Implemented Native Table Support

[Recep Baltaş]

I really can't believe no one has suggested this but a native table support is a must!

 

[thedude]

Perhaps the solution is XF needs to bite the bullet and move from BB code to native HTML formatting.

I agree on the need for table support. However allowing native HTML in place of BB codes in never a good idea. You'd be starting from a point of insecurity (user-supplied HTML) and then working to make it secure, which is error-prone and not best practice.

 

[kbryant414]

Look at when this thread was posted, pretty much when XF2 started to be under way, and then consider what our aims for XF2 were. That explains why. Not least to mention the point that there's a comparatively small minority who would like tables where as the majority don't seem too fussed.

We have to focus our time, mostly, on what the majority of our customers tell us they want. There's many suggestions that have been around for a lot longer, with many more pages of support and discussion with many more first post likes than this one. Of course those will be prioritised.

It's also worth noting that it's not as if there isn't already a custom BB code system where you could make the table BB code yourself, or even add-ons that do a fine job of allowing tables.

Is it being considered for XF 2.1? As much as any other suggestion is, but there's definitely some much bigger and arguably more important features we'd like to work on first.

I just wanted to voice my desire for functional tables (and better format-capturing in general, which the Froala demo does wonderfully). Not sure if that makes me one of the 'small minority' or the quiet majority. Some of us just aren't as vocal, remember. From my own experience, solid table support has been kind of a given on every forum I've been a member of or administrated. I never even thought to ask about it before making the jump to XF, but the absence was immediately noticeable after conversion, and thus far none of the BBcode solutions have fully fixed the tables that existed before, or made it possible to do new ones quite like them.

For various reasons, full HTML support is pretty much never going to happen. We’d rather know that every single possible bit of user input is 100% secure. There are libraries that can help with this but whether it’s converting HTML to BB code and back or converting potentially dangerous HTML to safe HTML there’s still work there and both come with their own challenges.

If it was possible, I'd love to be able to offer HTML permissions to users I can trust. Not every person who registers, obviously, but there's a section of my userbase that I'd confidently take responsibility for if I gave that to them. This was an option on my previous forum software and I've not once seen it abused.

As much as I miss these two features, though, I have to say that just about every other aspect of the transition has been positive. You guys have done an amazing job with the XF software, and as I learn more of the tricks and tools, I can see my forum growing and evolving to fit my users' needs. I do hope native tables or (limited) HTML support are things we'll see in the future, but that doesn't detract from what a great product you have here. Thanks for all of your hard work, and thanks for hearing us out on this.

 

[marquisite]

I too would like to see native support for tables in XF2. I have received numerous enquiries from people on my site asking about tables, and there is some kinds of post content that cries out for being displayed in a table. It doesn't help that the forum software my site moved away from did have table bbcode support (SMF), so some long-time members really do miss it.

To get around the lack of table support, some members use Google Spreadsheets (embeddable as a media site) but that is just a workaround, really.

 

[Alpha1]

Not least to mention the point that there's a comparatively small minority who would like tables where as the majority don't seem too fussed.

Table bbcode has been suggested many times before. In 2010 in a custom bbcode suggestion thread with 69 votes and many requests for tables, after which all new suggestion threads for tables were marked as a duplicate because there already was a custom bbcode suggestion. Then custom bbcode was implemented in 2014 without tables, discussion went on in the HYS thread and this thread was started. It now has 50 votes and will probably climb from 28th most popular suggestions to the top 20. I can see how it may seem like the majority is not too fussed. Its one of those suggestions that has stayed under the radar unfortunately.

You do have a point though: IMO tables are primarily useful for forums that are information oriented and not so much for social chatter forums. For information based forums tables can be essential. If you look beyond forums, at articles, pages, blogs, showcases, reviews, wiki, questions & answers and content types like that then it becomes a whole different matter. For such content types you just need tables as an essential function.

Now that Google uses tables to display forum information in search results, the importance of tables has increased significantly.

 

[RobinHood]

Artists impression of all the frustrated members who want table support:

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

 

[Chris D]

Calm down.

┬──┬◡ﾉ(° -°ﾉ)

 

[RobinHood]

All calm again.

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

 

[Alpha1]

I think we need a table to explain what all these hieroglyphs mean.

 

[ku-med]

Not least to mention the point that there's a comparatively small minority who would like tables where as the majority don't seem too fussed.

o(≧o≦)o

 

[imno007]

Maybe don't always be too reliant on the number of like's a suggestion gets to determine whether it's worth while or not to do...? I'm not sure what the better method would be, but there must be some additional criteria to consider. Kind of the way I feel about us still relying on the Nielsen Ratings in the US to determine a show's popularity.

 

[Chris D]

We don't only rely on the number of likes, though clearly it's an important factor.

 

[Steffen]

I'm migrating a forum from vBulletin 4 to XenForo 2. I like XenForo 2 a lot but the lack of

support is a major paint point (vB4 supports

and we therefore have quite a few of them). It would be awesome if XenForo natively supported

.

(I don't care about the concrete

syntax, writing a converter isn't that hard.)

 

[Mr. Jinx]

So we shouldn't expect native table support (any time soon), that's no problem if there was just one good addon that would add this functionally.
There is a very good table addon for XF1.5, but the company that made it isn't welcome over here for specific reasons.
However, it was one of the more expansive plugins. It must be a lot of work and/or very complex to make it.

 

[Recep Baltaş]

Using XenForo 2.0.4 and KL Editor, I have tables. Better than waiting for a native one.

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/kl-editor-manager.5657/

At work:

https://www.technopat.net/sosyal/konu/boot-menuesue-kisayol-tuslari-veritabani.10898/

 

[Alpha1]

The problem with a tables addon is that each tables addon has its own formatting and the formatting is complex. Which is a real problem when you have thousands of tables. So each time you need to switch addons will cause a mess that you need to fix manually. Its a perfect example of a function that is best suited as core.

 

[Recep Baltaş]

The problem with a tables addon is that each tables addon has its own formatting and the formatting is complex. Which is a real problem when you have thousands of tables. So each time you need to switch addons will cause a mess that you need to fix manually. Its a perfect example of a function that is best suited as core.

This time, no. Froala has native table support. KL Editor Manager just enables it. All my tables from ******* are working fine.

 

[imno007]

This time, no. Froala has native table support. KL Editor Manager just enables it. All my tables from ******* are working fine.

Until they switch editors again. But the next best thing.

 

[Warchamp7]

Would really love to see this, even in a simple form like Waindigo had made for XF1

Ex.

[table=header]Column Header 1 | Column Header 2 | Column Header 3
Row 1 | Row 1 | Row 1
[/table]



[table]
Row 1 | Row 1 | Row 1
Row 2 | Row 2 | Row 2
[/table]

 

[StarArmy]

Dokuwiki's tables have a super-simple syntax that would be cool to use in XF:

^ Header that spans two columns ^^
| Column 1 row 2 | Column 2 row 2 |
| Column 1 row 3 | Column 2 row 3 |

 

[Kirby]

This time, no. Froala has native table support.

It doesn't really matter which editor is being used, at the end the HTML is saved as custom BB code specific to the "Table BB Code Add-on" being used.
If you switch to another Add-on (maybe because the one you've used so far is no longer being supported), the new one might use slightly different BB codes so you end up with an incompatible BB code mess.

Dokuwiki's tables have a super-simple syntax that would be cool to use in XF|

Unfortunately, that super simple syntax does get super-complicated for the average joe once your tables contain more than a couple rows and columns.