The fix requires filtering for links that start with http:// before interpreting the “Textile” markup format. So it ends up seeing a Textile marked-up image link that looks something like… !<a href="http://example.com/image.jpg">! … which is wrong for Textile.
The simplified syntax for links or images may have varying results… but writing them as regular HTML consistently works. And I greatly appreciate the way the forum allows HTML in posts; it can really make a huge difference in how expressive the posts can be.
I treat BLF’s Textile (simple post editor) format as basically the same as HTML, except that newlines get converted to <br /> tags so it’s not necessary to manually put in all the paragraph or linebreak tags. And I don’t need to remember yet another markup language in order to post here, since I can just use standard HTML. Oh, and the Textile quote tag… I use that one too. Very useful.
Most comments are fine with no extra markup, or with only images and links, maybe even light use of italic or bold. These are all pretty simple in HTML. It’s nice having the option to get fancier though, on occasion.
But seriously, Drupal isn’t primarily intended as a forum platform. It’s a complex, full-featured web app framework originally designed as a content management and publishing system, and it just happens to have a forum module which can be plugged in. It’s very … complicated. Some things are easy to change or fix, others are a bottomless rabbit hole, and it’s not easy to predict which will be which.
At least they’re not on the latest new drug. They call it being “on rails”.
Okay, Ruby on Rails isn’t really so bad. Clever design, and spurred some useful discussions elsewhere in its field. It’s just led by a rather, um, opinionated developer whose official stance toward everyone except himself is a phrase which violates BLF’s policy on obscenity.
Dangit, I’m doing it again. Off-topic rambling. I thought I was getting better about that. Maybe the time tracker thingie I just made will help me avoid these things.
Some people ramble and what you come away with from reading their posts is not a whole lot of anything interesting. But I don’t recall that ever happening with your posts. Maybe for someone with zero interest in linux or programing. But they’ll live! Some of the best stuff I’ve read on BLF has been completely off-topic. Off-topic is not evil here. Don’t feel the need to avoid “rambling”.