Grover
Well-known member
The more I am testing (did not use it much before and I start to see now why) the Multi-Quotes system introduced in XF 1.3 this year, the more I feel it could be improved on several levels.
Here's another example:
- You select some posts to be added to the Multi-Quote bank,
- You click [Insert Quotes...] on your posting and the quotes are inserted,
- Now you want to edit stuff in your posting (because in most cases the reason for this will be due to the fact that Xenforo only supports full-post-quotes and not partial-post-quoting, so we need to edit out a bunch of unwanted text every single time), but mistakenly (again, due to the unfortunate manual editing) you delete a quote or part of it,
- So you want to put it back from the Multi-Quote bank, but you can not. Why? Because the [Insert Quotes...]-button has simply disappeared below the Quick Reply box. The moment you clicked this button, it is gone and so the enduser can never get back to their previous selected quotes.
The way I see it: a bank is a bank for a reason. It's like the Windows clipboard where you copy text to and can use it endlessly multiple times, until you fill the bank with something else. Not in Xenforo however, the moment you use the contents of the bank, your bank becomes inaccessible, making the Multi-Quote function a bit less useful and less user-friendly then it could be, at least in the instances where you need to re-apply quotes.
The idea of multi-quote is great and it's not a bad feature at all (imho), as 'some people'
apparently think:
... I just think with a slightly improved implementation/feature set this very useful tool can be made considerably more user-friendly and therefor even more valuable to the board owners/members that heavily use it. (I seriously hardly use it because of the cons it has in it's current state).
So, my request would be to keep the quote-bank always available, so we can re-apply quotes if we mistakenly deleted them from a post.
-
Afterthought:
Maybe the reasoning (assumption) behind the current implementation is that by deleting the bank the moment you press [Insert Quotes], the enduser does not get confused with old/previous quotes the moment he/she wants to use multi-quote later on? Then actually this way of implementing has its benefits as well indeed and it could well be that this benefit of not being confronted with previously selected multi-quotes in your bank later on, is of actually more value , now that I realize this, then the con of loosing the contents of your bank the moment you inserted them...
Food for thought.
-
PS: I already think mistakenly loosing your content will happen much less anyway (and so the need of an always available bank will also be less), the moment Xenforo will support Multi-Quoting Selected Text. Then we do not need to edit any text/quotes to begin with and so less need for the bank to fall back to. <--- Good, the above suggestion will now receive 0 likes, well done.
-
Final suggestion/solution
PS2: Alright, trying to save my own suggestion here as I brainstorm along
... I just had this thought:
Would it not be possible to change the moment the bank is cleared?
As it is now, the bank is cleared/inaccessible the moment you click [Insert Quotes...]. But we are still in the editing phase of posting our stuff and so the need to edit or re-apply quotes is actually still there, all in the context of editing.
So why not clear the bank the moment the posting is actually posted? That way we have the best of both worlds: we still have access to our banked quotes during the whole editing process and we have a totally clear bank (so no confusion afterwards when using multi-quote again later on) after the post has been made. Yes, now I've got it
.
Here's another example:
- You select some posts to be added to the Multi-Quote bank,
- You click [Insert Quotes...] on your posting and the quotes are inserted,
- Now you want to edit stuff in your posting (because in most cases the reason for this will be due to the fact that Xenforo only supports full-post-quotes and not partial-post-quoting, so we need to edit out a bunch of unwanted text every single time), but mistakenly (again, due to the unfortunate manual editing) you delete a quote or part of it,
- So you want to put it back from the Multi-Quote bank, but you can not. Why? Because the [Insert Quotes...]-button has simply disappeared below the Quick Reply box. The moment you clicked this button, it is gone and so the enduser can never get back to their previous selected quotes.
The way I see it: a bank is a bank for a reason. It's like the Windows clipboard where you copy text to and can use it endlessly multiple times, until you fill the bank with something else. Not in Xenforo however, the moment you use the contents of the bank, your bank becomes inaccessible, making the Multi-Quote function a bit less useful and less user-friendly then it could be, at least in the instances where you need to re-apply quotes.
The idea of multi-quote is great and it's not a bad feature at all (imho), as 'some people'
apparently think:... I just think with a slightly improved implementation/feature set this very useful tool can be made considerably more user-friendly and therefor even more valuable to the board owners/members that heavily use it. (I seriously hardly use it because of the cons it has in it's current state).
So, my request would be to keep the quote-bank always available, so we can re-apply quotes if we mistakenly deleted them from a post.
-
Afterthought:
Maybe the reasoning (assumption) behind the current implementation is that by deleting the bank the moment you press [Insert Quotes], the enduser does not get confused with old/previous quotes the moment he/she wants to use multi-quote later on? Then actually this way of implementing has its benefits as well indeed and it could well be that this benefit of not being confronted with previously selected multi-quotes in your bank later on, is of actually more value , now that I realize this, then the con of loosing the contents of your bank the moment you inserted them...
Food for thought.
-
PS: I already think mistakenly loosing your content will happen much less anyway (and so the need of an always available bank will also be less), the moment Xenforo will support Multi-Quoting Selected Text. Then we do not need to edit any text/quotes to begin with and so less need for the bank to fall back to. <--- Good, the above suggestion will now receive 0 likes, well done
.-
Final suggestion/solution
PS2: Alright, trying to save my own suggestion here as I brainstorm along
... I just had this thought:Would it not be possible to change the moment the bank is cleared?
As it is now, the bank is cleared/inaccessible the moment you click [Insert Quotes...]. But we are still in the editing phase of posting our stuff and so the need to edit or re-apply quotes is actually still there, all in the context of editing.
So why not clear the bank the moment the posting is actually posted? That way we have the best of both worlds: we still have access to our banked quotes during the whole editing process and we have a totally clear bank (so no confusion afterwards when using multi-quote again later on) after the post has been made. Yes, now I've got it
.
Last edited:
Upvote
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: Burning Board clears the bank only after you posted your posting, as I was brainstorming about above. This implementation makes indeed total sense.
