A better text editor, on Forum and Blog posts[LIVE]

[Emily]

For Ning Creators and members alike, adding content is an essential part of any Ning Network. When it comes to adding text, the text editor members rely on should be as easy to use as possible. Starting tomorrow afternoon, adding and editing text on Ning will become even easier.

Previously, all text editors on a Ning Network allowed members to add photos, add links and format text. But using those tools produced HTML code that many non-technical Internet users didn't understand. So a few weeks ago, we rolled out a new, WYSIWYG editor to the forum, while still keeping an "HTML" tab so that advanced users could still edit HTML as they always had.

WYSIWYG stands for "what you see is what you get", and it means that when you're doing something like making text bold, you'll actually see bold text, instead of code for <b>bolded text</b>. In the last few weeks, we heard feedback that the WYSIWYG editor wasn't as easy to use as it could be. And so we're rolling out a number of improvements to make it an even better experience editing forum discussions on Ning, while also rolling out this editor to the blog feature:


The major improvements include:

• More space: 400 pixels of vertical space to edit the text, instead of the previous, 160 pixels
• Smaller font: A smaller font, so more text can fit in the text editor
• Resized images: Even though images in the forum and blog can't be any wider than 721 pixels (the full width of the forum and blog), they weren't being resized while editing. Now, any image added wider than 721 pixels will be resized to 721 pixels.
• Edit image: Previously, once you'd added an image to a text editor, you couldn't change the size, alignment or link unless you knew HTML. Now, in "Rich Text" mode, you'll be able re-open the Image dialog.

When working on these updates, we also realized we made an oversight when adding the WYSIWYG editor to the forum. We accidentally omitted the "Options" drop down, which allows you to customize images that you add to text. We've brought back the Options drop down, with rewritten, clearer text and the ability to customize images even if you add them via URL, not your computer.

Here's what it will look like:



All of these improvements should make editing forum discussions or writing blog posts a breeze. And we'll continue to take your feedback and improve text editors in the future.

Copying pasted text

One note about copying text from other programs or Web sites. One of the nice parts of a WYSIWYG editor is that you can copy and paste not just text, but also links, images, tables and more into your forum or blog post. However, when a WYSIWYG editor tries to maintain all those items, the outcome isn't always perfect. If you're looking to paste text and nothing more, try using the "HTML" tab, and no special formatting will be pasted.

You can usually copy and paste content into the WYSIWYG editor with good results, but the "HTML" tab is a good bet if you're just looking to copy only text.

[Mogens Vindbjerg]

Sorry if this has been answered:

But as far as I can see the new editor is like the Notes editor - EXCEPT the options for editing images while uploading. I really would like this options for Notes too... In my head: A small adjustment!!

[Evan]

Hey Mogens!

Though they look and behave similarly, those are actually built using different third-party text editor plugins, so it's not easy to move the features from one to another.

But in the long term, we're going to look at starting from scratch with a top-notch editor and using it everywhere.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Best American Psychics- Shay]

Hello. I'm not sure what I'm missing and I just looked at this topic. I haven't read every page of the replies, but I 've read quite a few. For a couple of weeks now, when I go to post a blog, there are NO options for anything. No text editing capabilities. Like this comment box has the bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, link, and photo options at the top. I see none of that, much less anything else, when I create a new blog post. The only thing I'm able to do is type plain text. This happens on every Ning network I try to post a blog on. What am I missing here?

[Rick Bradford]

The only time you should see nothing is if you used the "Quick Add" feature from the righthand column (but you'll still see the proper editor when you click "More Options").

If you're having this problem when going directly to blogs then something's amiss. The rich text editor is still there. They've set it so it can be removed in admin but if you did that then it'd still revert back to the old editor.

Maybe a browser issue?

[Evan]

Hey Shay!

That's very odd — there's no case in which you should see nothing. Drop us a note in the Help Center and we can investigate why this is happening and how to fix it.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[kennethlawson]

What I tend to do is do the actual creating of the document in Google Doc and copy and paste it into whatever I'm working on, This give me a place to edit and create, before i post it where I want it, More importantly It also gives me a separate place to save everything I write for future reference, in one place. Auto save is nice too..
This works very well when I do my blog.

Ken Lawson

http://kennethlawson.blogspot.com/

[Rick Bradford]

Ken, is the new editor retaining all your formatting and everything when you paste from Google Docs?

[kennethlawson]

I haven't tried it here, It works good in Goggles blogger, Its just way to keep everything in one place, and to give me a good place to create. If you looked at my blog you see when I do write its not just a few sentences and go.
As for trying it here, I'm considering moving everything form blogger to here, and starting over, I'm not sure how blogger is going to translate to here, and thats not even counting changing the url etc, and redirecting he goodle anyicyical, any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Ken

[Tom]

What is the latest on this issue?

From what I understand, the new editor has a lot of problems. (A lot of blog posts on my sites are showing up in a big dark font with no paragraph breaks)

Ning says they are working on a new editor.

In the mean time, we can go to manage>feature controls and switch back to the simple editor. Is this the same editor we had before or is it a really stripped down editor with only text controls?

Do we know when a new editor will be ready for launch?

[Evan]

Hey Tom,

You've pretty much summed up where we're at. The current WYSIWYG editor works, but there are some issues with it. If you're not comfortable with those issues, you can switch back to the old editor.

We're working on a new editor, but that's a long-term project — it's not going to be in the short term.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Rick Bradford]

Out of curiosity, if the new forum editor and blog editor are the same (I think they are anyway) why is it they don't behave the same? The forum editor seems to be working exactly as it should. Is it just a matter of how well they play with the different Ning modules?

[Evan]

Hey Rick!

They are the same. If you notice any differences, could you let me know what they are?

/Evan
Ning Product Manager