Please can "BBCode is ON" be labelled "Help"?

[plancashire]

Yet another poster has asked how to include pictures. This forum has instructions but few find them because they are unhelpfully labelled.

To the right of the writing window below the smileys is "BBCode is ON". You see the underline if you hover the mouse over it. Who would have guessed that behind this are the instructions for using the forum writing tools? The URL even includes the word "help": app.php/help/bbcode !

I suggest this text is changed to read " Help (BBCode is ON)". The open book emoji draws attention and hints that the text may be clickable. The link should be changed to open in a new window by default: for a beginner discovering that the help replaces the writing page would be very discouraging. The link also needs a "title" attribute to show text on hover.

An even better solution would be to place the help button above the writing window with all the other buttons, preferably on the left end. It would be more likely to be noticed there and a button is obviously clickable. The buttons do have hover text, unlike BBCode.

This may seem like a minor gripe but it isn't. I have studied computer usability and such little things can make a big difference.

[admin]

I'll have a think about this.

Generally I try to minimise changes to the standard phpBB code, to avoid building up technical debt making future updates/upgrades more difficult.

We haven't noticed any problems with people wanting to know how to use BBCode. It's more of an advanced-user type of thing, anyway.

[Morzedec]

Most posters are not 'advanced users', just of 'advanced age!'

[plancashire]

The quote button next to posts is broken, again. I can't use a resource or similar.

admin wrote:
We haven't noticed any problems with people wanting to know how to use BBCode. It's more of an advanced-user type of thing, anyway.

No, you wouldn't notice them because beginners don't know what to ask for. What beginners see is posts with pictures and no obvious way for them to add their own. There is no button above the typing area with all the others that adds an image from my computer.

The only way to discover if beginners are confused is to stand next to them and watch them. They can't explain it to you because they are beginners. As I mentioned, I did study this. I confirm it most weeks in consultation sessions for smartphones - people are hopelessly confused.

Please consider making this one small change for the sake of our beginners. If you are bothered about "technical debt" put in a request to the people who develop this software to fix this UI error. They could usefully add a button to insert an image attachment too.

[plancashire]

Here is more evidence that this is a problem. The fix is simple, as I explained above.

[slowster]

The fix is simple, as I explained above.

I doubt that. The words are in a small font, not very prominent, and unlikely to catch the eye of many users. Until your post, I had never even noted their existence.

I also think the actual guidance linked to is not very good. Instead screenshots highlighting the relevant buttons/tab etc. would be better. Something like that could be done in the form of a post which was then pinned to the top of every board, although we need to keep the number of pinned posts to a minimum. That would avoid the "technical debt" issue. However, even if that were done, lots of people would fail to note the pinned posts, but at least the guidance would be there and new members could be pointed towards the pinned post if they were having difficulties.

If you want to pusue this further, you could take a look at the phpBB forum to see what has been said about the issue there - https://www.phpbb.com.

[plancashire]

An alternative solution to help people understand how to attach images would be to make the "Attachments" tab under the writing area show by default instead of the "Options" tab. This would be more obvious to most people. There is some helpful text in the tab: "If you wish to attach one or more files enter the details below. You may also attach files by dragging and dropping them in the message box". It is not as good a solution as adding a button above because the Attachments tab is below the submit button, which is separate from the editing box. This is a design error.

Others have asked about this. There is no simple configuration option. There is a simple solution: a one-line change to one of the style files. I have looked and can confirm that the solution appears still to be valid in the latest version of the default style. There are more details of cabot's solution here: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2643010 .