Forum IT Support Question - how to remove "Spoiler" text from BBCode spoiler

[fochie]

I asked the following question via the forum contact interface a couple of times in the last month or so but never got a reply.
Thought I'd try again here.

Hello,

I'm using spoiler BBCode tags in my signature to cut down on the initial visible size of the listed Spyder mods in my signature (which tends to annoy some members, myself included .

I can't seem to find a way to turn off the text "Spoiler: ..." from preceding my title on each spoiler button. An internet search suggested maybe a BBCode template can be modified to only include "Spoiler:" if the title is empty (?)

Anyway, I would appreciate any help with this.

I currently have 3 BBCode spoilers in my signature which shows this issue.

Thanks!!
Steve

 

[Peter Aawen]

I must admit that I haven't really searched, but off the top of my head/without looking too hard, I also don't know how to get rid of that 'Spoiler' text, and I really doubt that convincing the owner to modify the template &/or platform software will be all that easy/do-able either - doing anything like that adds to the cost & ongoing effort required to keep the Forum running glitch free; they introduce all sorts of issues, including security issues; and it was at least partly an ever increasing excess of those 'little fixes' that then required testing and upgrading every single time any upgrade or change was made to the platform or the BBCode that drove the move to this more up to date & user friendly platform!! So I really doubt that we'll see too many 'tweaks' or add-ons here, simply because as they accumulate, they just make things too hard and expensive to run! So don't hold your breath for that!

That said, why don't you start a new thread for all this sort of thing on your Spyder, maybe with a title something like '@fochie's 2020 Masala Red RTL Mods, Bling, and Other Stuff', and put it in the RT General Discussion section where you can continually add posts, with pics (no more than 6 each post tho, please ) to talk about/show everyone what you've done; what you're planning on doing; and give us updates on how it's all going - maybe you could even include your States visited map in there too?? That way, you could leave nothing but your 'Great minds...' Quote, your Spyder description, and a single link to the thread in your sig line; and by doing that, you'd significantly reduce the size of your signature block, making it a whole lot easier for people to see/navigate around, especially those using small screen devices.

Just Sayin'

 

[Gwolf]

Spoiler

TEXT

[spoiler] TEXT [/spoiler]

Not sure you can turn off the word spoiler, that is what identifies it as BB code.

Spoiler

EMPTY

Might try this

Spoiler

Your hidden content here.

Spoiler Buttons

None of the custom button text bb code or even inserting the spoiler button code with an empty string will work on this platform.
It appears the basic spoiler button is only one style and that is with the word on the button.

 

[fochie]

I must admit that I haven't really searched, but off the top of my head/without looking too hard, I also don't know how to get rid of that 'Spoiler' text, and I really doubt that convincing the owner to modify the template &/or platform software will be all that easy/do-able either - doing anything like that adds to the cost & ongoing effort required to keep the Forum running glitch free; they introduce all sorts of issues, including security issues; and it was at least partly an ever increasing excess of those 'little fixes' that then required testing and upgrading every single time any upgrade or change was made to the platform or the BBCode that drove the move to this more up to date & user friendly platform!! So I really doubt that we'll see too many 'tweaks' or add-ons here, simply because as they accumulate, they just make things too hard and expensive to run! So don't hold your breath for that!

Yeah, I hear ya. I spent 39 yrs as a software developer/tester at a "big blue" computer company, mainly in the role as a test engineer. Had never used BBCode up until now and this just seemed like an ill-designed UI control, sorta like having the text "Button" preceed the title of all html buttons on a page - not to mention most people not knowing (or rightfully not caring about) what a "Spoiler" is. Saw lots of posts on XenForo and elsewhere seeking the same capability with some mentioning template fixes, 3rd party addons, CSS formatting, etc.

I do tend to read the mods listed in member's signatures which has led me many times to investigate (and buy/incorporate) ones I didn't know about. "Long winded" signature lists do tend to clutter up a page especially when that member replies multiple times within a thread, thus leading me to investigate the "Spoiler" solution.

Oh well, no big deal, maybe I'll try your suggestion of pointing to a personalized mods thread.

Thanks for the input

 

[Gwolf]

Really don't see any problem with using the spoiler buttons like you have them now. It has closed up about 15 or 20 lines of text behind 3 spoiler buttons, with room for plenty more. The forum does allow some BB code, not sure how much. BB code is not very well standardized, but it works.

 

[fochie]

Really don't see any problem with using the spoiler buttons like you have them now. It has closed up about 15 or 20 lines of text behind 3 spoiler buttons, with room for plenty more. The forum does allow some BB code, not sure how much. BB code is not very well standardized, but it works.

Agree that it functions now much better than without using it, The "Spoiler:" text just looked silly/unnecessary/potentially confusing to others to me. I've seen other posts stating that specifying the spoiler exactly as I did would produce the button without the "Spoiler:" text, so I assume there's some admin configuration setting change required or maybe something to do with the version of BBCode being used, or a bug in BBCode, or

I had actually tried to make my signature even smaller by having the three buttons in-line (as opposed to stacked with one on each line). Tried this using table columns but the vertical alignment of cell contents is pretty squirrelly in this forum editor and I could not get the buttons to all be top justified. If I could, I would have then shrunk the image of the states map even further and/or placed it under the single row or spoiler buttons.

