XF 2.1 Unfurling URLs, Emoji enhancements and video uploads

Here we go! We're four HYS threads in already and you might be wondering just how many there are left. Well, I can't tell you 😉 But what I can tell you is - we're not even half way through yet! In case you've not yet seen the previous entries, you can check them out here.

As ever, to ensure you're kept up to date, we strongly recommend caressing that "Watch forum" link and make sure you enable email notifications if you haven't done so already 🙂
 
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Click to expand...
What on earth is URL unfurling?

I'll just show you. It's easier!

localhost_21x_index.php_threads_new-unfurl-testing.11_ (3).webp


When a URL is inserted into content and that URL exists on its own line within the content, we will "unfurl" it to a richer preview which includes the page title, metadata logo, description and favicon. Such rich previews add more context for users as to what the link contains. URL unfurling can be used anywhere that accepts BB code currently.

The functionality is enabled by default, but you can switch it off if you want to in the "Messages" section of the Admin CP.
 
Consistent Emoji styles

Emojis are 👍 but different browsers and devices have vastly different styles. You just need to look at something like Emojipedia to give you some idea of the different styles available.

grinning-face_1f600.png

Mozilla, what were you thinking?
​
As well as the artwork itself being inconsistent, the actual support for different Unicode versions is vastly different too. Meaning that some of the very latest emoji that I'm about to include below may or may not appear at all:

🥰 🥵 🥶 🥳 🥴
​
Therefore, we felt that it's about time to add some consistency so we're adding a new option in XF 2.1 to do just that:

localhost_21x_admin.php_options_groups_messageOptions_ (2).webp


We actually default to EmojiOne here (to be consistent with smilies) but as you can see you can opt out entirely (by selecting "Native") or use "Twemoji" if that's your preference.

If you select "EmojiOne" then emojis will be dynamically replaced with their equivalent EmojiOne image to go from:

localhost_21x_index.php_threads_new-unfurl-testing.11_ (6).webp


To:

localhost_21x_index.php_threads_new-unfurl-testing.11_ (9).webp


But, we're not quite done with Emojis, just yet... 👇
 
Emoji (and smilies!) autocomplete

21emojiac.gif

That classic song. If you're <grinning> and you know it <clap> your <raised_hands> 🎶
​
That's right, we now show you emoji and smilie suggestions as you type 🙂 Often this can be more convenient than opening up your smilies or device emoji keyboard and the fact that it gives you all of your smilies and emojis in one place is very, er... 🙌y...

As soon as the editor detects : followed by a couple of letters, it starts searching the entirety of your emojis and smilies for something that matches and returns you the results. You can then pick the desired smilie/emoji using your keyboard or with a click/tap.

The emojis inserted into the editor will follow whichever emoji style you have chosen, but behind the scenes they will be converted back to their native emoji character on saving.

Wait, you want more emoji stuff? Ok... 👇
 
New emoji/smilie picker

Emojis are everywhere and each year the already vast selection of them increases more and more, but smilies still have their place, right?
6i2z.gif

An emoji can't replace this classic.
​
But, at the same time, it's important that we make both smilies and emojis as accessible as possible. So why not keep them together?

21emojipicker.gif

​
We've replaced our existing smilie tray with an all new combined smilie/emoji pop up. Not only does it contain smilies categorised as it did before, but it also includes all of the emojis categorised too. Even better, it's fully searchable!

Finally, we also have a category named "Recently used" which lists the emojis you used most recently.
 
Video uploads

Do you remember a time when people didn't have their phones out recording videos of random stuff? No... neither do I... Anyway, what do people do with those videos when they want to upload them? Well, they probably don't upload them to your forum, sadly. Well, not yet, anyway.

Ironically, I'm not going to make a video demonstrating this feature because it will be mostly a process you're familiar with. You simply click "Attach files", select your video and insert it into your post.

localhost_21x_index.php_threads_videos.18_ (1).webp


And the end result:

localhost_21x_index.php_threads_videos.18_.webp


There are no fancy HTML5 video players, there's no complex dependencies, and there's no performance taxing transcoding process. Everything above is totally native to the browser and OS that you're using.

