The biggest thing I want to vent is that every browser has tiny little bugs. For example, being a gaming website, I have a statistically significant portion of viewers using the PSP and PS3 web browser. It’s based off of the cell phone NetFront browser. Since there’s only a buggy and crash-happy Linux version, and I don’t really want to purchase a game console for the sole reason of using the browser, I have no method of testing it.

While Chrome does have some interesting security features (a new process for each tab), thankfully, it’s just WebKit with a fancy Javascript engine. But that doesn’t stop the fact that I have to test with yet another browser. And while all those neato features would be nice to have, unless Google forces the unwashed IE6 masses to upgrade, it’s completely irrelevant and just adds extra noise to the web development scene.

Also there’s no Mac version so it’s off to happy VMWare land yet again. :/

Anyway, a lot of people have problems with the newlines and how they work. I’ve tried all kinds of things, but none of them work well really. Since I used RedCloth 3, the Ruby parser for Textile, there wasn’t a nice answer. Going without it is impossible, since there’s a legitimate reason to have single breaks. Enabling the official hard breaks on RedCloth 3 caused havoc on quotes and spoiler matocode tags. I eventually settled on an ugly hack.

In comes RedCloth 4. It fixes the line break issue, it’s a C-based extension for extra speed. And it doesn’t have disablers, it’s all or nothing. I have to disable images on the forum because it’s possible to display tasteless images. Not to mention the occasional Goatse hotlink protection. Stuff I really don’t want to be shown on a forum that has members of 12 or less.

However, We offer regular users the ability to post images in certain forums, like the Fan Forum, to show off their artwork. Administrators and moderators like images for various real needs, as well as special permissions allow certain users to post images for various needs. (ie. the runner of the currently running Mafia game.) So the feature disabler had to be easily disabled/enabled.

After a brief email in their mailing list, I manned up and added it myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t know Ragel, or Ruby C Extensions for that matter. It was a long and tough battle, but I defeated the final boss!

RedCloth.new("!image.jpg!",[:disable_inline=>:image]).to_html
#=>"!image.jpg!"

Hopefully — With the feature disabler that I needed — this fixes a lot of problems that have been plaguing the Textile implementation on the forum.

The next step is to port the crappy MatoCode (my implementation of BBCode) to the fancy Ragel system. Things like the [quote] and [spoiler] tags need to have their insides parsed separately from the outside.

• Needed a DVD, so I looked forever to find one.
• Remembered that blank DVDs where in my car, went and got one.
• Burned the iPartition boot DVD.
• It didn’t work.
• Burned it again.
• Didn’t work.
• I realized it might not have drivers for my new iMac, so I tried copying my /System/Library/Extentions over to the DVD, burned another one.
• It didn’t work either.
• I realized I could use my iBook instead while my iMac was in target disc mode.
• Except my iBook would let me put in the DVD I burned. There appeared to be something jamming it. (WTF?)
• So I tried a credit card to unblock it, no dice.
• I had to open up my iBook, but I needed a smallish Allen wrench to open it. I looked everywhere.
• I realized that it too, was in my car, so I went to go get it.
• I took my iBook apart.
• I took the Combo Drive apart. The disc let me put it in, no clue why. I guess it wanted some fresh air inside?
• Put the iBook half-way back together, except I forgot to connect the Combo Drive up again.
• Took it apart, hooked up the Combo Drive, and then put the iBook back together again.
• Booted the iBook with the iPartition boot disc. (It worked fine.)