to format your comments some and being able to build prettier links and such! But it would create some difficulties for our censoring software that looks for inappropriate words. Also, I think it might add some complexity to an area where we really want to keep it as simple as possible (so that even the most inexperienced Scratchers can use them).

But I do think it would be cool if people could at least change font color and font size, maybe with some formatting tools instead of BB code. I think it would be very helpful for role-playing as you could use colors and fonts to differentiate between character dialog and “asides”, etc.

Paddle2See wrote:

I like the idea of being able to format your comments some and being able to build prettier links and such! But it would create some difficulties for our censoring software that looks for inappropriate words. Also, I think it might add some complexity to an area where we really want to keep it as simple as possible (so that even the most inexperienced Scratchers can use them).

But I do think it would be cool if people could at least change font color and font size, maybe with some formatting tools instead of BB code. I think it would be very helpful for role-playing as you could use colors and fonts to differentiate between character dialog and “asides”, etc.

Hmmm… I understand why it would be bad with the censoring software… I had a Minecraft server once and I had a censoring ‘plugin’ on it and I installed another ‘plugin’ which allowed one to change the colour of the chat text and it allowed it because it would let you do &e but not just because it thought the &e was part of the word. Just wondering… What programming language is your censoring software written in? JavaScript?

I support the general idea of changing the format of comments. But as Paddle put it, sometimes BBCode makes it easier to type bad words because you can put the code in the middle of a word which causes the parser to forget it was reading a bad word.

ProdigyZeta7 wrote:

I support the general idea of changing the format of comments. But as Paddle put it, sometimes BBCode makes it easier to type bad words because you can put the code in the middle of a word which causes the parser to forget it was reading a bad word.

I agree with Paddle2See also about the censoring software, but if someone was willing to check out all the codes for BBCode and put in every possible bad word using BBCode into the software, that would fix it. I might be able to do this if I had the code for the parsers.

Skizzors wrote:

ProdigyZeta7 wrote:

I support the general idea of changing the format of comments. But as Paddle put it, sometimes BBCode makes it easier to type bad words because you can put the code in the middle of a word which causes the parser to forget it was reading a bad word.

I agree with Paddle2See also about the censoring software, but if someone was willing to check out all the codes for BBCode and put in every possible bad word using BBCode into the software, that would fix it. I might be able to do this if I had the code for the parsers.

Well, the censoring software is a third-party package (not created in-house at the MIT Media lab) so I don't know what language it is in - nor can we make changes to it easily (other than to make suggestions to the company supplying it). But thanks for the offer!

Paddle2See wrote:

Skizzors wrote:

ProdigyZeta7 wrote:

I support the general idea of changing the format of comments. But as Paddle put it, sometimes BBCode makes it easier to type bad words because you can put the code in the middle of a word which causes the parser to forget it was reading a bad word.

I agree with Paddle2See also about the censoring software, but if someone was willing to check out all the codes for BBCode and put in every possible bad word using BBCode into the software, that would fix it. I might be able to do this if I had the code for the parsers.

Well, the censoring software is a third-party package (not created in-house at the MIT Media lab) so I don't know what language it is in - nor can we make changes to it easily (other than to make suggestions to the company supplying it). But thanks for the offer!

Well do you have a censoring software for the forums?

I think that mainly it would be a good idea to have emoticons and links.

AonymousGuy wrote:

I think that mainly it would be a good idea to have emoticons and links.

But also quotes…

Skizzors wrote:

AonymousGuy wrote:

I think that mainly it would be a good idea to have emoticons and links.

But also quotes…

Well, quote chains lag a lot. And, it would make it really easy for spam:

Spambot wrote:

*Really long quote chain*

AonymousGuy wrote:

Skizzors wrote:

AonymousGuy wrote:

I think that mainly it would be a good idea to have emoticons and links.

But also quotes…

Well, quote chains lag a lot. And, it would make it really easy for spam:

Spambot wrote:

*Really long quote chain*

But what if you can only do 1 quote?

I like the idea of added customizability to comments; it would definitely make them livelier! Plus, there are a few things that would benefit from them, like text-based RPG's and giving constructive criticism.

I don't like the idea of quotes, though. I'd feel like the comments are getting cluttered, and for anything long, there are the forums.

I'm also not sure about the colored text and the such. Comments are supposed to be easy and simple to use, but how would you implement colored text while keeping that simplicity?

Either way, nice ideas!

My thoughts,

ErnieParke

ErnieParke wrote:

I like the idea of added customizability to comments; it would definitely make them livelier! Plus, there are a few things that would benefit from them, like text-based RPG's and giving constructive criticism.

I don't like the idea of quotes, though. I'd feel like the comments are getting cluttered, and for anything long, there are the forums.

I'm also not sure about the colored text and the such. Comments are supposed to be easy and simple to use, but how would you implement colored text while keeping that simplicity?

Either way, nice ideas!

My thoughts,

ErnieParke

About the quotes… I was thinking maybe you were restricted only to do one quote in a comment and you can't quote quotes.

Skizzors wrote:

But what if you can only do 1 quote?

Well then what is the point of having quotes?

AonymousGuy wrote:

Skizzors wrote:

But what if you can only do 1 quote?

Well then what is the point of having quotes?

For actual quotes like the one by Unrealisation I mentioned in the original post.

Skizzors wrote:

AonymousGuy wrote:

Skizzors wrote:

But what if you can only do 1 quote?

Well then what is the point of having quotes?

For actual quotes like the one by Unrealisation I mentioned in the original post.

Well but what if you want to have 2 like that?

AonymousGuy wrote:

Skizzors wrote:

AonymousGuy wrote:

Skizzors wrote:

But what if you can only do 1 quote?

Well then what is the point of having quotes?

For actual quotes like the one by Unrealisation I mentioned in the original post.

Well but what if you want to have 2 like that?

So like

Blah blah blah

hadsdasjkdhkajd

The best quote ever

I only support bold, strikethrough, italics, and underline. Everything else will make it to spammy.

I believe that you are not able to do much in the way of formatting when it comes to project comments, other than _meow_, etc.

This could allow you to emphasize things in your comments WITHOUT RESORTING TO THE USE OF ALL CAPS.

Also, the forums use it, so why can't the projects?