HOW DO I modify Replacement Variables to recognize HTML/vBcode?

[ataraxia]

If you create a Replacement Variable to change some string to another string containing HTML or vBcode, it reproduces the text literally and does not recognize the code.

Is there a way to make Replacement Variables recognize HTML or vBcode?

For example, If I create a Replacement Variable to boldface all occurrences of " (space)basketball" to, say, _BasketBall (boldfaced) all the user ultimately sees is the literal coding of the vBcodes for boldfacing in square brackets.

The results are the same for the creation of an HTML (or vBcode) link to, say, the Basketball forum on my board.


Problems:
1. Note that in my example the original "basketball" is defined as being prefixed with a space while the resulting word is prefixed with an underscore. A mechanism like this is necessary to prevent "replacement looping". Once "(space)basketball" has been changed to "_BasketBall", it will not be changed again. (Apparently Replacement Variables will recognize a leading space as a valid character.) Addition of a case sensitivity option to Replacement Variables might be another work-around to this issue. I.e., change "basketball" to "BasketBall". (This could also be a step toward the development of a wiki engine for vB.)

2. If a user creates a new thread with "basketball" in the title, if there is a Replacment Variable containing a link for it, the results will be a title with a link inside of the main title link, which, of course, breaks the latter and creates a mess. Perhaps the addition of a Replacement Variable option to "apply only to message text" would resolve this.

Any ideas on how this could be done?

thanks!

[mano1.com]

Old thread I know, but I would like to do this as well...