Does Xenforo support symbols, like the degree symbol (°)?

You know, this is just one more demonstration of the recidivism and hubris that has driven forum platform markets into the dated and declining past. I have been at this for over 32 years, so I have a little perspective. Anybody remember !Jooma?

As a site developer, I have one set of priorities. That is to enable my users, members, and paid subscribers with fluid functionality. With rare exception, none of them know anything about the ephemeral world that creates and supports forum platforms. THAT is not their problem.

Likewise, relatively few of them have use for the necessary knowledge and dated UIX experience of Linux, HTML, or Windows of 20some years ago. Keyboard codes and strokes are dinosaurs. To compete with the elegant platforms of today, I need to make certain experiences easy, rich, and frangible with other non-fora offerings.

Also, a large number of us are not looking forward to executing the latest and the greatest. XF 2.3 has not even landed solidly in the third-party addon world, and now the hue and cry is about 2.4? What about the myriad of orphaned or abandoned addons that are solid on the 2.2 version and into PHP 8.0+? We should abandon all of that, for what functions in core that cannot ? That's just insane. Core is not adopting much of the extensibility and functionality we now have--what is moving forward is moderately conservative. What about the hundreds to thousands of dollars that forum publishers have invested in their sites?

And moreover, what about the similar costs to license the updates to comply with these wonderful upgrades? PHP should be known as an 'app killer' for its ability to wipe now orphaned third-party addons. Yeah, let's rush for it...

Meanwhile, we have the simple dilemma of extending the functionality of the XF 2.2 editor--a thing that as said many of us are going to keep for a long time. .16 is stable, extensible, but suffers from a sucky editor concept.

How hard is this? Just venting from the perspective of an ordinary site publisher...
 
Anybody remember !Jooma?
Joomla is still very much going and picking up convertees from WordPress right now.

Keyboard codes and strokes are dinosaurs.
No, they're really not. The reality is that actually more and more people would simply omit the degree symbol entirely and rely on context precisely because it's actually hard to type - not so much in forums, but everywhere else.

hue and cry is about 2.4?
A lot of people are fixated on the latest and greatest, however I would suggest that 2.4 bringing a new editor effectively puts a time limited lifespan on building things on the 2.2/2.3 editor.

The reality is that XF itself must have a limited timespan on 2.2/2.3's life overall. It isn't feasible to keep supporting old versions indefinitely, as it takes away time and focus from building newer versions (which we all agree are, broadly, a good thing)

PHP should be known as an 'app killer' for its ability to wipe now orphaned third-party addons
PHP makes a new release once a year and maintains (with security fixes) those releases for three years. Occasionally this timeline is even extended (e.g. 8.1 was given a 4 year support cycle rather than a 3 year cycle)

Then again I remember the wilderness years of PHP where a new feature release of the language took 3 years and then about 10 for everyone to be on a recent-enough version; I was still seeing PHP 4 apps (support ended 2008) in 2015 which just holds everything back and raises development costs even higher, because if you have to support what people have in the wild, you have to take longer than using a tightly-defined target version.

E.g. if I built something now for 7.4+ rather than 8.2+, it would provably be more work.

This is not the 'app killer' it looks like in practice.

perspective of an ordinary site publishe
I work with 'ordinary site publishers' daily, and have done for many years, none have ever asked me how to add a degree symbol.

The question, really, is it just the degree symbol we're talking about? Or is this really just the opening to a much larger question of what other symbols you personally want, followed by what other symbols other people might want (because writing an add-on for one person is low-value-for-time-cost), and then whether we start talking about some kind of generic add-on that can add more symbols (which gets into the question of having an admin area to configure the symbols, which gets into the question of how to display the literal thousands of symbols on offer in the first place, and then realising that list updates every couple of years too, and still doesn't even have every symbol required to write every language actually in use today on the planet, though they're almost there with India)

That's the set of questions one must ask, because it's never just what it appears to be.
 
Yup, well thought out response. I run a semi-technical forum. Special characters, subs and supers are necessary for clear and elegant communication. Guess that we are just in the fourth quartile of what is 'necessary' and given to us by our application overlords.

Those keystrokes? Are you still accessing most everything on a desktop or laptop? The world has shifted to mobile. You like keystrokes? People like simple. The overarching political lesson of the last week should demonstrate that clearly to you.

A simple pragmatic reality. Why not just offer simple extensibility, instead of arguing why someone really does not need it.

Philosophy belongs in a sophmore introductory class. Time to cue Edie Brickell.

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Having been at this sort of thing since the late 80s, I find that history keeps mucking along. The central element to all software is the development community smugly tells us what we will have. Then rationalizes why we cannot have certain things. Drill it down, and it always ends with what can be best monetized.

I will sort this out--several would-be gig developers have already reached out with offers to remedy my concerns. So, pardon my dust, and attempts at humor. At least I thought somethings funny.

See, we always return to the money.
 
Those keystrokes? Are you still accessing most everything on a desktop or laptop? The world has shifted to mobile. You like keystrokes? People like simple. The overarching political lesson of the last week should demonstrate that clearly to you.

A simple pragmatic reality. Why not just offer simple extensibility, instead of arguing why someone really does not need it.
At least the degree symbol is reachable on iOS. More than can be said for MacOS, incidentally.

And I wasn't actually arguing for why someone doesn't need it - you clearly do - but I challenge the 'simple' part of that extensibility.

Even the modest list of symbols on https://symbol.wtf/ isn't simple.

The central element to all software is the development community smugly tells us what we will have. Then rationalizes why we cannot have certain things.
Well, yes, it is about money. Someone has to build it, that takes time. Prioritising features for the majority surely has to win out for the developers to keep having repeat customers, and this is sadly not a feature for the majority. In case it wasn't clear, I do actually empathise with your situation but your situation is not really the same as everyone else's despite the apparent belief that everyone needs the ability to add degree symbols, or indeed a system to configure which symbols one may add... at which point it starts to be very much not simple how to deal with it.

As everything else, be careful what you wish for, you might just find you get it.
 
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Yes, and that’s taken us full circle back to the start of the discussion where we shouldn’t make people learn to use the features their computer already has in favour of giving them a button to simplify it for them.
 
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