Quote overwrites existing reply text

[quantum]

Just noticed this behaviour.

I wanted to insert a quote in the middle of a reply. Pressing the quote button overwrote all text in the reply box with the quote. Not the expected behaviour at all. Is it possible to insert a quote at the cursor location using the quote buttons?

[gtc]

Not sure what you mean. How did you capture the text that you wanted to quote? Did you use the quote popup button that occurs when you select text within a post that you want to quote from?

[quantum]

At the bottom right corner of every post there is a group of buttons:
Quote, Comment, Flag, Like

After typing some text in the reply box, I clicked on the quote button with the green quote icon. That erased everything in the reply box, and replaced it with the quote.

I just tried again on this thread to make sure it was not a one time thing. Same result. Type some text in the reply box, click on the green quote button at the bottom right of a post, existing text in reply box is lost and replaced by the quote.

Did you use the quote popup button that occurs when you select text within a post that you want to quote from?

Actually I never knew about that feature. It did work for this quote though. 😀

[gtc]

OK, now I see what you mean. Yes, when you use that form of quote it seems that the vBulletin forum software expects that it's the first thing you are doing within the reply box and proceeds to re-post the entire text of the quoted post from the start (top left) of the reply box, and overwriting anything that has previously been typed there.

About the only time I use that form of quoting is when I intend to address, or reply to, a number of individual points from the quoted post. Doing so requires editing the re-posted text to remove what is not needed and then putting quote tags around the remaining text via the quote button in the ribbon menu at the top of the reply box.

Otherwise, selectively quoting is far easier using the method that I explained earlier and of which you are now aware.

[Admin]

Quoting in that manner is the same as hitting the Reply button at the top of thread. It starts a new Reply and quotes the entire post. There is a comprehensive entry on quoting in the FAQ here:
How To Reply With Quotes - The Organ Forum.

Recently, the quoting facility has been enhanced with power quoting. This featured article, Easier Post Quoting, has been advertised in the scrolling featured topics banner for several weeks now. You can read the article by either clicking on it in the banner, or by navigating to the Articles section of the Forum by clicking the Articles tab, or this link
Articles - The Organ Forum

There's lots of good information in the FAQ and the Articles section of the Forum that can aid in making one's time on the Forum more productive and enjoyable, but unfortunately, based on view tallies, that go largely ignored and unread.😢

[quantum]

Thanks for the replies. It is just that the behaviour of overwriting existing text was not expected. I read several other forums, clicking the quote button in similar location usually just inserts the quote without overwriting. It would probably be good to add a note in the FAQ about this particular behaviour.

The power quote feature is very useful!!

[myorgan]

Quantum,

It might be that in other Forums, their software isn't up-to-date, thereby risking their clients' security. One of the former versions of the software worked as you described, and even allowed multi-quoting, but that version is long gone.

Thanks for re-visiting this topic.

Michael

[quantum]

I think this is more of an issue of standardized operating procedures rather than updated software. For a long time it has been established across numerous forum software vendors that clicking the quote button does a certain thing. When a change is made, especially a change that involves the immediate destruction of data without warning, it is a cause for concern especially if documentation does not clearly state the change in behaviour.

I am not opposed to the change, and welcome changes that ultimately improve workflow. However, IMO the way it has been deployed into production leaves much to be desired.

[Admin]

Permit me to address some of the comments above before closing this thread.

One may reasonably expect and prefer a certain behavior from an interface, but it is unreasonable to assume that behavior is universal. The Organ Forum software often provides several methods for accomplishing the same end. Some may consider having multiple options for a task to be confusing while others may appreciate its flexibility.

The operational behaviors and features of this Forum are documented in the Forum's FAQ and the tutorials found in the Articles section. The FAQ does say that clicking the Quote button initiates a reply and it, and the tutorial article it references, describe several ways of quoting including how you can insert multiple quotes in a reply, how to use selective quoting, and how to use BBCodes for this purpose. Whether one avails oneself to information provided in these areas is a matter of personal choice, but the information is there for those who wish to access it.

Navigation to the FAQ and Articles sections of the Forum is part of the main menu. An index to the FAQ articles is included in the sidebar on the home page and in the FAQ section itself. Alerts to helpful articles are often included in the scrolling Featured Posts banner on the home page. I feel it necessary to point this out again as the number of views these resources receive is small, and frankly, hardly worth the time and effort it takes me to create them.

I understand the frustration of losing a carefully worded response through an unexpected software error or operational misunderstanding. In fact, there is an article in the FAQ on the how it is often possible to recover this information. In this particular instance, a couple of presses of the undo key on the keyboard would have restored the overwritten information.