UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums General Suggestions and Feedback HTML rendering of UBB Code / browser compatibility

Hi,

I have noticed that UBB v8 is still using generic SPAN/DIV elements with CSS formatting for formatting italics, bold and underline. At least in Firefox, the Reader Mode will strip out any and all CSS so this formatting information is lost.

It would be extremely helpful if the rendering engine where to generate proper HTML tags when rendering concepts that can be represented natively in the DOM. It may also help with accessibility / screenreaders.

Do you know if the product team would be open to this change? And if not, if there is a straight forward way to patch this into the forum software on my own (not the preferred option of course)?

Many thanks, Michael

Just to clarify, you're asking us to go the HTML4 approach of hard coding tags versus the HTML5 approach of utilizing CSS for styling?

If so, this is not a change we will be adapting, as it'd be a leap backwards in our standards compliant project. The reason it is set this way is so that interpreters can make use of the CSS and actually do changes on the fly as needed.

You're more than welcome to modify your licensed copy of UBB.threads in any way you desire (short of removing any html credits without proper licensing), but any modifications to the base product are unsupported.

Thank you, Gizmo, for the clarification!

Yes, I agree, <i>, <b>, and <u> should not be used.

From my understanding, using <em> when selecting the italics option and <strong> when selecting the bold option and <blockquote> for quoting however would be in line with modern HTML practices and standards. They are meant to convey semantic information.

The important part to notice here is that the browser's focus/reader mode simply does away with the CSS information and only interprets the HTML. When reading text in a UBB forum via reader mode, this semantic information is then lost (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H49.html)

I believe this would help people using mobile devices as well as people with disabilities.

Thanks, Michael