Collapsible [QUOTE]'s and [SECTION]'s in posts
 

(See next post for [SECTION] tag functionality.)

Has anyone else ever want to get all those [QUOTE] blocks out of the way. Since so many user's include the [QUOTE]'ed message in their replies, sometimes the [QUOTE]'s content on a page is more than the actual new content.

What I had in mind was collapseable [QUOTE] blocks. The setting is remembered in a cookie, just like any of hte other collapseable boxes in vB (e.g., Posting Rules at the bottom of the page).

If it is off, postbit will display [QUOTE]'s collapsed -- in other words, posts will be displayed showing only the user's response. Clicking on a specific [QUOTE]'s expand/collapse image button will show the [QUOTE]. To further refine it, perhaps one could make a setting available to collapse [QUOTE]'s longer than N lines.

(Implementation note: (NO LONGER RELEVANT: 14-Aug-04)
There is a challenge here, as the [QUOTE] block is built when the message is parsed, not when it is output to a page. One needs a unique ID of some sort for each collapseable block displayed on a page. A post can contain more than one [QUOTE] block. Generating the unique ID's is the only thing that complicates this application of collapseable blocks.)

Has anyone taken a stab at the it?

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Attached is a mockup of how it might look in a post.

Shucks... Am I really the only one who those laong QUOTE blocks annoying. I feel so lonely. :)

This idea could be extended to include collapsible sections. For example, if one were to post this:

[SECTION=Here are the features for version 2]
* some description of something here
...
* last item in fairly long section
[/SECTI0N]

the post would be rendered so that the entire section could be collapsed/expanded.

It could also be extended to PHP and CODE blocks larger than some definable limit.

Hmm... not sure how you could do that... could use the post id, perhaps?

Actually, I have found a way around requiring unique identifiers, so this is no longer a problem. Cheers

Attached is a mockup of how [SECTION] tags would work. In the second attachment, we see most sections collapsed, including the Admin Options section which has sub-sections.