in reply to Web forum markup language and the Monastery

Use [[...]] for shortcuts not [...].

Define which fields hold HTML and which hold text and display them properly (always escape the text into entities and always filter the HTML).

Use UTF-8.

Define the valid ranges of characters allowed (may vary by field). For example, filter out non-whitespace control characters everywhere. You might want to disallow poorly supported and dingbat-like characters from titles and/or usernames.

Spend some quality time designing login / security. Provide automatic means for handling when people forget their password and lose access to their selected e-mail address.

Keep the mark-up simple and be *very* wary of purists and pedants. For example, HTML tables have proven to work better in a wide varieties of environments than anything I've seen anyone propose.

I'll probably write up more specifics when I have more time.

- tye        

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Re^2: Web forum markup language and the Monastery ([[...]])
by Juerd (Abbot) on Jan 15, 2005 at 20:35 UTC

    HTML tables have proven to work better in a wide varieties of environments than anything I've seen anyone propose.

    Non-horizontal layout works better. Especially if everything can be left-aligned. If you don't need a chatterbox or always-visible poll, find a simple layout. Avoid tables and CSS if you can. If you cannot, in 2005, I think it's best to try and find a layout that works with pure CSS. And make sure testing isn't limited to the usual browsers. Include some PDA browsers and text browsers and hack in special cases if needed. Oh, and if you dislike headaches, let ancient browsers be the problem of their users instead of your problem, because it will only get worse as time passes.

    Juerd # { site => 'juerd.nl', plp_site => 'plp.juerd.nl', do_not_use => 'spamtrap' }

[reply]
      Oh, and if you dislike headaches, let ancient browsers be the problem of their users instead of your problem, because it will only get worse as time passes.

      I cannot agree with this more. Given that Firefox is a free download, installs quickly, and is a minimal impact on the system ... there is no excuse to not have a CSS-capable browser. Period.

      And, if you're complaining that you may not be able to install it at work - what're you doing reading Perlmonks at work? :-)

      Being right, does not endow the right to be rude; politeness costs nothing.
      Being unknowing, is not the same as being stupid.
      Expressing a contrary opinion, whether to the individual or the group, is more often a sign of deeper thought than of cantankerous belligerence.
      Do not mistake your goals as the only goals; your opinion as the only opinion; your confidence as correctness. Saying you know better is not the same as explaining you know better.

[reply]
        I've got a $40 computer with a 28.8 modem. It fit my budget, and my needs when I bought it last summer.

        To use the web as it was originally designed (ie. just download text and images), it works just fine. On web pages with excessive amounts of Java or Flash, it slows down a lot.

        I don't see what CSS adds to the web that's so useful. It's not making anything more efficient, and it breaks the model of content independant presentation that made the web useable in the first place.

        Firefox is nearly 5 MB, and I don't want to fight with painstakingly downloading it (probably a 1/2 hr to 1 hr download), finding out it assumes some stupid ultra-modern convenience feature, and then trying to de-install it again without mucking up my system.

        I could spend several thousand dollars on a new computer; but my past experience tells me that six months later, there would be someone on the web ranting about how there was "no excuse" for not buying the latest and greatest widget X.

        If I need to buy new hardware just to view a normal web page (you know, without special video feeds, or holograms, or VRML), well, to me and to the average person, that web page isn't buzzword-compliant: it's just plain broken. --
        Ytrew

[reply]
        Given that Firefox is a free download, installs quickly, and is a minimal impact on the system...
        If you think the bloatware known as Firefox is minimal, might I suggest taking a look at something a little more svelt? Maybe a nice graphical browser like Links? (That's what I use on my P-120 laptop).

        -- All code is 100% tested and functional unless otherwise noted.
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Re^2: Web forum markup language and the Monastery ([[...]])
by demerphq (Chancellor) on Jan 15, 2005 at 23:28 UTC

    I think for a site supporting a perl like language that <[...]> might be better. Its a little uglier, but IMO a lot less likely to occur in code.

    ---
    demerphq

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[d/l]
      I am not sure one needs to be able to include shortcuts in the code snippets. PerlMonks does not let me. At least not in this response: 
      [Code]

      [download]
      Then I only have to cae that the end-of-code sequence (</code> in PerlMonks) is not likely to occure in code.
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[d/l]

        I think you have misunderstood me. Any perl program that uses arrays (which will be a good chunk of them) is highly likely to contain code that has [...] in it. Which _requires_ that the user know the html entity name for square brackets or requires that the user wrap even trivial code snippets in code tags. By using a shortcut pattern that is extremely unlikely to occur in the language this would have been avoided. Its the same reason that tye recommends using [[shortcut]] except IMO that pattern occurs all to often in perl code (arrays of arrays) so something even less likely to be found in code would be IMO better.

        The base point i think is that it shouldnt be necessary to wrap stuff in code tags. Doing so should work and maintain indentation and etc, but it shouldnt be required just to post a trivial piece of code.

        ---
        demerphq

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