Lament 3: Cry Hard With A Vengeance

[Zod]

Weird, just seems like you've been moving around a whole bunch.

Nah, that was just testing the waters since I didn't know what I wanted to do. I've got a better idea of that now though.

[Questor]

Here you go: http://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/sche ... cchus.html

Couldn't remember the right name.

[Zod]

Here you go: http://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/sche ... cchus.html

Couldn't remember the right name.

I'll keep it in mind. Whether or not I join is going to depend on the kind of job I can get while I'm there.

[evilsoup]

haha
fucking hell

OK guys I'm looking to set up a site for my writing group. The main point would be an archive for ongoing works - not everyone can turn up every week, so some people miss out large parts of others' plots; and this would also allow more considered criticism.

I was considering a webforum, but phpBB doesn't seem to have a WYSIWYG editor, and according to that they aren't interested in adding one (fucking shitty BBCode jesus fuck), which seems to rule that out (since I'm the only technically-inclined person in the group); and other forum software seem to cost money.

Ideal solution would have:
- WYSIWYG editor [absolutely vital]
- a simple plaintext mode for me, using markdown (BBCode would be acceptable) [only I'd use it, so not really important]
- ability to copy/paste straight from a Word document into the WYSIWYG editor, conserving the formatting (unlikely to be anything complicated, since this is fiction; probably mostly just italics) [very important]
- Have the stuff password-protected [absolutely vital, since many of us are looking to publish this stuff]
- free or cheap, though you can consider my time worthless for the sake of the exercise (and I am resigned to paying hosting costs, but they shouldn't be too onerous)

So do any of you proper nerds know of anything that could do this stuff? Maybe a third-party add-on for phpBB to add some rich-text goodness. I know that vBulletin can do at least some of this stuff, but I'm not willing to pay $250.

Hopefully I'm missing out some obvious solution.

[adr]

one possibility that might not be too hard to code is to hack up phpbb with a html editor that translates the html back to bbcode before submitting

so it'd be done all outside the phpbb core for minimal hassle, except for somehow hacking it into the theme

[Zod]

Have you considered a wiki?

[evilsoup]

Zod, no, I haven't
I'll have to look into that
my instinct is that I'll run into a similar problem, just switching bbcode for mediawiki or whatever... but maybe someone has written a wiki with WYSIWYG capabilities

adr I'm not entirely sure what you mean
do you mean: get some html-based rich text editor and hack it into phpbb? I know i said that my time can be considdered worthless for this, but I'm not sure if I have the skills for something like that. I know html and a small amount of javascript, but no server-side stuff (unless you count bash); so when you say 'might not be too hard' do you mean 'to a web designer'?

[evilsoup]

hmm, a bit of further googling reveals SMF a BSD-licensed free forum software with WYSIWYG editor. If it can support copy+paste from a word document, it'll be perfect.

[adr]

i just slapped together this quick test so you can see what i had in mind:

http://arsdnet.net/bbcode.php

the translator isn't done but it is pretty straightforward to finish at this point. you should be able to paste some stuff in, hit submit and see the translated bbcode above

so what you'd do is copy/paste the javascript from the header on this into a phpbb and hope it magically works.... which i *think* it would...

then the server side part of phpbb doesn't need modification at all cuz the javascript here translates it back into bbcode before submitting



but if SMF supports your requirements out of the box that'd be better anyway since javascript like this has a habit of breaking

[evilsoup]

dude, that's pretty cool, thanks
I may not be needing it now, but seriously thanks

[evilsoup]

another thing: are there any hosting services you'd recommend?

[adr]

some more difficulty with my hack would be getting quotes and smilies to work. prolly a couple hours of work left to get it good enough to actually use but doable.

anyway tho if your other options don't work out let me know and i'll take some time off sailor moon to finish this thingy.


re hosting, i can't help there since i diy

[evilsoup]

lol I kind of wish diy was an option for me (since then I'd have total control, no potential trust issues)
blargh I'm going to have to look more into this SMF thing (tomorrow, when I'm fully awake), but it looks hopeful
thanks for the offer though, seriously (and smilies aren't really important for this case, thouhg quotes kind of are)

[RogueIce]

Pretty sure Wikia has a WYSIWYG editor, but I've never liked those things so I haven't looked since...forever. And you don't have to worry about hosting it.

And I did just look and it still has that Rich Text stuff. Don't know how it'd handle c+ping from a Word Document, but I suppose you could always go to one and try it out.

Just don't click 'Save' or you'll piss people off.

[RyanThunder]

Copy-paste from Word is pretty nightmarish tbh

[Oxymoron]

From the developer's point of view.

For a user it's the kind of things that -should- be trivial.

[RyanThunder]

Undoubtedly, and I've built solutions that work like that. Just sayin as a word of warning for evilsoup.

EDIT: Yay people are already suggesting the bombings in Boston were orchestrated by the government to divert attention from the passing of CISPA.

[Oxymoron]

Already ?

I know people were already thinking people were going to think that in the hours following the explosions. /hipster conspiracy theorist

[evilsoup]

yeah I know, 'smart quotes' and all that

anyway, hosting costs will come to about £15-20 for the year, so that's pretty much a non-issue... though I will look into wikia (if it supports members-only-viewing wikis it could be viable).

[Losonti Tokash]

Already ?

I know people were already thinking people were going to think that in the hours following the explosions. /hipster conspiracy theorist

That's cause they were, dude. One of the first press conferences had some infowars shithead yelling about false flag attacks.

[Oxymoron]

How can you yell about "false flag" attacks

when there isn't any identified flag yet

[Losonti Tokash]

It just means they think the government did it. Like 9/11 or Aurora or Sandy Hook or whatever they're on about at the time.

[Oxymoron]

I guessed it, I'm just poking fun at yet another expression that has lost all meaning through being over-used.

[magic princess]

I love how it's easier to have a reasoned discussion about things like Foucault and philosophy and the differences in modalities of social organisation here than on TEO.

[Oxymoron]

In my opinion, it's because here there's no tension of trying to convert each other to our respective "ideals". I mean, Chocs and me have radically different political views and we're still able to discuss things together without having it turn into a turd-fight, because we don't try to shove our beliefs down each others throat.

That kind of help the general atmosphere of open dialog I'd say.


I mean, hell, Starglider came and registered the other day, and even with all the shit we said about him we were still able to discuss and have an enjoyable exchange with him.