SIAP, but one thing that seems easily done and would be an improvement over the old site, would be using a clipboard function for quotes. At present, if you hit the quote button, it goes straight to post. Half the time I am quoting something from the game thread for the purpose of commenting in a separate OOC thread. Clipboard would make this far easier, and I know it's simple, from a programming standpoint, to set up that way.

On a related note, it would also be nice to be able to quote a small portion of text by selecting it prior to hitting the quote button. Rather than having to hit quote, then delete all the extraneous text after the fact.

I can't think of any downside, and I know I would greatly appreciate it, so I assume a certain number of other site users would as well. Thanks for your consideration.

Just to clarify ... are you talking about this replacing existing functionality (click on the quote option and the text of that post is pasted pre-formatted as a quote in your reply post) or as an addition to that ?  :>

Either/or.

All I know is, in the present system, I have to hit quote, type a comment, then select all, cut, close the window, open up a different thread, hit reply, then paste, then post.

ETA: The clipboard approach would be FAR easier, and I can see no downside.
This message was last edited by the user at 05:57, Sat 02 Dec 2023.

This may not apply to cell phones, but on my desktop, I open the source and target threads in separate browser tabs (right click, open link in new tab). In the tab for the source of the quote, click quote, select all (ctrl a), copy (ctrl c), click on the other tab, comment, paste (ctrl v), then delete all of the extra content I do not need.

Functionality I have seen on other sites (I believe github does this), is to highlight a block of text in an existing post, then right click, and pick quote from the menu. That directly pastes the select text into the existing (or new if no comment is active) comment surrounded by appropriate quote tags. It appears that the functionality the OP wants, is to highlight existing post text, and be able to copy that to the clipboard along with the needed quote tags. A 'copy selected text as quote' option. I don't think I have seen that combination before. Useful when quoting across threads. The github style quoting works well for quoting content from the current thread.

I'm -1 on it replacing the existing functionality -> 99.9% of my quoting is inline in the same thread, so currently I just need one click to quote, and can't see how clipboard approach would be easier for me - what could be easier than one click ?

(Though I'm definitely a +1 on modifying existing functionality to quote just the highlighted text.  :> )

As to adding it as a new feature ... if I'm understanding you correctly, you're just after a similar single click Copy function ?  IE you click the new Copy option and it dutifully copies the text, wrapped in quote tags, into Clipboard where it sits until you're ready to paste it elsewhere ?

So assumedly you're still going to need to go through all the other steps "close the window, open up a different thread, hit reply, then paste, then post", you're just saving on the copying/pre-formatting ?

In reply to theseeker (msg # 4):

Thank you for joining in. I agree with everything you say.

Also, a clipboard would allow for a multi-quote option, which doesn't currently exist. That way, a site user could use the quote button to choose 2 or 3 or 4 posts, or portions of posts, and have them on the clipboard to insert into a follow up post, in the same thread or a different thread, when he or she is ready to do so.

Under the current system, you have to create multiple tabs (as you describe), and then do a series of "quote/select all/cut/paste" sequences to accomplish this.

I'm all for adding additional functionality if people would use it, but I would not want a clipboard to -replace- the existing quote system. For pretty much the same reasons as Skald.

It would be nice if we could highlight the portion of the post that we want to quote and have only that highlighted portion auto populate, though.

Just testing. Yep, multiquote works already. Just hit quote for each post you want to quote, as you need to quote them.

In reply to Skald (msg # 5):

Hmm. Ok, so that's several issues you've brought up. To keep things as simple as possible, let me say: (1) Yes- I am basically just asking for the ability to COPY text to a clipboard. (2) I disagree that it is only marginally helpful. It actually eliminates 2-3 steps. And that can turn into 6-9 steps, if you're trying to reference three different quotes with a single reply.

But THANK YOU for seeing the benefit of being able to select a portion of text to quote. That was one of my two basic suggestions. So I'm thrilled to be heard.

I often will quote two or more pieces of text from multiple posts:

1. I click Reply to Post in the bottom right corner (old site) to open a blank post;
   
2. click Quote in the style bar at the bottom of the posting dialogue;
   
3. paste the text in the quote box
   
4. add the name of the character in the quote tag;
   
5. rinse and repeat

It sounds, slow, but I find it to be very quick and easy, especially when I have the new post in a separate tab so I can scroll through the main thread in another tab.

YMMV.

In reply to SunRuanEr (msg # 8):

Unless there's a trick I'm unaware of, this cannot currently be done without jumping through a few hoops, which a clipboard would eliminate.