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Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Phew...

I've finished my "name suggest" box which can be used for anything, anywhere. I wrote it for the PM recipients but I've abstracted it so it can be used for anything; template names, forum names - anything.

It took nearly 600 lines of javascript to complete (+ 1 custom XMLHttpRequest library + PHP + HTML) but I think its worth it. There is so much to try and manage, onclick events, onblur events, key up and key down events. It really shows how young this technology is but the results are worth the effort.

I have a new motto. It goes like this:

"If the interface is effortless, it almost certainly took a lot of effort to produce"

Update: You can now edit topics titles by double clicking the topic title's cell and hitting enter, or clicking outside the text input boxes saves it. Screenshot (although static images don't do it justice)

March 23, 2005 | Permalink

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Comments

Genius! :o

Posted by: Phil | Mar 23, 2005 5:08:44 PM

wow. That is Amazing! I cant wait for these Features to be released. :D

Posted by: Swords | Mar 23, 2005 5:20:35 PM

Very interesting idea, but I wonder if it'll actually be used as we'd all like it to be.

Posted by: Don Wilson | Mar 23, 2005 5:58:50 PM

Great it has been integreated so fast, I mean amazingly fast.

I hope it will also help us edting the "skin-macros" and some other places to spare time. Please, skinning now is just too time consuming ...

Posted by: | Mar 23, 2005 6:01:53 PM

Oh, trust me, you'll want to use it because it's so much fun.

Seriously though - if you've ever moderated a board and seen a mispelt topic title and thought "If I could be bothered, I'd correct that, but I don't have the time / energy to click the topic, select edit topic, complete the form and submit it" - this is for you.

Posted by: Matt | Mar 23, 2005 6:02:11 PM

Nice one Matt!

I've (trying) to do this sort of thing for some time with IFRAMEs (i.e document.getElementByID("control").src = "control.php?action=delete&id=test";) but this is somewhat flawed in that it isn't that practical for reading the contents of a page back, only posting.

I'll have to have a look into XMLHttpRequest.

Posted by: Chris Santry | Mar 23, 2005 6:14:01 PM

W00T!!

I've never liked JS before (kinda slow, less compatible), but I have to admit that it is now growing up very fast. If it keeps growing up at this speed, maybe someday it can replace control panels and Flash :D

Posted by: Franklin | Mar 23, 2005 6:24:55 PM

Don't say that to any Flash fans, there is a whole 'thing' over that subject.

Posted by: Matt | Mar 23, 2005 6:36:21 PM

I have been waiting for somebody to implement edit-title-in-place with Ajax and I can't believe it's taken this long to be done, but there it is! This is a huge advantage of traditional applications and finally it's gone web.

My only regret is I didn't get to do it myself. :)

Posted by: Chris Griego | Mar 23, 2005 8:43:07 PM

I have to say Matt... this is looking real good. ;)

Posted by: Keith | Mar 23, 2005 10:39:44 PM

Could this be used for editing posts themselves? that would be great...

Also adding thins to the calendar, editing profiles... endless possibilities... i need to learn this stuff!!!

Posted by: Bob | Mar 23, 2005 10:57:19 PM

So for me to be able to use that feature I would have to take off the global cell topic link wouldn't I?(Able to click anywhere in the topic cell to view topic) hehe... Oh well.

Posted by: Logan | Mar 23, 2005 11:21:36 PM

Logan, those things are evil anyway because they almost ruin browsing the forum with tabs. Ctrl+click is out, have to use the context-menu for everything.

Posted by: Chris Griego | Mar 24, 2005 2:25:00 AM

Creativity is a wonderful thing. Empowered by this technology theres no stopping us!

Things I would like to see come out of this technology is the "preview post" feature. Perhaps replace the creating the post feature with a live preview using this technology. All powered by the wonderful wysiwyg editor we know is in store :P.

Look forward to seeing your creativity being pushed to the limit matt.

Posted by: Michael Scott | Mar 24, 2005 6:54:05 AM

"Could this be used for editing posts themselves?"

Not really. You're limited to making _GET requests to the PHP engine which isn't suitable for long posts as QUERY_STRINGS have a relatively short string length.

You could fudge together a hidden iframe with a dynamic post form but I don't really think its worth it.

Posted by: Matt | Mar 24, 2005 9:37:07 AM

Thanks for posting these small insights to the next version of IPB - it looks really awesome.

Posted by: Florian | Mar 24, 2005 10:03:32 AM

Yes true Chris, a few members reported that problem.

But if this feature was introduced, then I would definetly get rid of it, would make things much easier this way as Matt stated :).

Posted by: Logan | Mar 24, 2005 11:25:03 AM

I don't think inline editng of posts would make for a good interface, but I don't understand what you mean, Matt, by you're limited to GET requests. XMLHttpRequest().open's first arguement is method, which supports GET & POST in all browsers, and even WebDav methods in most except Safari.

Posted by: Chris Griego | Mar 24, 2005 12:26:37 PM

Inline post editing triggered by the edit button would probably work as a good interface, I just don't think the same method for topic titles would work as a good interface.

Posted by: Chris Griego | Mar 24, 2005 12:27:51 PM

After watching the recent video, how would one click the actual link to view the topic? :P Is there a switch that you click at the top that turns it into editing mode or something like that?

Posted by: Don Wilson | Mar 25, 2005 1:56:34 AM

You double click the table cell to initiate the editing process. This may change to a little button or switch depending on the feedback we get during alpha and beta testing.

Posted by: Matt | Mar 25, 2005 2:30:22 PM

I would think a button might be better for the fact that I randomly click to get my scroll wheel working... (who knew you had to have an "active" program to scroll on the page you are looking at...)

Posted by: Cybertimber2004 and Cooldude7273 | Mar 25, 2005 8:49:05 PM

Gorgeous.

Posted by: Barn | Mar 26, 2005 2:52:28 PM

:)

Posted by: Tyler | Mar 26, 2005 5:00:47 PM

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