topic Can we add a warning about posting with nothing in the body of the post in Community Site Feedback

Can we add a warning about posting with nothing in the body of the post

Oldjim — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 08:33:19 GMT

I have noticed a few opening posts where there is a title but no text so I carried out a quick test

Starting a new topic with a title but with nothing in the body doesn't trigger a warning that there isn't anything in the body

Can this be added preferably with a block on posting until it is fixed

Re: Can we add a warning about posting with nothing in the body of the post

w23 — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 08:37:34 GMT

Re: Can we add a warning about posting with nothing in the body of the post

w23 — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 08:38:11 GMT

^ Similar for 'Empty replies' ^ ?

Re: Can we add a warning about posting with nothing in the body of the post

Anotherone — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 08:46:42 GMT

It's now noted elsewhere as well

Re: Can we add a warning about posting with nothing in the body of the post

LouisaMartin — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 11:54:09 GMT

Afternoon everyone

After @jaread83 has sized this change and we have looked at the impact, we have made a decision not to go ahead with this and concentrate the effort needed on another change.

We may come back to this in the future however, at this time, it's off the backlog.

Ta

Re: Can we add a warning about posting with nothing in the body of the post

MauriceC — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 14:33:43 GMT

@LouisaMartin wrote:

We may come back to this in the future however, at this time, it's off the backlog

Not the best decision IMHO, not whilst topics like changing the text on the 'Thanks' button merit having a separate thread

Re: Can we add a warning about posting with nothing in the body of the post

Anotherone — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 17:06:10 GMT

@LouisaMartin wrote:

After @jaread83 has sized this change and we have looked at the impact, we have made a decision not to go ahead with this and concentrate the effort needed on another change.

We may come back to this in the future however, at this time, it's off the backlog.

This makes it sound like it's a change that Jack could implement by JS skinning. Now whilst I can see that there maybe other (more important) tasks that we'd require him to do (first), this is clearly something that should be part of the Forum Software.

So why is it not being referred to Lithium for action?
If it eventually comes to a point where Jack can do something before Lithium do, that's fair enough, but to not even consider that such a basic thing should not be included in the Software by default is some what more than madness.

IMHO this is another example that falls into the same category where you've tried to mark something off as fixed, just because you choose not to do anything about it for the time being, whereas you know I have argued strongly against that (and will continue to do so!).

Re: Can we add a warning about posting with nothing in the body of the post

jaread83 — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 17:45:33 GMT

Actually this is something that I have tried to implement myself (and not have any luck with) but it means trying to have a solution for the rich text editor, quick reply and also the mobile editor. It would make more sense to have the software do it as I am just patching up the tinyMCE editor when it would be better to have the system do this as part of standard form validation. Also, since launch there have been only a handful of empty posts so it would be a fruitless task, wasting half a day to a day to come up with a JavaScript hack. Anyway - if someone really wanted to get around it, they would simply add a single character to get around form validation anyway. We decided not to waste time doing this as there are other things I could better use my time doing. Don't think we are trying to fob you guys off, we have good reasons why we decided not to do this particular enhancement. We will raise it with Lithium tomorrow when I am back in the office and see if we can get some kind of solution. I've used tinyMCE for years and changing the form validation shouldn't be too hard in the backend... A lot easier than me trying to create a hack that's for sure.

Re: Can we add a warning about posting with nothing in the body of the post

MauriceC — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 18:17:03 GMT

Thanks for the honest update Jack. Louisa's earlier reply left little optimism that it would be passed back to Lithium to develop the more general solution.

Passing up to Lithium - good! Waiting for a Lithium response - ah well!

There must be a software developer's version of "The cheque was in the post yesterday"