[PlainText] Code in Forums

EIephant_Lover

STOP SAYING THERE ARE WORKAROUNDS. I'M WELL AWARE. BUT THEY'RE AMBIGUOUS BUG EXPLOITS, AND THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR. I'M LOOKING FOR A BUILT-IN CODE THAT CLEARLY SHOWS WHAT IT DOES. ̶W̶H̶Y̶ ̶H̶A̶V̶E̶ ̶S̶T̶R̶I̶K̶E̶T̶H̶R̶O̶U̶G̶H̶ ̶W̶H̶E̶N̶ ̶W̶E̶ ̶C̶A̶N̶ ̶D̶O̶ ̶T̶H̶I̶S̶? W͟H͟Y͟ ͟H͟A͟V͟E͟ ͟U͟N͟D͟E͟R͟L͟I͟N͟E͟ ͟W͟H͟E͟N͟ ͟W͟E͟ ͟C͟A͟N͟ ͟D͟O͟ ͟T͟H͟I͟S͟? WHY HAVE CHANGE X BY 10 WHEN WE CAN SET X TO X + 10?

I'm rewriting this because you guys don't seem to get it.

I want a code called “plaintext” in the forums. In the forums, when you are typing a post, do you see all those little buttons? When you click them, they add a code for some sort of markup. For example, clicking the “Bold” button will create this code: [b][/b] in your post, so that whatever is between them is bolded.

In the forums, if you type brackets plainly with text inside of them, the text inside and the brackets disappear. Look:

(Quote this post to see the text.)

I want a code that looks like this:

[plaintext][/plaintext]

This would make any and all text within the brackets plain. This means that square brackets don't show, emojis don't show (they show as plain text, like :P instead of

), Scratch Blocks code doesn't make blocks, links don't link, etc.

There should also be a button for it, like there are buttons for everything else.

And please, please don't say that there are workarounds and use that as a reason for not supporting. I would have used this countless times before I learned a few days ago after making this post about the workarounds. But what about all that wasted time? All the trouble I had? This would prevent that. I would use this code all the time. Also, the workarounds are weird and bug exploits.

This is the workaround so that brackets can show:

[[]Bracketed text here...]

This is the workaround so that the smiles don't make emojis:

:[b][/b]D

(or italics, strikethrough, etc.)

Here's how I managed to get a link that doesn't link (and doesn't turn :/ into

)

h[]ttps:[i][/i]//scratch.mit.edu/discuss/post/3731485/

And then scratchblocks:

[[]scratchblocks]
move () steps
[[]/scratchblocks]

Do you see how weird and impractical these things are? They're confusing, and difficult to figure out. Do you know why these work? Bugs. Exploiting bugs. The reason that putting the bold tags between the emojis is not because Scratch wanted it that way, it's because it treats it like a character between there, and of course a character in the middle of an emoji is not an emoji anymore.

So, would you rather have this built in to save time, and stop confusion for people who haven't heard of the so-called “workarounds”, and instead of exploiting a bug in Scratch (“workaround”), we have it built-in? I'd use this a lot. It's much more clear than trying to figure out whether or not putting some stray brackets in the middle of your BBCode will stop the code from working.

Also, please view this topic before posting.

P.S. - similar code exists in the Scratch Wiki, why not here?

Last edited by EIephant_Lover (Feb. 21, 2020 21:54:18)

LegoManiac04

There's and easy workaround:

[bold]

[[]bold]

EIephant_Lover

LegoManiac04 wrote:
There's and easy workaround:

[bold]
[[]bold]

A workaround is not the same thing. I'm looking for something where you don't exploit a glitch to do this. It should be built-in.

EIephant_Lover

Boimp

scratchinghead

LegoManiac04 wrote:
There's and easy workaround:

[bold]
[[]bold]

No support, As said above you can use

[code][/code]

.
Plus, this is not going to be used very much.

EIephant_Lover

scratchinghead wrote:
LegoManiac04 wrote:
There's and easy workaround:

[bold]
[[]bold]
No support, As said above you can use
[code][/code]
.
Plus, this is not going to be used very much.

It would be used, I would use it a lot. Also the code scripts are a completely different thing, I'm looking for the code to be plain text. This exists in the Wiki and is not very hard to implement.

WaterComesBack

EIephant_Lover wrote:
scratchinghead wrote:
-snip-
Plus, this is not going to be used very much.
It would be used, I would use it a lot. Also the code scripts are a completely different thing, I'm looking for the code to be plain text. This exists in the Wiki and is not very hard to implement.

So there IS two workarounds: either

[[]]<--- this

or

[i]this![/i]

I prefer the second one better.

Last edited by WaterComesBack (Oct. 20, 2019 16:15:15)

EIephant_Lover

WaterComesBack wrote:
EIephant_Lover wrote:
scratchinghead wrote:
-snip-
Plus, this is not going to be used very much.
It would be used, I would use it a lot. Also the code scripts are a completely different thing, I'm looking for the code to be plain text. This exists in the Wiki and is not very hard to implement.
So there IS two workarounds: either
[[]]<--- this
or
[i]this![/i]
I prefer the second one better.

What do you mean by that? Your first “workaround” is [], which will not show the text inside the brackets (or do you mean the code tags, which are also a different thing?). Your second one is literally italics. That just makes your text sideways, not plain. And besides, the brackets don't even show.

I'm not looking for a workaround. I'm looking for this to be added in, built-in, with a button like there is for bold, italics, strikethrough, underline, links, pictures, text size, bullets, numbering, and quotes. Understand what I mean?

