Spoiler short-cut

[red_squared]

Title:
Spoiler short-cut

Area:
Entries

Summary:
Coding a html short-cut for having the same colour for background and text.

Description:
Requesting a html short-cut for spoiler text. That is, being able to mark up [spoiler] SPOILER GOES HERE [/spoiler] (or something similar) and having it post with the same colour background as text so that the spoiler must be highlighted to be read.

A nifty version of the code exists, which I understand makes hiding spoilers in this way effective for people who use screen-reading software as well. The link for the code is: http://amadi.dreamwidth.org/40143.html

Thanks!

- E

Poll #870

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
16 (32.0%)

Should be implemented with changes.
9 (18.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
24 (48.0%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (2.0%)

Comments

[susanreads]

I think this is a great idea, but it might be difficult to implement, because no one colour will fit all styles, and you'd need unique anchor-text for each spoiler stripe.

[zvi]

At this point, spoiler text done by color change does not work with the iPhone browser, and I'm not sure how/whether it works on other mobile devices. I think Dreamwidth should investigate more global solutions before implementing something like this.

If we go ahead and implement now, my information is that black background/black text is most effective for the Mac OS, which has real problems with white/white. I suggest we make it black/black with a white border, so even people with black backgrounds can see there's spoilers.

[ninetydegrees]

Even if this is something I have used myself, I don't see the point of implementing a feature which would only interest the fannish portion of the userbase.

[lassarina]

I'm not sure I'd agree that it only interests the fannish portion of the userbase. Say that Average Jane goes to see New Blockbuster Movie, and wants to talk about her reactions to it--she might use spoiler coding since her good friend Average Bob hasn't seen it yet. I know plenty of people who are not fannish, who have used spoiler/concealed text in their entries.

[ninetydegrees]

You're right and I should have mentioned that I've used it myself for non-fannish purposes but I was trying to think of a context where you would need this more often than on a once-in-a-while basis and couldn't use a cut tag instead and, well, I could only think of fanfic posts.

[adalger]

Contexts include NSFW text ("dirty words"); punch lines for "Think about this *then* read the answer" jokes, riddle answers, and the like; various types of guessing games (or possibly "Try to guess my answers to this meme-thingy"); anything where you want people to have to make a conscious and deliberate decision to read a particular short word or phrase. I would think fan / fanfic / spoiler contexts would be more suited to cuts anyway, because fen post long things. ;)

[ninetydegrees]

I would think fan / fanfic / spoiler contexts would be more suited to cuts anyway, because fen post long things.

It's used to hide warnings or notes about possible triggers.

[yvi]

Yes, it is. And my first reaction to this is to ask "So?".

I don't think I get your point. It could be used for any number of things, as lassarina and adalger said, including things that can be useful for the fandom-based community. Could you explain why you think this is that a bad thing? We have lots of features that only a portion of the user-base uses, and this definitely wouldn't be one that is only useful for one subgroup.

(I voted against it, for technical reasons, mostly. I just don't see why making a feature which might be a bit more useful for one group than for another is a bad thing.)

[ninetydegrees]

I didn't say it was a bad thing and I didn't speak of groups in general and I didn't say lassarina and adalger didn't have a point but I haven't seen it regularly used for anything but fanfic warnings so, in my experience this is something that is typically fannish. And yes, I don't think DW should implement stuff specifically for fannish people because that's not what DW is about, as denise has said several times. (Sorry if I'm not expressing what she said correctly). That doesn't make it "bad" or something I would have a problem with. That simply makes it something I do not wish developers to spend their time on because I don't think it would benefit me and I don't think it would benefit other users in general. This is only my assessment of the situation and I believe that, when we answer the polls, that's what we're asked. That's how I interpret it, anyway.

[kyrielle]

NSFW text will still trigger the filters that IT has, though, so really one shouldn't view that at work. I hear you on the others, though.

[azurelunatic]

I wouldn't call it "spoiler"; I'd call it "concealed text", which would make it more conceptually accessible to people outside of fandom.

[msilverstar]

I like the idea of "spoiler" or "concealed" text, and the advantage of doing it on a system level would be that it would know what the foreground and background colors were, and could make sure the concealed text has enough contrast to be seen.

However, I just realized that it's yet one more thing that RSS feeds have no provision for. Darn.

[pauamma]

I'm not sure offhand what this does that a cut doesn't also do. (eg, is it ease of use, or does it have use cases of features that cut doesn't cover atr all?)

[snakeling]

You don't need to load another page to access the hidden content. That may not seem like much, but when your connection is spotty, it's already a lot :)

Also, it works on entry pages, not just on reading pages.

[triadruid]

I pretty much agree here - warnings of spoilers/triggers are generally sufficient in my experience, and avoid the massive hassle of making sure a 'tag' works in all styles, browsers, mobile devices, etc....

[zvi]

it keeps the concealment if one is linked directly to the entry, as opposed to viewing it from an aggregated entries view.

[eos_rose]

This is possible using customized css. I do something similar in one of my journals. I just identify the spoiler using a "class" or "id" and make sure to specify that class or id in any css layout I implement.