Nested Quotes

[Ⓐaron]

They aren’t a feature of vBulletin by default when quoting replies, but there are hacks that can enable them. Would people like them added? The primary advantage is that having multiple layers of replies makes discussions easier to follow; the primary disadvantage is that they look weird. If enough people want them I’ll add a hack for them tomorrow or something.

For those who don't know what I’m talking about, this is what they do:

This is a nested quote

Inside a nested quote

Inside another quote

They can be limited to a certain number of layers so they don’t get to ridiculous table-stretching extremes. I’d probably limit them at three layers unless people wanted me to use some other number.

 

[Cthulhu]

Yeah looks good to me, and 3 - 5 sounds like a good enough number.

 

[Jason Tandro]

Quote-ception. I can see that being handy.

 

[Starling]

Sure. It's be nice not to have to go fetch what was quoted in the post you're quoting, especially if they come from several different posts.

 

[Lex]

I always found it weird that TLS doesn't have them. I'm also terrified of what discussions with people like you or Tres are going to look like if we enable them (not being snarky, think about the way you two and some others quote mammoth posts in ongoing discussions). Think LTD. Think post size over 9000.

 

[Ⓐaron]

They certainly will get longer

(that’s what she said)

 

[Starling]

Well, most would likely prefer de-nesting them in order to have quotes that follow each-other in a discussion going back to back instead. The nesting option would sure make it easier to do that too, as it would already be in your reply.

 

[Ⓐaron]

I think having them de-nested would require substantially recording the hack, and I’m pretty sure my php skills aren’t sufficient to do that anymore (currently all the hack has to do is have to do is avoid deleting text within x number of quote tags, while de-nesting them would require re-ordering text; I haven’t written a line of php code in at least a decade). I’m sure Yop or Fangu have the skills to do it, but it remains to be seen whether they’d be willing to, or indeed whether enough people care enough for it to be worthwhile.

 

[Channy]

I think they'd be a valid addition with limit to 3 quotes or something. Old boards used to get so bogged down with constant nesting

 

[Starling]

If it's going to be set up to go:

Post 1

Post 2

Post 3

From there you'd just have to cut and paste to have them go:

Post 1

Post 2

Post 3

Instead, which would save you the effort of having to scroll through pages and pages of posts to quote everything properly.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Yeah, it’d be pretty easy to do that manually. I don’t think I have the skill to make the hack do it automatically is all I’m saying. Maybe if I relearn php (I am a programming student; it’s bound to come up sometime).

 

[Channy]

I disagree, I would go newer on the bottom, since you read (on a forum) from up to down and would need to see what the newest quote is referencing by it being below

 

[Ⓐaron]

Oh, yeah, I didn’t even notice that

 

[Fangu]

Yeah, it’d be pretty easy to do that manually. I don’t think I have the skill to make the hack do it automatically is all I’m saying. Maybe if I relearn php (I am a programming student; it’s bound to come up sometime).

It's not even programming I'd say, it's just rules upon rules of string splitting - tedious, dull stuff with a million test cases. If vB doesn't already have that kind of function, I'd never bother making one.

Also like Lex I never understood why we only had one level. I'd say 3 is maximum.

 

[Cthulhu]

It would be nicer if it was a more structured thing though; right now it's basically copy / pasting the contents of one post, putting some bbcode around it, etc. While it would be neater if it said '

' and nothing else. Off course, it'd get trickier if you'd like to not quote the whole post.

Actually that exists - it's called erm, threaded mode? idk, but right now every forum is in 'flat' mode. vB also supports a parent/child post mode, where posts in response to one post appear underneath that post as responses to that post. I doubt our style can handle that though. this kinda stuff.

 

[Ⓐaron]

It would be nicer if it was a more structured thing though; right now it's basically copy / pasting the contents of one post, putting some bbcode around it, etc. While it would be neater if it said '[quote=postid]' and nothing else. Off course, it'd get trickier if you'd like to not quote the whole post.

Actually that exists - it's called erm, threaded mode? idk, but right now every forum is in 'flat' mode. vB also supports a parent/child post mode, where posts in response to one post appear underneath that post as responses to that post. I doubt our style can handle that though. this kinda stuff.

The problem with threaded mode is that unless it's been fixed since the last time I used it, it's terrible with large threads. We have a ton of those. Also, if it quoted the whole post when you did [quote=postid], it'd make it impossible to do bit-by-bit replies, which seem to be popular on this forum

Anyway, since everyone seems to support the idea of this hack, I've installed it. Quotes will be nested up to three layers deep in replies. Let me know if there are any problems.

 

[Cthulhu]

Anyway, since everyone seems to support the idea of this hack, I've installed it. Quotes will be nested up to three layers deep in replies.

lier!

 

[Cthulhu]

Anyway, since everyone seems to support the idea of this hack, I've installed it. Quotes will be nested up to three layers deep in replies.

lier!

or are you?

 

[Cthulhu]

Anyway, since everyone seems to support the idea of this hack, I've installed it. Quotes will be nested up to three layers deep in replies.

lier!

or are you?

zomg it works

 

[Fangu]

lier!

or are you?

zomg it works

awesoem

 

[Starling]

I didn't notice I structured the quotes in reverse order when I made my previous example. I'd just clicked the wrap quote button and added text after each [ QUOTE ] instead of typing up the example and then wrapping quotes.

So say you got into a discussion where someone started either addressing multiple posts in one or addressing the same one in separate segments. When you quote that, you might lose some important context on the different parts. With nested quotes, you'd be able to have that context right there to keep or remove if you want.

Spoiler: For example:

I like cats and dogs. Cats are quiet and fit on your lap nicely.

I had a cat that just wouldn't shut up. He'd wake me up at 4 in the morning every day to go outside. He liked sleeping on my lap though.

I like dogs because they're easier to teach tricks. You can also walk them in the park.

Technically you can walk cats too but I wouldn't recommend it. You can clicker train just about anything if you know how to go about it.

If Carol were to quote Dave to reply, quoting her post would look like this:

I like cats and dogs. Cats are quiet and fit on your lap nicely.

I had a cat that just wouldn't shut up. He'd wake me up at 4 in the morning every day to go outside. He liked sleeping on my lap though.

My old cat was like that too, but only because I used to get up in the middle of the night for a drink of water.

I like dogs because they're easier to teach tricks. You can also walk them in the park.

Technically you can walk cats too but I wouldn't recommend it. You can clicker train just about anything if you know how to go about it.

Cool. Do you know where I could get a clicker to try it out?

If Carol found the nested quotes excessive, she could just remove them manually and end up with:

I had a cat that just wouldn't shut up. He'd wake me up at 4 in the morning every day to go outside. He liked sleeping on my lap though.

My old cat was like that too, but only because I used to get up in the middle of the night for a drink of water.

Technically you can walk cats too but I wouldn't recommend it. You can clicker train just about anything if you know how to go about it.

Cool. Do you know where I could get a clicker to try it out?

Does that look decent to you?

 

[Channy]

This is good. Good job team