[Bug][Player/Toolkit] Inconsistent display of pack author info

[IchoTolot]

Today we've got a bit of nitpicking.

The pack toolkit suggests under Title (second line):

"by Unknown Author"

In the main menu screen of the pack it is correctly displayed:

"by Unknown Author"

The level select screen however adds another "By" if you click on the pack there:

"By by Unknown Author"

So either:

- Remove the auto addition of the extra "By" in the level select screen. So users can put "by username" in the secondary title field as it is currently displayed.

- Add the addition of the extra "By" in the main menu screen as well. So users can put "username" in the secondary title field. The default display of "by Unknown Author" would need to change to "Unknown Author" then as well.

[Nepster]

Easy fix: I removed the "By" from the level select screen. It seemed preferrable to me to have no "by" in the author field compared to having two of them.

[Simon]

Easy fix: I removed the "By" from the level select screen. It seemed preferrable to me to have no "by" in the author field compared to having two of them.

What do you expect users to put into the field now? With or without "by"?

I push for:
Tell authors to have only "Hans", not "by Hans", in author field.
Title/preview screen should silently discard "by "/"By " at beginning of author string.
Title/preview screen could then prefix the result with "By " if they want.
Remove "by Unknown Author" and add "Unknown Author" as the template entry.

Reasoning:
1. After all, the field is called author. "Hans" is an author, "By Hans" is not.
2. If something is mandatory, don't design the data such that the dat allows for violation of the requirement (no leading "By ").
3. Given that the preview screen has inserted "By " up to NL 12.04, I suppose many people will have put "Hans" into the field anyway, not "By Hans".
4. Avoid language dependency in data wherever avoidable ("by" is English).

I probably should have posted earlier.

-- Simon

[IchoTolot]

3. Given that the preview screen has inserted "By " up to NL 12.04, I suppose many people will have put "Hans" into the field anyway, not "By Hans".

Well, it's the other way around.

As the toolkit had "by Hans" in the author field, people added the "by".

So most packs have "By by Hans" now in the level select screen and "by Hans" in the main menu. Preview screen is uneffected.

[Simon]

All right, I trust Icho about this prevalence of "by Hans" in the data, then the fix is more understandable and produces not as much harm as I expected. But at least Clammings already violates this convention to add "by " manually; its author fields say only "Clam".

I still believe that letting people add "By " is conceptually bad. I still recommend everything from my reply #2, including the silent autoremoval of "by "/"By " when author string is parsed.

-- Simon

[namida]

The author field for a pack and the author field for a level are two seperate fields. This issue applies only to the pack author; there is no problem with level authors (where the data rarely, if ever, contains "by").

[Simon]

Ah, the pack field is "Title (2nd line)" and is not a dedicated author field. Some people put versioning here.

Then keep Nepster's fix from reply #1. I was confused from the wording:

pack author info

the author field

-- Simon

[Dullstar]

If you were to silently autoremove by/By it would probably be wise to create some test levels with some strings such as "Byron" or "Kirby Is Amazing" for author, as improper implementation would result in letters being stripped and could potentially go undetected until someone with the string "by" or "By" in their author name tries to put their name in the author field and finds part of it mysteriously missing.

It is, of course, a trivial problem to solve, but I've seen a lot of crappy filters out there. It is, of course, a cl***ic mistake.

[Simon]

Right, had we decided to auto-cut anything, it should be as unintrusively as possible: "by<whitespace>" and "By<whitespace>" at beginning of line. People would have to have first name exactly "By" to experience harm.

s/^[Bb]y\s\s*//

-- Simon