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.

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[S Thomas]

Emoji (and smilies!) autocomplete

Wouldn't that be awesome for reactions aswell? Like Discord has.

Apart from that great work. Looks amazing.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

What we do now for URLs we disapprove of (only a small handful, like less than a dozen), we put them into the word censor which "breaks" them. It does the trick well enough for us. NSFW links aren't ones we allow anyway, so that kind of side-steps the unfurling issue for us.

That wouldn't work for us since customers might still need to link to their websites in their support tickets


Fillip

 

[Kevin]

Some excellent stuff!

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:

Too late to ask that Google's Noto be an option? What if I send some chocolate chip cookies?

 

[Chris D]

Too late to ask that Google's Noto be an option? What if I send some chocolate chip cookies?

First time I've seen anything about Noto. They do look like nicely designed emojis to be fair. Unfortunately, they only exist as a font. The emoji system we've implemented can theoretically support any emoji set, as long as we can serve them as images. If Google starts providing them as individual images, then it's feasible. Longer term, if there's enough call for it, maybe we could support emoji fonts as well (though as of right now, I'm only aware of one, and I only just found out about it )

 

[Lukas W.]

The emoji system we've implemented can theoretically support any emoji set, as long as we can serve them as images.

Not sure if they host them on a CDN, but individual icons can be obtained as svg or png from their public repository. They are the official android emojis by the way.

 

[Kevin]

First time I've seen anything about Noto. They do look like nicely designed emojis to be fair. Unfortunately, they only exist as a font. The emoji system we've implemented can theoretically support any emoji set, as long as we can serve them as images. If Google starts providing them as individual images, then it's feasible. Longer term, if there's enough call for it, maybe we could support emoji fonts as well (though as of right now, I'm only aware of one, and I only just found out about it )

Noto is available as a font, SVG, or pngs. https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-emoji I've been updating my site to use their SVGs instead of the EmojiOne images. Backed by Google, they are updated with the current unicodes pretty fast.

 

[imno007]

Things got out of hand on one of our forums just by allowing image uploads. The helpful images weren't a problem, but we had rashes of users uploading GIFs just for some silly/stupid reaction to a post above theirs, and those ate up way more space than JPG images. We had to discontinue image attachments for anyone but staff due the rampant abuse, and also due to the fact that there was not any type of per-user image uploading quota system in place (nor a means to let them clear out their old attachments easily). We do still allow them in our "classified ads" area, but have strict rules in place.

With a tight quota system, it puts responsibility on users to maintain their own library of uploaded content. If they fill up their quota, they need to trim things back. We are not some billion-dollar corporation that lets users upload unlimited content.

Which is why I'll be disabling it completely. If there were usergroup permissions, I would probably enable just for myself, to put up the occasional instructional type of video, like how to use this or that feature of the site, but no way can I afford to allow everyone to upload videos at will. Next thing you know people would be sharing clips of their children's birthday parties and such.

 

[digitalpoint]

You know what I would love? The ability to specify an emoji as a smile output as an option instead of an image.

 

[ibnesayeed]

@Chris D is there a mechanism in place to prevent certain URLs (not all) from being embedded (unfurled) during composing/editing a message that would otherwise be unfurled? Perhaps this can be done by adding an attribute to the URL BBCode, but the UI to indicate this intent could be something we can talk about.

Also, I am assuming you are utilizing oEmbed protocol when available, if so, do XF entities also provide metadata in that format?

The search bar in the emoji/smilie picker at the bottom will jump around as we search and filter the list smaller, which is not a very pleasant experience. An alternate UI could be placing a search icon in the top-right (or top-left for RTL) corner of the panel in the same sticky row where the section headers such as "Recently used", "Smilies", "People" appear. When the search icon is clicked, the whole header bar can turn into a search field. This way the filtered search result will be below the search bar, hence the search bar would not move.

 

[Kirby]

The search bar in the emoji/smilie picker at the bottom will jump around as we search and filter the list smaller, which is not a very pleasant experience [...] When the search icon is clicked, the whole header bar can turn into a search field. This way the filtered search result will be below the search bar, hence the search bar would not move.

This is a decent suggestion and would actually make that feature more consistent with other areas where XF provides quick search / auto completion functionality (like ACP quick search, mentions, etc. - all those features do display results below the input field/cursor).

 

[Kier]

You know what I would love? The ability to specify an emoji as a smile output as an option instead of an image.

That's actually something I've been wanting for a while. There's no code written to do that right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if it materialises before too long.

 

[Alpha1]

(though as of right now, I'm only aware of one, and I only just found out about

https://fontawesome.com/icons?d=gallery&c=emoji

 

[donwon]

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.

View attachment 185724

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.

This should have it's on special day to have been announced! THANK YOU for taking this step!!!

 

[Chernabog]

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.

Figgin LOVE it!

 

[Wildcat Media]

That wouldn't work for us since customers might still need to link to their websites in their support tickets

Aah OK, I see. You're in a situation where the URLs may need to be posted. Ours are a different topic altogether, so that makes sense.

 

[JoyFreak]

Literally, in love

 

[Wildcat Media]

Which is why I'll be disabling it completely. If there were usergroup permissions, I would probably enable just for myself, to put up the occasional instructional type of video, like how to use this or that feature of the site, but no way can I afford to allow everyone to upload videos at will. Next thing you know people would be sharing clips of their children's birthday parties and such.

And kittehs. Gotta have kitteh videos.

There are usergroup permissions for attachments in general, and we had to go that route. But no, there isn't an option to allow attachments of, say, .txt files for some usergroups and .jpg/.png/.gif for others. That IMHO would be quite complicated to accomplish, although I'm sure some clever add-on developer could figure out a way to do it.

 

[imno007]

And kittehs. Gotta have kitteh videos.

There are usergroup permissions for attachments in general, and we had to go that route. But no, there isn't an option to allow attachments of, say, .txt files for some usergroups and .jpg/.png/.gif for others. That IMHO would be quite complicated to accomplish, although I'm sure some clever add-on developer could figure out a way to do it.

Well, obviously XF could do it themselves, and I'm pretty sure Chris has already said they could do it if they see a demand for it. I'm not why people would have to be clamoring for it, since it seems like commonsense to me that you'd want to have permissions for something like that - it could be monetized, for one thing, only allowing subscribed members to upload vids, etc. - but I guess this was just the easier route for now. Mind you, though, that I'm not personally that upset about it, since it's not something that important to me.

 

[Mr Lucky]

@Chris D Is there at least a way to limit video uploads to certain usergroups?

Not at this time, no, though we could consider it if there's enough call for it.

I called Saul, is that enough?

 

[Chernabog]

I won't lie; there has been times I have wondered if my selection of XenForo as not just a "forum" solution but as an CMS solution has been the best one to make or not. XenForo, for me, is a community portal solution in the same vein as BBSs were to community when that came out... much more than just a forum fix.

Long story short... the more I watch XenForo develop, the more I interact with and work with the amazing community of add-on developers.. the more I feel XenForo was, is and will continue to be the leading solution. It is as powerful as products several price points higher, but keeps itself priced at a target which most people can manage.

All in all.. I am just happy to be part of all this. It was a good choice.