Feature Request: Reply Buttons

Logging this as a feature request. The next update batch will include the post create/edit form, and this is the right spot to incorporate this.

I’ve been thinking about this some more and I think if hitting reply auto-quoted the content of the post on which the reply button was hit, we are going to get a lot of bloat.

One idea I was tossing around is this:

If you selected a portion of the post, then a “Quote” button could pop up next to Reply, and then if you clicked the quote button, you’d go down to the post form with the content you selected pre-quoted in your draft post in the editor.

This is just an idea, but requires moderate complexity to implement, and is likely to be a little brittle (because of javascript requirements), especially on mobile. So, I want to be careful, noting that “yes, we can do this…but is it worth the dev time, effort, and potential incompatibility or unexpected behavior with some browsers?”

Good idea if it can be implemented efficiently.

Unless there is a threaded-view, the current Reply button does absolutely nothing, as Matt noted. I never use a threaded view, does the forum even have that option?

I don’t see why Matt’s suggestion would cause bloat. If you don’t want to quote, just move to the response window and type. That’s how most forums do it.

If you prefer two buttons, I don’t think it’s necessary, but that would certainly be better than the current situation, where replies are ambiguous and confusing.

I can get the Quote-button effect by letting the Reply button quote the whole thing and then, in the editor, I edit it down to the part I want quoted…six one, half-dozen the other.  But if the Quote button can be used multiple times to load several small quotes into the editor, then you’ve added real functionality.  That way I can add specific replies to several parts of the post without having to do it all manually.

I can get the Quote-button effect by letting the Reply button quote the whole thing…

Can you explain how that works?  For me, the Reply button does not load anything into the response window. Only way I see to quote the text of a post is to copy/paste it into the reply.

Can you explain how that works?

He might be explaining how he does it on other forums. To avoid over-quoting.

If you selected a portion of the post, then a “Quote” button could pop up next to Reply, and then if you clicked the quote button, you’d go down to the post form with the content you selected pre-quoted in your draft post in the editor.

You are describing the best implementation of a quote/reply system. Many sites (and email applications) will quote the whole message if nothing is selected or will quote just the selected text if text if present. I like this system because the extra feature (quoting only the selected text) doesn’t clutter the page with more buttons or instructions. The feature is simply there for users who know it exists on many platforms.

I said:

I can get the Quote-button effect by letting the Reply button quote the whole thing…

JCH said:

Can you explain how that works?

It doesn’t.  I was replying to Ryan’s initial proposed solution to the Reply button basically doing nothing.  It was about that proposed solution that he said, “we are going to get a lot of bloat.”  I was simply noting that quoting everything can work because it’s fairly easy to edit it down in the editor, but that allowing multiple swipe-Reply actions would be much more useful.

You are describing the best implementation of a quote/reply system.

Agree 100%

It doesn’t.  I was replying to Ryan’s initial proposed solutioN

Ah…gotcha.  Thanks.