Yes, I tend to enjoy solving software quirks and getting UI's to do what I want (maybe some would say a bit obsessed )

Thanks so far for listening and for the input provided.

 

[Gwolf]

I tried the spoiler buttons with an empty string as suggested on one of the PHPBB code help websites. It had no affect on the button appearance at all. The BB code web site said that if there was only one spoiler button design for the platform the button appearance could not be changed. I don't really think the wording on the buttons is that confusing to anyone. The most likely reason for the buttons having to be stacked is the forum is used by a majority now with smart phones and the administrators are attempting to control the width to better fit on the small screens. Back when only desktops and laptops used the web, the screen size did not matter as much, but with several smaller screen devices now in use they want to make it more convenient for content to fit on a small screen. The way it is set up now, you don't have near as much space in the signature area as some using the forum.

I run into a lot of software quirks too, but have learned to deal with most of them. I am running Linux OS.

 

[fochie]

I tried the spoiler buttons with an empty string as suggested on one of the PHPBB code help websites. It had no affect on the button appearance at all. The BB code web site said that if there was only one spoiler button design for the platform the button appearance could not be changed. I don't really think the wording on the buttons is that confusing to anyone. The most likely reason for the buttons having to be stacked is the forum is used by a majority now with smart phones and the administrators are attempting to control the width to better fit on the small screens. Back when only desktops and laptops used the web, the screen size did not matter as much, but with several smaller screen devices now in use they want to make it more convenient for content to fit on a small screen. The way it is set up now, you don't have near as much space in the signature area as some using the forum.

Thanks for checking that out. One of the sites I owned in the past relied heavily on using PHPBB (pre "Spoiler" support ) Messed around a bit more and discovered that you can nest Spoilers ... so I got it down to one line now with the states map below it . Would have liked to have the states map in one of the nested spoilers but found that the ability to include an image in a spoiler has been disabled on the site.

Soooo ... I guess I've beat this dead horse long enough ... thanks again to all for the input ... maybe I'll create a thread sometime explaining how others can reduce their sig size via the use of a spoiler.

 

[Gwolf]

Yep, you got it really compact up there now. The admin would go along with you posting a tutorial on spoiler use, pretty sure. There is some off topic forums where anything not related to Can Am is posted. It ain't too well organized and some of it gets left 3 or 4 pages back before long, but that is where the posting tutorials and things go. Used to have sticky threads on the old forum, that stayed on top. This new platform must not have them available.

 

[Peter Aawen]

Yep, you got it really compact up there now. The admin would go along with you posting a tutorial on spoiler use, pretty sure. There is some off topic forums where anything not related to Can Am is posted. It ain't too well organized and some of it gets left 3 or 4 pages back before long, but that is where the posting tutorials and things go. Used to have sticky threads on the old forum, that stayed on top. This new platform must not have them available.

We still have them, at the top of every sub-forum page - they just don't stand out so much cos instead of being highlighted, they now
only have a 'Sticky Pin' that shows just to the Left of the 'Replies' space in the first column after the Thread Title.
But the Stickies are still all there.

 

[Gwolf]

We still have them, at the top of every sub-forum page - they just don't stand out so much cos instead of being highlighted, they now
only have a 'Sticky Pin' that shows just to the Left of the 'Replies' space in the first column after the Thread Title.
But the Stickies are still all there.

Yep, I see the pins and locks now. Wasn't looking for little pins. I was expecting bold thread names or something.
I got pinned tutorials on posting images and didn't even know it.

A tutorial on compacting the signature space on some of the larger ones would help keep every little short post or reply from taking up half a page on a 24 inch monitor. Only problem might be that it could be too complicated for some people without IT experience to understand.

 

[Gwolf]

I asked the following question via the forum contact interface a couple of times in the last month or so but never got a reply.
Thought I'd try again here ....

Hello,

I'm using spoiler BBCode tags in my signature to cut down on the initial visible size of the listed Spyder mods in my signature (which tends to annoy some members ... myself included ;-).

I can't seem to find a way to turn off the text "Spoiler: ..." from preceding my title on each spoiler button. An internet search suggested maybe a BBCode template can be modified to only include "Spoiler: " if the title is empty (?)

Anyway ... would appreciate any help with this.

I currently have 3 BBCode spoilers in my signature which shows this issue.

Thanks !!
Steve

I have played around with the idea of putting images under a spoiler button. It is not that complicated. All you need is the correct (or at least a correct) url for the image alone, which does not carry with it the entire url for the post. The ability to put images under a spoiler button is not turned off. I have done it several times and the images appear from under the buttons when they are clicked.

Right click the image, in the borders of the image, and tell it to open the image in a new tab. It should open only the image, in your case, only your state map of the states you rode. The URL for only the state map image as stored in the forum database will be in the browser address link at the top of the page.

All you have to do now is edit one of your spoiler buttons and place a line inside it to point to the img. Something like

[img] url of the image [/img] NOTE- I changed the color of the image tag to prevent it from disappearing when saved.
Save the post and next time that spoiler button is activated the map image will be in the list under that button.