As a result, it is theoretically possible that certain video formats may not display correctly on certain devices, but realistically here we're talking about extremely old videos or extremely old devices. Most browsers can support MP4, WEBM and OGG files and most devices that XF actively supports have been outputting videos in MP4 for years.

Currently we are only supporting videos by upload, though we're not done with videos just yet. We have some future plans (maybe before XF 2.1 or maybe after) to add better integration with the editor (like we did with images) and are looking into whether we can support hotlinking videos.
 
And that's it for another week! We would love to show you even more (and we definitely have more) but there does come a time when we have to stop writing HYS threads and start writing some actual code 😉

Don't worry, we'll be back next week with a batch of new stuff.
 
Chris D said:
Video uploads

Do you remember a time when people didn't have their phones out recording videos of random stuff? No... neither do I... Anyway, what do people do with those videos when they want to upload them? Well, they probably don't upload them to your forum, sadly. Well, not yet, anyway.

Ironically, I'm not going to make a video demonstrating this feature because it will be mostly a process you're familiar with. You simply click "Attach files", select your video and insert it into your post.




And the end result:

View attachment 185725

There are no fancy HTML5 video players, there's no complex dependencies, and there's no performance taxing transcoding process. Everything above is totally native to the browser and OS that you're using.

As a result, it is theoretically possible that certain video formats may not display correctly on certain devices, but realistically here we're talking about extremely old videos or extremely old devices. Most browsers can support MP4, WEBM and OGG files and most devices that XF actively supports have been outputting videos in MP4 for years.

Currently we are only supporting videos by upload, though we're not done with videos just yet. We have some future plans (maybe before XF 2.1 or maybe after) to add better integration with the editor (like we did with images) and are looking into whether we can support hotlinking videos.
Click to expand...

Will upload chunking be enabled so that we can bypass limitations on server and proxy sides? For example, Cloudflare limits to 100MB uploads through their proxy.

Suggestion here: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/deploy-file-chunking-for-uploads.154990/
 
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Chris D said:
Emoji (and smilies!) autocomplete

View attachment 185721
That classic song. If you're <grinning> and you know it <clap> your <raised_hands> 🎶
​
That's right, we now show you emoji and smilie suggestions as you type 🙂 Often this can be more convenient than opening up your smilies or device emoji keyboard and the fact that it gives you all of your smilies and emojis in one place is very, er... 🙌y...

As soon as the editor detects : followed by a couple of letters, it starts searching the entirety of your emojis and smilies for something that matches and returns you the results. You can then pick the desired smilie/emoji using your keyboard or with a click/tap.

The emojis inserted into the editor will follow whichever emoji style you have chosen, but behind the scenes they will be converted back to their native emoji character on saving.

Wait, you want more emoji stuff? Ok... 👇
Click to expand...
Yess!! This is my suggestion!!!
https://xenforo.com/community/threa...stion-as-you-write-like-user-mentions.124065/
:love:

how about grouping emojis/emoticons in some way so if I write :sad all emojis/emoticons related to sadness will be displayed in the dropdown?
 
Moshe1010 said:
I think what mainly will prevent forum owners from letting users uploading their video files is the size of the files. Considering the fact that most new phones can take 4K videos, it would be really appreciated if it could compress the files.
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Their will be option available to allow video uploading or limit the saize of videos to be upload. :unsure:
 
Chris D said:
What on earth is URL unfurling?

I'll just show you. It's easier!

View attachment 185717

When a URL is inserted into content and that URL exists on its own line within the content, we will "unfurl" it to a richer preview which includes the page title, metadata logo, description and favicon. Such rich previews add more context for users as to what the link contains. URL unfurling can be used anywhere that accepts BB code currently.

The functionality is enabled by default, but you can switch it off if you want to in the "Messages" section of the Admin CP.
Click to expand...
it will add to the original thread some kind of notification/link list of "mentioned posts outside this thread"?
 
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