Text Editor Changes Now Out of Ning Labs

[Eric Suesz]

I wanted to let you know about a change to the text editor that we've been working on. As we've noted in the past, we've been making incremental changes to the text editor based on feedback from people right here on Creators. The most recent change, which Evan talks about here, was to give you more control over the space between lines of text. 

This change, which has been available as a beta release in the Ning Labs section of your dashboard, is now live for all networks. Our goal has been to provide you with as many options as we can with this change, and you'll find that you can have a lot more control over the text editor. Here's a few things that you can do now...

Adjustable paragraph spacing

You can now change you Ning Network's paragraph spacing with a knob in the "General" section of Design Studio. If you're still using the Appearance Editor, you can make this change in that location, too.
Set paragraph spacing to 100% — our recommended setting — and you'll have a proper, full line between each paragraph when text is created in the editor's visual mode. If you prefer having to hit return twice (instead of once) to create a new paragraph, set the knob to 0%, and new paragraphs won't have any space automatically added between them. Each time you hit return, you'll see a full empty line.

This change will affect existing content on your Ning Network, so you may end up deciding on a setting somewhere in between that looks right to you.

Changes to line breaks

Earlier this summer, we added a control  that allowed you to have text added in HTML mode converted to <p> tags. The problem was that it was converting every single line to <p> tags, even for lines that were part of the same paragraph — which would add spacing around those lines, when it didn't exist originally. That problem has been fixed, and now all blocks of text added in either Visual or HTML mode will be appropriately wrapped in <p> tags. Lines that have a "soft return" (similar to hitting Shift + Return in Microsoft Word) will get a <br /> tag, so they will still visually appear as part of the same paragraph.

HTML editor changes

The HTML editor has always been somewhat of a hybrid. While it's supposed to be for HTML-proficient users, we've also tried to make it easy for anyone to use. Specifically, we've tried to preserve all line breaks added in HTML mode.

This actually caused more problems than it solved, and ended up creating a lot of bugginess with the editor. So, while you will still be able to type paragraphs into HTML mode, extraneous line breaks will be ignored. So if you are in HTML mode and actually want 5 lines of space between two paragraphs, you'll need to enter the HTML code to do that, or go to Visual mode — where it is actually supposed to be "What you see is what you get". So, to recap, a single line break separating paragraphs will look fine, but a bunch of extras spaces will be tossed out.

This is much more in line with how other editors work around the web.

Our hope is that these changes will provide a more standardized, professional look for your network — and make working with the text editor easier and more intuitive. Many thanks for your feedback about these changes while these changes were in beta. We know that not all Network Creators want to dig into the details of line spacing and HTML code, but for those who did, your input was extremely valuable in helping us improve the text editor.

[AMZ]

Sweet love this lol 

[Emmanuel Ace]

Nice

[sho allan]

so nice :D

[Manuel France]

Honnestly,

It is awful for html!!!

I'm working on a test network ad all my html work is going crazy if I just re-open any text box......................

<p> & </p> & <br/> everywhere it won't be possible to work like that

[Phil Blackman]

I agree it is horrible change it back

[Phil Blackman]

say I Paste in A code such as <object classid="Player" width="475" height="281" codebase="http://go.notning.com/plugin/BrowserPlugin.cab"> <param name="custommode" value="none" /> <param name="previewImage" value="JPG-URL" />
<param name="autoPlay" value="false" />
<param name="src" value="VIDEO" />
<embed type="video/divx" src="VIDEO" custommode="none" width="475" height="281" autoPlay="false" previewImage="JPG-URL" pluginspage="http://go.notning.com/plugin/download/"> </embed> </object>
When I add the actual player i designed nothing appears like with the old editor, which displayed my video thumb via the jpg url and the video via the file url .The file could be streamed /could originate from wherever i wanted it to such as a server of my own ..... hope u understand what i am trying to relay here....

[Gord Zaretzki]

Too many changes to a site means faster loading times for slower computers (if those with fast computers even care! haha). The Peoplestring site and Facebook apps are the worst by way of example. With too many 'upgrades' it just means more glitches.. a personal pet peave of mine: Why can't 'good enough' be good enough? In other words, 'If it works leave it alone!' ;)

[Star-Dust]

[Eric Suesz]

That's one way to look at it, Gord. However, there are many thousands of our customers who ask us to do the opposite: move forward to try and meet evolving web standards, make changes to accommodate how people tell us they want it to work, and improve the platform incrementally. My estimate is that for every person who tells us they wish we wouldn't have changed anything in the last four years, there are probably 50 people who wish we had done more. 

[Jouni Sakari Kemppinen]

 

[Evan]

Gord,

This release does not affect page load times.

/Evan

[Riccardo Rossini]

Great !!