You could create a new button for just the state map, but it is not required. I placed several images from various posts under a spoiler button with that method and all of them produced the same list that was under the button in text with image last after the text.

It works, I knew there had to be a way. As long as the images already posted are in the database of the forum, the only thing you need is the correct URL of the image alone, not associated with the rest of the post, to retrieve the image from the database and put it under a spoiler tag. The only requirement is that the image had to have been posted correctly onto the forum previously and that you can find where it was posted.

Edit - Even easier than that! I just uploaded an image not previously posted and inserted the thumbnail under a spoiler button and that works too. There does not seem to be anything blocking placing images under spoiler buttons. The one I just attached is under the first button about seat and frunk locks of the FAQ post.

I have opened a FAQs thread that has a lot of the frequently asked questions on the Forum Support And Testing Forum, using the bb code Spoiler buttons to keep the lists short and organized. It is working great. Might save the same questions being asked over and over again by some of the new people joining the forum. When you get the tutorial for shortening the signature section of posts finished, I would like to add that to the FAQs also.

 

[Gwolf]

test

 

[racoon]

So, umm...I've been a bit confused by the stated initial reason for trying the "spoiler" code.

All of the signatures I see that are "long" are already collapsed.
I see a few lines of the signature and a "toggle signature" link that when clicked expands the signature.

Which is why I'm confused since the signature is already collapsed to just a few lines.

 

[Gwolf]

So, umm...I've been a bit confused by the stated initial reason for trying the "spoiler" code.

All of the signatures I see that are "long" are already collapsed.
I see a few lines of the signature and a "toggle signature" link that when clicked expands the signature.

Which is why I'm confused since the signature is already collapsed to just a few lines.

It will collapse to one line now, but when he started working on it, there were three spoiler buttons showing one on top of the other and a map.
I did not see it, but I can guess that he had a long list of modifications and other changes made taking up mucho space before putting them under the spoiler buttons.

Now if someone wants to see all the upgrades and modifications, they can open the spoilers. If they don't want to read it, the spoilers stay closed and he has a neat, compact signature area. If a visitor leaves the spoilers open and the list in view, when they jump to a different thread the spoilers will close back up automatically. Also there is an easy way to place images under the spoilers if desired.

 

[racoon]

I did not see it, but I can guess that he had a long list of modifications and other changes made taking up mucho space before putting them under the spoiler buttons.

Okay, bragging rights.

 

[Gwolf]

Okay, bragging rights.

You could call it that, or you could say that maybe the riders with the same model want to see what modifications and upgrades that others with that model have made. A list in the signature area is much easier than trying to contact them and ask.

I don't list upgrades or modifications on mine because some of them might not be exactly street legal.

 

[fochie]

I have opened a FAQs thread that has a lot of the frequently asked questions on the Forum Support And Testing Forum, using the bb code Spoiler buttons to keep the lists short and organized. It is working great. Might save the same questions being asked over and over again by some of the new people joining the forum. When you get the tutorial for shortening the signature section of posts finished, I would like to add that to the FAQs also.

Cool that you're using the spoiler idea for a FAQ page ... looks good. Will try to focus on a "Spoiler Tutorial" soon and let you know.

I had also realized that a pic can be added to the spoiler if it originates on the spyder lovers server as well. What I also discovered is that the forum code blocks adding more than one pic to a signature.

I wanted to add a couple more images (in addition to the map pic) to a sig spoiler so I created a montage of images into one pic and added that
to a sig spoiler (along with a link on it to open the image full size in a tab when clicked).

To avoid any confusion to those viewing this thread in the future, here's what my sig looks like at the moment fully expanded -



And this is what it looks like without expansion -

 

[Gwolf]

Cool that you're using the spoiler idea for a FAQ page ... looks good. Will try to focus on a "Spoiler Tutorial" soon and let you know.

I had also realized that a pic can be added to the spoiler if it originates on the spyder lovers server as well. What I also discovered is that the forum code blocks adding more than one pic to a signature.

I wanted to add a couple more images (in addition to the map pic) to a sig spoiler so I created a montage of images into one pic and added that
to a sig spoiler (along with a link on it to open the image full size in a tab when clicked).

To avoid any confusion to those viewing this thread in the future, here's what my sig looks like at the moment fully expanded -

You got a lot of information into a small area. There is a way to get around most all those restrictions on amounts and space.
Be careful if you get over about 1200 word count or over 7,000 count on spaces and characters combined. Somewhere up there is a cutoff limit and the post will no longer save if you exceed it. Only the post going over is blocked from saving. All other posts on the topic still go on as usual. The count includes code too. I heard there was also a 10 picture per post limit and some of the small screen devices would not open a post with more than about 5 pictures in it. Most people use smart phones now. When you get the tutorial ready I can work it into a FAQ post. I did run into a locked down post from several years ago complaining about the long signature blocks. About half the ones posting on it said the long signature blocks made reading the forum difficult. The other half wanted the long signature block. There is reason enough to show a method of reducing the size of the signature block would be useful. Click here