Implemented Automatic Title Case

[Anthony Parsons]

This is more of a neatness effect, so a forum admin can adopt a specific style to forum titles. Since PHP has the functions to change strings to lowercase, uppercase, startcase, etc... I believe it is a little nicety that refines a forum and removes the often clunky, misguided methods of typing thread titles.

Sentence case: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ucfirst.php
Start case: http://php.net/manual/en/function.ucwords.php
Lower, Upper, etc: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mb-convert-case.php

Would be nice as an admin to just check an option to enforce a set title casing across the forum, regardless what users type.

 

[jmurrayhead]

If you don't want to use it then don't. I can see this being very handy in certain cases. Kier, is this a per-forum or global setting?

 

[Paul B]

I don't mean the feature is draconian but if any admins implemented it then I would consider that to be draconian.

What next? Changing avatars or signatures they don't like? Or reformatting members' posts into paragraphs with correct grammar and punctuation?

 

[jmurrayhead]

I don't mean the feature is draconian but if any admins implemented it then I would consider that to be draconian.

What next? Changing avatars or signatures they don't like? Or reformatting members' posts into paragraphs with correct grammar and punctuation?

I change thread titles all the time on my forums so that they appropriately reflect on the content inside. This is nothing new to managing a forum. If an admin feels it necessary to have properly formatted thread titles, I see nothing wrong with that.

FYI...changing avatars and signatures is a part of managing a community, and this feature already exists in other forum software. It's called moderation

 

[Forsaken]

I don't mean the feature is draconian but if any admins implemented it then I would consider that to be draconian.
 
What next? Changing avatars or signatures they don't like? Or reformatting members' posts into paragraphs with correct grammar and punctuation?

 
One of my sites was mostly a support forum, and it got tiring to see things like 'I TOTALLY LIKZ THIS BUT I NEED SOME HELP!!!!!!!!!!111111111oneoneone'.
 
And that wasn't much of an exaggeration.

I also change avatars and signatures if they're not appropriate for all my members. I had one member who made an animated gif out of the beheading of a US soldier because he thought it would be funny. 

 

[Enigma]

Thanks for this. I currently have a mod running to automatically capitalize the first letter of thread titles.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

All done.

View attachment 1039

Seriously cool Kier and Mike... thank you very much.

For those who said via CSS, yes it can be done in CSS3, however; that doesn't then get passed via XML feeds and other outputs, mobile skins unless specifically added and used in a device that accepts CSS3, etc etc. I tried doing it with CSS3, and this is where I began to find all the problems, and especially then for those who use translate functions or forums in other languages. CSS is great for some cool features, not so great for others, as the control becomes limited.

It absolutely needed to be a PHP function that can be administered, or merely not at all.

 

[James]

Seriously cool Kier and Mike... thank you very much.

For those who said via CSS, yes it can be done in CSS3, however; that doesn't then get passed via XML feeds and other outputs, mobile skins unless specifically added and used in a device that accepts CSS3, etc etc. I tried doing it with CSS3, and this is where I began to find all the problems, and especially then for those who use translate functions or forums in other languages. CSS is great for some cool features, not so great for others, as the control becomes limited.

It absolutely needed to be a PHP function that can be administered, or merely not at all.

Thanks for commenting on the CSS method Anthony. I haven't done extensive testing using CSS text-transform so I wasn't aware of any roadblocks at the time of suggesting it.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

Your welcome James... I found no amount of CSS could fix external data pushing unless converted server-side.

 

[Waddy]

Personally it would annoy me to use a forum that altered the titles like this, neither of the current options are correct in English anyway. You should capitalise all words except prepositions, conjunctions and certain articles. Acronyms would also be displayed incorrectly.

 

[krstep]

Even though it's it's disableable, in my language it's grammaticality incorrect. I so much hate when people Type Like This in my language.

 

[Kier]

Even though it's it's disableable, in my language it's grammaticality incorrect. I so much hate when people Type Like This in my language.

As I said, it ships disabled.

 

[Waddy]

...in my language it's grammaticality incorrect.

It's grammatically incorrect in English as well, I think it's an American thing.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

It's grammatically incorrect in English as well, I think it's an American thing.

Actually its not grammatically incorrect in English. Both title case and start case are correct English title methods depending on use and even only choice. Check the wikipedia, you will find both, of which they are absolutely English grammar across all English versions.

 

[Waddy]

Actually its not grammatically incorrect in English. Both title case and start case are correct English title methods depending on use and even only choice. Check the wikipedia, you will find both, of which they are absolutely English grammar across all English versions.

I suppose I can't really comment on whether other methods are incorrect, I just know that's the way I was taught and it is by far the most common method that I come across. As for Wikipedia, I would take most of what is on there with a pinch of salt.

 

[Hornstar]

Each word in a title should usually be a capital letter - Take this thread for example

But I suppose this does help with those titles that are in all caps (very annoying) but I wish this would only keep the letters after the first down in lower case.

 

[Waddy]

...I wish this would only keep the letters after the first down in lower case.

I'm pretty sure that's what it does, not that I've quite understood why yet, surely there's a better way of implementing it.

How about only allow a letter to be capitalised if it is at the start of a word or preceded by another capital and that only a maximum of 50% of the letters can be capitalised, this would allow capitals at the start of each word to be optional, allow most acronyms to be correctly capitalised and it would stop the annoying TItLes lIKe ThiS and THE ALL CAPITAL ONES while allowing both of the currently implemented options. There are still going to be things that break this rule such as acronyms where not all of the letters are capitalised, i.e. RoHS, but it would allow much more flexibility while eliminating the annoying titles, people will always F I N D . A . W A Y . A R O U N D . T H E . R U L E S anyway.

Personally I would just allow any titles and moderate the annoying ones, I don't particularly care whether the case used in the title is correct, nor do I always do it correctly myself, mainly because the most important thing is whether the correct message is conveyed, but also because thread titles in many instances are more akin to headlines, which don't follow the same rules as titles.

 

[Stuart Wright]

While I agree that for neatness, it's useful to implement title case in titles, and having admin options is a nice element of flexibility, but what happens if you are using title case and someone posts a title like
Why is it all my DVDs look terrible on my TV and my CDs sound terrible through my BK subwoofer?

 

[James]

While I agree that for neatness, it's useful to implement title case in titles, and having admin options is a nice element of flexibility, but what happens if you are using title case and someone posts a title like
Why is it all my DVDs look terrible on my TV and my CDs sound terrible through my BK subwoofer?

This is a nice point. Perhaps an exemption could be added, where we can specify certain words/acronyms that are exempt from the title casing.

 

[Floris]

Was implemented way too quick? That's a new one on me. Besides which, it ships with the option disabled, so there are no draconian measures here.

Yeah, can you not be so effective while finishing alpha?

We're used to coders that don't think twice

 

[Grover]

Personally I would just allow any titles and moderate the annoying ones, I don't particularly care whether the case used in the title is correct, nor do I always do it correctly myself, mainly because the most important thing is whether the correct message is conveyed, but also because thread titles in many instances are more akin to headlines, which don't follow the same rules as titles.

^This and everything else you say.

While I agree that for neatness, it's useful to implement title case in titles, and having admin options is a nice element of flexibility, but what happens if you are using title case and someone posts a title like
Why is it all my DVDs look terrible on my TV and my CDs sound terrible through my BK subwoofer?

Yes, it is nice people who need it have now this useful option for them indeed. I just think an option like this one will not be used on many boards will it? Exactly because of all the cons that people have been voicing in this thread. That is why I think it is 'interesting' that this has become a stock function. It would better suit as a plugin in my view?