We're working on the individual post options and are thinking of making some changes, but figured I'd open it up to discussion first.
Right now, if you can quote/reply, you also get the quick quote/quick reply option. So that's 4 buttons right there, and a bit redundant.
The current thought is to combine them. You'd just get a quote button and a reply button that would default to the quick reply area, and then you could switch to the full reply screen if you wanted to from there.
Feedback appreciated.
My take on this, after some recent discussion about it on one of my forums.
Skip reply box at the bottom, which makes people answering the wrong post.
Instead, do an inline popup, or slide out the reply box below the post you're answering to.
By default don't show any extra options, except the editor stuff. Should be configurable by user, at my site this is just saved in a cookie in the same way categories are hidden on the forum list.
Quoting is done by a separate button, which quotes the entire post, or just the marked parts. Quote button can of course be clicked on any number of times.
The full reply screen could still be an option, though it would be exactly the same just on its own page.
An extra editor button to clear the textarea would be a nice help too, especially if quoting the entire post would be the default.
Also, by default, no nested quotes, just the new text written by the poster. Maybe even remove the option to quote the entire post altogether, at least automatically, since it would be completely unnecessary.
On a related note, regarding previews. In "hover" previews, quotes should be removed, it's the new reply that's interesting. It should also not be showing immediately but instead after a delay and not on the entire row, just on some icon. It should also be available on threads when hovering over the "[Re: Rick]" link to the previous post. Previews should also be available on the Watched lists.
