General Feedback: Rich Text Editor (possibly negative)
From Qualtrics:
- If a post starts out with a hyperlink or an image, the text preview displayed for discussions in a list looks pretty bad. See here. We even have this issue now, and I was hoping this new editor would resolve this. (If a post starts with a hyperlink, it should just show the text of the hyperlink and not any code. If it starts with an image, the image should just be ignored and the preview should just display the next text in the post.) **They use discussion excerpt addon, which a lot of people like, maybe an issue needs to be filed for that**
- Lists still seem quite difficult to do (which is another pain point for us right now that I hoped would be resolved here).
- You can't actually see the bullets or numbering take place until you actually submit the post (which makes writing a post super difficult). The behavior described here doesn't actually seem to be working (not to mention the screenshot shows the bullets and numbers in the editing window and I haven't been able to replicate that).
- We would love, love, LOVE to be able to do sub-bullets and sub-numbering. As you can imagine, for a support community, we provide lots of steps and instructions, so being able to have lists within lists would be a huge win.
- When you "quote" someone, it looks like you no longer have the option to edit the quote to only show certain parts. Yes, it looks like you can collapse the quote (which is nice), but sometimes it is much easier to shorten the quote so people don't wonder what specific part you are responding to.
and two more things (sorry!)...
- It's kind of strange that bulleting and numbering options don't appear in the paragraph tools. I don't think users would intuitively know that numbers and dashes would be automatically changed to bullets and numbering (especially since you currently can't see this in the editor).
- The icon for embedding/inserting media looks much more like an icon for viewing the source code of your post. I'm not sure users would immediately assume the embedding/inserting media functionality.
- Speaking of which, may be a long shot, I would love to be able to edit a post's source code so I could change things like the target of a link or adjust the CSS/HTML myself. :)
Comments
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- Source code showing instead of text is a bug. From the screenshot I'm not certain where that is. Can you get support to hunt down more context there?
- A paragraph level formatting option for lists is planned. It will include buttons to indent and make sublists. Stay tuned. The bullets and numbering mismatch between editing and view is most definitely a theme issue. Perhaps you can also put this through support.
- We made the decision to make quotes non-editable for simplicity and data integrity (editing a quote out of context is a bad community practice). A feature where the user instead selects the text they want to quote first and then quote is planned to handle contextual quotes.
- The embed icon is a bit of a tricky as there isn't really a no-brainer embed icon. We went through many options, but ultimately chose the one we did because many sites use the same or similar icon.
- We won't be ever offering the ability to edit HTML/CSS. The ability to do so is against best practices, and we really want to make sure there are no "hacks" to get around the display of content in the editor. Ultimately, this will force us to continuously iterate on the editor to ensure that it provides the best functionality possible without savvy HTML editors working around deficiencies with source code editing.
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I want to mention one more thing WRT to the sublists. Although we will be offering this feature I find that sublists more often than not are not the best thing to use for the end users reading the content. There is a reason why you don't often see nested lists in professionally made documentation, books, blog posts, etc.
I encourage people that have a giant nested list to instead try converting the first level of the list into headings and then each of those headings can contain a list. This breaks the content up into more easily digestible chunks for the person reading it and is better for accessibility and SEO.
I thought I'd write this little bit to illustrate a key point of the new editor: it is somewhat opinionated on how you should write posts. We did this for simplicity and to ensure that content written in it is as consistent and beautiful as possible.
I do recognize though that some users that are used to doing something a certain way will become frustrated with a new way of doing things that may not be apparent at first. These types of stories are important in helping us decide whether to add features to the rich editor or instead try and educate users about our intended use of the new editor.
My hope is that we can try and tell the users that want something how we intend for it to be used and see if we can change some minds. If we can't then that is also valuable information.
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For what it's worth, Qualtrics said they 100% can't adopt this editor until there's a file upload option. I can't see how any of our technical communities, such as Acer or OpenText could either.
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Good to see detailed feedback from a client!
If a post starts out with a hyperlink or an image, the text preview displayed for discussions in a list looks pretty bad. See here. We even have this issue now, and I was hoping this new editor would resolve this. (If a post starts with a hyperlink, it should just show the text of the hyperlink and not any code. If it starts with an image, the image should just be ignored and the preview should just display the next text in the post.) **They use discussion excerpt addon, which a lot of people like, maybe an issue needs to be filed for that**
Please file an issue for this. The Discussion Excerpt plugin doesn't seem to be accounting for Rich Editor properly.
You can't actually see the bullets or numbering take place until you actually submit the post (which makes writing a post super difficult). The behavior described here doesn't actually seem to be working (not to mention the screenshot shows the bullets and numbers in the editing window and I haven't been able to replicate that).
You filed a bug for this for Bootstrap 3 based themes. Qualtrics theme is based on a Bootstrap 3. I've prepared a fix already and it is with @slafleche as well as a fix for the mention menu on Bootstrap 3 based themes.
The list changes are certainly intended to be included before/for knowledge base.
- New Line Level menu with list included (and a few new options)
- Lists improvements (nesting)
- File Uploads
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There is a reason why you don't often see nested lists in professionally made documentation [...] I encourage people that have a giant nested list to instead try converting the first level of the list into headings and then each of those headings can contain a list
While I agree that is sometimes the case, I believe a sub-list is a very useful tool. I just used one yesterday in our internal docs to break apart some additional thoughts contained in the first point in a list (which I definitely wanted in a list to highlight a relationship between them). Is the sub-list strictly necessary? No, but it makes the point clearer, I think, and avoids needing to repeat the item as a subheading later. There's comprehension value in the structure it provides if you use it deliberately for that.
Another use is a technical checklist. Sometimes demonstrating parent/child relationships in tasks (that should still each be checked off) is a useful thing.
Also, imports. Which is the unsexy utilitarian argument, but it'll be a thing sooner than later, for sure.
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I'm just quoting the above for the example (sorry for the unnecessary ping, Linc!)
When i quote someone, then try and attach media (in this case the URL to an awesome gif) I get NOTHING for this gif: https://media.giphy.com/media/10j1ZRgKdcHIoU/giphy.gif
please note that this seems inconsistent.
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@shaunamcclemens I'm a bit confused. I can see the embedded gif. What's the issue?
Links do not auto transform. You need to hit the enter key after adding your link or use the embed dialogue at the bottom of the editor.
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Interesting. It was definitely blank for me for at least a minute or two, but loaded immediately on a browser window that had just the gif (i.e., I don't think it's my internet).
asdfkdsaljfdklsa
there we go!
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Here is the screencast of the delay that I am seeing:
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trying with adblock turned off
and again
dafjdkajsldfa
hmm why is it stretched...
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Here is the recording of how that looks sans adblock:
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LiveBetterWith had this feedback when trying out the rich text editor on their signature editing page:
We believe we've found a bug when using the Rich Editor with our current theme on the signature page - for reference, I was testing adding a signature for one role/rank of user.
Looks like it's an issue with the theme view for that page and the rich text editor. It tries to load it in, but a required class is missing in the HTML so it stops. I'm not sure there's a way to fix this without having access to the theme view files.
I've included a screenshot below.
We'll have to switch to the advanced editor for the time being, however the rich editor would still be our preferred choice as it has a wider emoji set + a smoother interaction when adding emojis.
Could I ask that this be looked into? And if it's something we're doing wrong on our side please do let us know.
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Bugs can get escalated to support or Adam. For now, we're just getting them filed and we'll prioritize what changes to make for the "final" version that will ship with the KB beta (and include file uploading).
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