Subj : Re: In the future..
To   : August Abolins
From : Jay Harris
Date : Mon Jun 08 2020 08:45 am

On 07 Jun 2020, August Abolins said the following...
 
 AA> Who says that it has to be purely text based?  The front-end can have  
 AA> icons that represent different BBSes or different echos.  Maybe even the
 AA> icons can be user-selected for their liking.

 AA> Browsing through messages can be point-and-click. Many FTN interfaces  
 AA> already support clickable links to external sites.  But replies would  
 AA> still require the traditional text input.

If we wanted to introduce images into the actual content, we could use Reddit
as an example.  Before their redesign, Reddit didn't host any of their own
images.  They just used other hosting platforms such as imgur & giphy and
linked to the content.

If FTN adopted some of Reddit's ideas, like using markdown for linking &
images along with a half decent mobile and/or web app, that would be a huge
step forward to modernizing the technology.

Depending on the Reddit client you used it would either just show you the
link, which you could then click on, or some would just show the image inline.

Legacy systems would still be able to read the messages as markdown doesn't
look that bad in text:

[link](https://www.fidonet.org)
[funny comic](https://i.imgur.com/LEqPg7z.jpeg)

Unless of course you had a really long and ugly URL, in which case maybe we
could implement a URL shortener of sorts to keep the messages readable.

I think this method may be a lot better than allowing file attachments in
echo areas for media for a variety of reasons.

Reddit's markdown is quite easy to use, and since their re-design they've
incorporated it into their "fancy-pants" editor, so the "normals" don't need
to learn how to use it:

https://www.reddit.com/wiki/markdown

The spoilers code is a relatively recent addition.

Jay

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/32)
 * Origin: Northern Realms BBS | bbs.nrbbs.net | Binbrook, ON (1:229/664)

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