HTML Formatting Request

February 17, 2005 8:55 AM

My first pony request: in addition to the HTML shortcut buttons that currently exist below the preview field—bold, italic, href—it would also be useful to have buttons for 'blockquote' and 'small' since those tags often get used for quoting news sources. Failing that, what other buttons would be useful?
posted by dhoyt to Feature Requests at 8:55 AM (20 comments total)

I just don't see how those buttons are all that useful. Don't you have angle brackets on your keyboard?
posted by bshort at 9:05 AM on February 17, 2005

Don't you have angle brackets on your keyboard?

Well, that logic would apply to the italic and bold buttons, too. And disregards the ease of going back after the fact, selecting a big swath of text, and formatting it with one click, instead of eight keys.

I'm with dhoyt. In fact, I'd like to see a "quotation" button that would do a few things -- say blockquote and italicize -- that would have the advantage of imposing (or at least de facto leading to) a standard quotation format.
posted by pardonyou? at 9:13 AM on February 17, 2005

I just don't see how those buttons are all that useful. Don't you have angle brackets on your keyboard?

That's kind of like saying, "Why use CTRL+C or CTRL+V when you can just retype text verbatim?"

The point is that they're shortcuts. You can just grab a chunk of text, hit the button and voila. Otherwise, you have to find the beginning of the text, type the tag manually, scroll alllll the way down the end and type the closing tag manually. Plus, the buttons protect against malformed/misspelt HTML by typing it for you.

Not saying it's the greatest idea in the world or anything, but who doesn't find shortcuts 'useful'?
posted by dhoyt at 9:19 AM on February 17, 2005

Why not just type the tags as you type your text?

That's kind of like saying, "Why use CTRL+C or CTRL+V when you can just retype text verbatim?"

Actually, that's nothing like that at all.
posted by bshort at 9:26 AM on February 17, 2005

And not everyone knows html.
posted by raedyn at 9:26 AM on February 17, 2005

I'd love a little small button. I feel as if I'm one of the little people when I write like this.
posted by Shane at 9:33 AM on February 17, 2005

I agree with dhoyt, and I think <small> could be converted to <span class="small"> on the backend. Also, it'd be nice if <q> was set to be italic in the style sheet.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:51 AM on February 17, 2005

I've wondered about this. My conjecture-- which may be way off-- was that mathowie wanted to keep MeFi relatively uncluttered and readable. A host of options for customizing text tempts people to have flashing marquee links to all kinds of ridiculous things, which, while it's not a current problem, has been one in the past, if I recall correctly. If that's his reasoning, I think it's sound; those who want to use further customization can figure out how on there own. Focus should be on what you say, not how you say it.
posted by koeselitz at 10:31 AM on February 17, 2005

I'd like it if the existing buttons appeared in Safari.
posted by stonerose at 10:31 AM on February 17, 2005

case "small":
startTag = "<span class=\"small\">";
endTag = "<\/span >";
break;
case "blockquote":
startTag = "<blockquote>";
endTag = "<\/blockquote>";
break;
posted by yerfatma at 11:05 AM on February 17, 2005

I agree with dhoyt, and, for perhaps the first time ever on Mefi, I find myself not disagreeing, but being entirely incapable of understanding bshort's position. "Why not just type the tags as you type your text?" Uh, because that takes longer? And we're discussing shortcuts? And the point of shortcuts is that they're faster?

How does your argument differ from "Why use CTRL+C or CTRL+V when you can just retype text verbatim?"
posted by Bugbread at 11:14 AM on February 17, 2005

Can we get strike, too?
posted by scarabic at 11:23 AM on February 17, 2005

My conjecture-- which may be way off-- was that mathowie wanted to keep MeFi relatively uncluttered and readable. A host of options for customizing text tempts people to have flashing marquee links to all kinds of ridiculous things

But these buttons that dhoyt asked for would improve the readability of the site, by setting a standard for blockquotes and whatnot. I agree with the idea of buttons for these actions, and can't imagine they would be too hard to code.

on preview: also strike, like scarabic said.
posted by rooftop secrets at 11:27 AM on February 17, 2005

I'm a long time reader, new poster. Question, under the present system how does one make small font? I read the directions on the customize page and they were greek to me.
posted by berek at 12:53 PM on February 17, 2005

You type <small>small text here</small>
posted by Bugbread at 1:11 PM on February 17, 2005

We need one for this too.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:41 PM on February 17, 2005

And blink. Don't forget blink.
posted by graventy at 4:44 PM on February 17, 2005

I wish I had been the Mozilla programmer who implemented marquee.
posted by smackfu at 6:58 PM on February 17, 2005

Dammit bugbread and graventy, youse beat me to it. Now I'll have to hunt you down and kill you heartily applaud .
posted by davy at 8:37 AM on February 19, 2005

Formatting buttons are for people who don't want to bookmark an HTML tutorial , like Microsoft Word is for people who don't want to learn vi and TeX. Such a thing would make this internets bl0g less l33t. Keep that in mind.
posted by davy at 8:47 AM on February 19, 2005