Currently, macros are unconditionally printed in comments.
Some users (expression generally used to mean 'I' but with a willingness to hide in the crowd) don't want to display macro, as they annoy them or threaten their esthetic balance.
An user-level option should so exist to print macro raw calls instead of expanding it.
Added Wikimedia project per Bug 42467 - "Zarro Boogs found" is unhelpful (of course, this is a pretext, the truth is I don't want to see images on the Phabricator instances I use).
I think adding an option like this is probably the right product choice, despite the fun-hating involved.
Maybe we could design a "compact" macro view, like:
+-------+------------------+ | Small | whatcouldgowrong | | Thumb | | +-------+------------------+
This could preserve some of the spirit of macros and avoid confusion while presumably appeasing the fun-haters.
Cost/benefit of the "compact" macro view seems pretty low for me:
I don't really see the point to force someone not willing such images to see small ones because it's better than big ones...
And I beg to differ: we'd already preserve some of the spirit of macros with a substitution by a textual (like :whatcouldgowrong: for example) syntax. It could even make someone who likes the idea of the presence of a fun but doesn't like the actual image content smile.
people who suffer from them will still be tortured by the compact view.
So any image at all, even if small and non-animated, is torturous to you?
It's actually surprising to me it took this many years for someone to ask for this feature.
people who suffer from them will still be tortured by the compact view.
So any image at all, even if small and non-animated, is torturous to you?
No, of course not, the UI images are totally acceptable, and there are an infinity of lovely images in the world. I reviewed the ones available on this installation, :pretentiousmeme: qualifies as a nice picture. And for some (the Mario mushroom, maybe the hats too), the adjective torturous is clearly overstated.
But for virtually any stylized, humor intended, featuring humans in drawing or photos or other stuff found in memes, yes.
When I point to cost/benefit, the cost seems to be the maintenance of an image manipulation code in the long term (extract first frame, generate thumbnail, test and add more formats in the future if stuff like APNG becomes standard).
I'd recommend uninstalling the Macro application if you have an install where "some users" find some macros torturous at any size.
The possibility to deinstall macro application (or more easily: simply by not uploading stuff) is probably why it has never been requested.
But that's exactly the advantage of a preference: to make this an user setting and not an install setting...
And by the way, I'm volunteer to code that.
I'm slightly annoyed by your block of this preference idea, when words like Clowncopterize (something apparently appreciated in early Phabricator reviews) disappeared.
I'm slightly annoyed by your block of this preference idea, when words like Clowncopterize (something apparently appreciated in early Phabricator reviews) disappeared.
The possibly missing context here is "clowncopterize" and other silly text yielded many complaints while this is the first we've heard of macros being annoying such that they should have a per user preference like this. Further, it was actually a blocker to getting entire companies to adopt for a small time, so we added serious business mode very early on and learned a lot early and often about the "badness" of that piece of humor, which is ultimately subjective, but I digress. With a heavy heart we eventually made the change, even though we think its important the tools are as fun as possible...
Otherwise, I'm a generally into "less is more." Here's a fancy quote I like about that --
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
We're lucky because our tools are for highly technical users; we can have all sorts of stuff and not confuse our users necessarily. That said, I still think its important to carefully design all our products to have minimum cruft and maximum utility within what we offer.
Taking a step back, I'd guess annoying macros can be handled as a social problem for many - the next comment can be "this macro is funny but annoying so stop it." For other problem cases, I'm also thinking permissions around creating macros could possibly be enhanced if there is an issue with new / random users making junk macros and using them. Perhaps there are actionable, agreeable things to do there? Otherwise, I think uninstalling the app feels pretty powerful if an entire set of people just annoy one another.
permissions around creating macros
Oh, that's a good point -- creation is currently configurable (Applications > Macros > Help/Options > Edit Policies > Can Manage Macros) if you want to institute a Macro Arbitration Council that only permits the creation of artistic, aesthetic macros.
The cost of having an option is also the major issue here, not the technical implementation cost. Options have a huge long-term cost, primarily by making testing and support harder. The high cost of options is a big part of the reason why we removed "Clowncopterize" completely rather than leaving it as a setting.
It's not worth it to us to add an option to do something that you can already very nearly do by uninstalling the application. Between uninstalling and creation policies, we think you have reasonable tools to solve this as a social problem.