On The Matter of Input Control

[Skull132]

Hokay. So we have 3 topics on this subject, and actually, this is a topic I've been pondering for about a month now.

Here's my general idea. Add a simple mark-up parser into the game, and apply it to OOC, LOOC, and IC chat.

Now, wtf do I mean by, "a simple mark-up parser"? Quite simple: make it work like Discord or Skype. More specifically, Skype atm. You bind pairs of symbols into your input, and these, once properly closed, will modify your text. A lot of players already use, for example, forward-slashes to indicate emphasis. Some use asterisks, whatever. The purpose is the same: to mark a certain word off for added emphasis or increased perceived volume.

How it would work is quite simple. There's a set of agreed upon symbols that have a desired effect on your input. These can be viewed through a help command. And then you just write them into your input, send the message, and the code does all the rest.

Examples:

"What on Earth are _you_ doing here?" would get transformed into: Erec Bellard asks, "What on Earth are you doing here?"

"Get *out*." would get transformed into this: Talon Keir says, "Get out."

"*Help! I'm getting robbed!*" would get transformed into this: Kimberly Riden exclaims, "Help! I'm getting robbed!"

It would not affect the verbs that the character uses, and instead only modify the output styling.

May also want to consider if there's a use for underlining something, though most of the time, italicized text carries the same meaning and looks less out of place.

Why do I think this should be preferred out of all 3 possibilities?

• It's concise - You use only one command, instead of hacking your way around multiple commands.
• It's intuitive enough - The idea of sprinkling text with mark-up like this is already well engrained into the heads of most internet users, thanks to Skype, Discord, even Teamspeak.
  
• Total control - Instead of being restricted to all-bold or no-bold, you get to cherry-pick whatever content you want altered.
  
• It's clean - While I'm not too much of a prude when it comes to coding, I do nope away from completely awful hacks that don't make sense. This uses no such hack, and is very reliable.

 

The other alternatives:

Shift-enter to shout: http://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=6027

Bold sentences based on their end: http://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=6026

The latter may be considered for implementation along side this, as it's easy enough to do. The former is arse on the code front, as I've already explained there.

Would this resolve the silly shenanigans?

[Guest Complete Garbage]

I would prefer this over the other proposed solutions, simply because it would be easy to use on the player's end, while also allowing a basic sense of tone, with inflections and whatnot, which tends to be lost over any kind of text-based chat.

[Mofo1995]

I think this is the perfect solution for the question at hand, as I use this sort of formatting all the time in the Discord and would love to be able to use it in game. My second choice would be Delta's suggestion, but this would be fantastic.

[Lucychan42]

Yeah. If this is feasible, it's the optimal solution. Coding might suck, it might not, I don't remotely know how coding works besides simple stuff. I could tell you what a code probably does but as for making it no.

If this is possible and not super hard, it has my full support, as I use Skype and love sprinkling in ** and __ for effects.

[Skull132]

This is by far the easiest. Well, okay, Delta's is the easiest one to code. However, this is also relatively easy when you compare it to the pay-off.

[Guest]

You know, I always thought the purpose of the "one idea per thread" was to prevent convoluted bullshit from going on in a single thread but it turns out that it ends up convincing individuals to make 4 different threads on the same topic. Oh well.

I'm okay with this. It takes a bit of inspiration from how Skype works in formatting, for instance, and by itself it's a relatively simple task.

[Zundy]

Make it happen skull!

Pls

[Skull132]

Also, I'm going to wait until like, next week for this. When we're on BYOND 510 and have regex support natively from DM. This will make coding a parser like this so much easier, as I can just look for specific groups and replace them.

[Carver]

I'm waiting for the inevitable character that speaks entirely in italics.

[Guest]

I'm waiting for the inevitable character that speaks entirely in italics.

 

Uristina Miku says, "Uwa~, konijewa dude-san, what are we gonna do on the bed?"

[witchbells]

I don't know how else to support this other than "I have been wanting this for literal years" but yes. please.