RE: Do you need to run a full node on localhost to make something like chainBB?
Heh, looks like you've started finding your way into it, that's awesome :)
For something like chainBB - a local node is almost necessary if you're indexing the entire chain into some form of alternative indexer. As I build chainBB, I'm doing so locally via 4 docker containers, on my macbook, none of which are steemd, and they all connect remotely to a steemd instance running on the internet. It never catches up and always falls behind, since it takes longer than 3 seconds after each block to do any follow up queries needed (like reloading an the rshares on a post) when going to a public node.
I used to run steemd on my laptop and the indexers could keep up - but it's too much of a resource hog for even the best macbook now.
My plan right now is to actually build a small server, load it up with 128GB of RAM and some SSDs, hopefully in a super small case, and keep a copy of the steem blockchain running locally on my home/office network for development of chainBB. There's nothing worse than testing a UI feature (like an upvote) locally, and not seein the changes because your data's lagged behind :)
Do you use any specific kind of script to convert posts to html, i mean i now use showdown to convert markdown to html but that doesn't turn urls into anchor tags and urls that are images into img tags.
Or have you written that part yourself instead of using a already by someone written thing?
Honestly I copied the Markdown previewer that steemit.com uses. The automatic linking for links and image links to images is something they added on top of markdown and isn't standard. Here's where most of the magic in their code happens:
https://github.com/steemit/condenser/blob/master/shared/HtmlReady.js
I actually wish that stuff wasn't in there, I think if someone wants to make something a link... they should make it a link.
Thanks