WindOctahedron

EIephant_Lover wrote:
I'm not looking for a workaround. I'm looking for this to be added in, built-in, with a button like there is for bold, italics, strikethrough, underline, links, pictures, text size, bullets, numbering, and quotes. Understand what I mean?

No, I don't. What would the buttons do? Would they add "[i]…[/i]“ around the text, add ”[italics]…[/italics]" around the text, or just convert text into italic symbols (if you copy-paste the italic symbols and post them in a comment, they still show up as italics)?

Sheep_maker

WindOctahedron wrote:
EIephant_Lover wrote:
I'm not looking for a workaround. I'm looking for this to be added in, built-in, with a button like there is for bold, italics, strikethrough, underline, links, pictures, text size, bullets, numbering, and quotes. Understand what I mean?
No, I don't. What would the buttons do? Would they add "[i]…[/i]“ around the text, add ”[italics]…[/italics]" around the text, or just convert text into italic symbols (if you copy-paste the italic symbols and post them in a comment, they still show up as italics)?

OP wants a button in the toolbar that adds the [plaintext]…[/plaintext] tag to a forum post in which BBCode is not evaluated except for "[/plaintext]"

EIephant_Lover

Sheep_maker wrote:
WindOctahedron wrote:
EIephant_Lover wrote:
I'm not looking for a workaround. I'm looking for this to be added in, built-in, with a button like there is for bold, italics, strikethrough, underline, links, pictures, text size, bullets, numbering, and quotes. Understand what I mean?
No, I don't. What would the buttons do? Would they add "[i]…[/i]“ around the text, add ”[italics]…[/italics]" around the text, or just convert text into italic symbols (if you copy-paste the italic symbols and post them in a comment, they still show up as italics)?
OP wants a button in the toolbar that adds the [plaintext]…[/plaintext] tag to a forum post in which BBCode is not evaluated except for "[/plaintext]"

Yeah. Sheep is right.

Anyway, I didn't mean to confuse you. I don't want a button for italics. I don't mean that I want the items to show up as [italics] instead of [i], I want a code that literally says:

[plaintext]This text, including square brackets [like these], emojis :P :D :) etc. to not show up as anything but plain text.

I meant you know how there's a button to add the codes [i] [b] [list], etc.? There should be one and a code for "[plaintext]“. In the wiki it's called ”nowiki". It just means everything will show as regular text.

redgreenandblue

I support even though the workaround is literally easier to use.
I don't think it is necessary to add it to the toolbar though.

EIephant_Lover

redgreenandblue wrote:
I support even though the workaround is literally easier to use.
I don't think it is necessary to add it to the toolbar though.

Not for me, especially with the emojis and links. Also, why not add it to the toolbar? Do you like to type out the codes?

CatsUnited

EIephant_Lover wrote:
redgreenandblue wrote:
I support even though the workaround is literally easier to use.
I don't think it is necessary to add it to the toolbar though.
Not for me, especially with the emojis and links. Also, why not add it to the toolbar? Do you like to type out the codes?

I deal with text formatting and text-based programming quite often so I don't mind typing out codes. I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's not that hard to use the workaround.

EIephant_Lover

CatsUnited wrote:
EIephant_Lover wrote:
redgreenandblue wrote:
I support even though the workaround is literally easier to use.
I don't think it is necessary to add it to the toolbar though.
Not for me, especially with the emojis and links. Also, why not add it to the toolbar? Do you like to type out the codes?
I deal with text formatting and text-based programming quite often so I don't mind typing out codes. I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's not that hard to use the workaround.

It's not that I don't want to have to type it, anyway. It's that I just want it in the first place. If they don't add it to the toolbar, then so be it, as long as they add the code itself. It's not that hard to do the workaround, but it's really confusing and doesn't work for everything. This code would just make everything cleaner and it would keep you from exploiting glitches. Just because there's a workaround doesn't mean this shouldn't be added.

Last edited by EIephant_Lover (Oct. 21, 2019 10:42:53)

ThatOneWeirdDude

Well, the forum system scratch uses might not be able to change

EIephant_Lover

ThatOneWeirdDude wrote:
Well, the forum system scratch uses might not be able to change

What makes you think that? That doesn't really make sense. In that case they'd just tell us that they can't change the forums and not to suggest anything about the forums.

Sheep_maker

HTML has a <plaintext> element that renders the rest of the document in plain text; there's no way to close the tag since it strictly does not parse anything within. However, it's not used much nowadays and escaping the special characters (or using JavaScript to load and add the text) is preferred. Also, escaping characters appears in almost every language, so I think the [] way of escaping square brackets can be considered practice or preparation for those languages, in line with the rest of the website

EIephant_Lover wrote:
ThatOneWeirdDude wrote:
Well, the forum system scratch uses might not be able to change
What makes you think that? That doesn't really make sense. In that case they'd just tell us that they can't change the forums and not to suggest anything about the forums.

They can change some parts of the forums such as the CSS, but I'm not sure if they can configure the forums' BBCode for a [plaintext] tag

Starstriker3000

Semi-support.
The only use I can see for showing the code is to explain how to do something. (Colors, for example.)

Sheep_maker

Starstriker3000 wrote:
Semi-support.
The only use I can see for showing the code is to explain how to do something. (Colors, for example.)

I think [code] is a better use for that because BBCode:

[color=rebeccapurple]Purple text[/color]

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