What's in your dream text editor?

[Evan]

Hey everyone,

We're in the early stages of working on a revamped text editor. If that sounds familiar, it's because we recently rolled out a new text editor your Ning Network's blogs and forum discussions:

However, it became clear the text editor we implemented had a lot of limitations, namely that it doesn't handle text as well as it should (both text that's written in the editor and text pasted in) and it's very difficult to add buttons to "HTML" mode.

We're looking at starting fresh, with a new editor, instead of continuing to customize and debug the current one. We want to hear from you — what do you want in a text editor? What's important to you? What buttons or tools do you rely on, of those that are there today and those that aren't.

This project may take a while, but we want to get your input now while we're in the planning phase.

Thanks!
Evan

[Tim]

Hi Evan,

Ideally, I'd like a three-tab editor. The default would be wysiwyg but with the toolbar much as the original editor (old version, not the recent one) with two additions - a button for embedding media, and automatic 10px padding for aligned images. A lot of members are put off by more bells and whistles than this.

The second tab would be a full-featured editor, based on Janettee's suggestions, and the third, HTML.

I'd personally prefer leave out anything which can easily be browser-based like a spell-checker (too complicated with multiple languages).

[Thiago Santos de Moraes]

Great sugestion Tim (but I prefer a tab with the old editor like it is now, without additions).

[Zohra]

I like the editor JP was suggesting, with lots and lots of features :)

Maybe for regular members this would be a bit overwhelming, but, truly, they will get used to it in time.

Here in Holland we have similar systems, to NING, and they all have really advanced WYSIWYG editors, and members love it.

I think we should no be afraid to overwhelm members with it, i think, in time, they will start to play with all the options this editor has to offer and see the benefits of it!

One suggestion, IF ning decided to implement a really advanced editor, please, do not only implement this for the actualy forum or blog topic, but also in the REPLIES... so, NO different editors, but make them THE SAME, because TWO different editors just ís confusing for regular members. They just don't understand why they cán just PASTE content as it is in a forum or blog, but not in a reply to videos, forums or blogs / events.

These are my 2 cents ;)

[Tim]

Zohra,

Maybe for regular members this would be a bit overwhelming, but, truly, they will get used to it in time.....I think we should no be afraid to overwhelm members with it, i think, in time, they will start to play with all the options this editor has to offer and see the benefits of it!

Based on my experience with my membership here, much as I'd like to, I just don't agree. Many of my members really aren't as computer savvy as one might expect. But I'm all for giving people much greater options at the flick of a tab.

You're right about consistency through the network, though.

[Jen]

Evan, as promised, and for what my thoughts are worth ;-) - - I went through the WYSIWYG Editor on the Ning Directory (TinyMCE), removed a lot of unnecessary elements, and this is what was left. I tried to make the image buttons line up, in the same order as my bulleted list. I really thought this through. Hopefully I didn't miss anything. If I did, I'm sure someone will add to my comments.

• Preview (Rich Text) / HTML View
• Font Attributes: Bold, Italics, Underline, Strikethrough
• Layout Formatting: Left, Center, Right, Justified
• Text Tag Selector: Paragraph, H1, H2, etc... - - and classes specific to Ning like .xg_module_head h2. This would rock!
• Font Family: Web-safe fonts.
• Font Size & Font Color
• Insert/Edit Images: Also, enable attach Link (hyperlink) to selected image.
• Cut, Copy, Paste
• Find, Find & Replace
• Bullet Lists: Plain and Numbers
• Indent: Left and Right (especially for sub-li or sub-bullets)
• Undo and Redo Arrows
• Insert HyperLinks: Insert Link and Un-Link, and most especially enable selection of text, and attach link to selected text.
• Insert Horizontal Rule
• Insert Tables: Tables would be nice for Beginners, in lieu of DIVs.

 

[Roby]

I like :-)

[Jen]

Nice Charles. I can't disagree with one line for sure. I was just in a hurry, and removed the icons from my Editor bar for example.
;-)

[Thomas Mitchell]

This is nice and elegant. How can we handle image padding?

[Thiago Santos de Moraes]

Good, but we also need the justify recourse for paragraphs.

[Verna D]

Great job Jen & Charles! Jen your WYSISYG editor is assume I love your tips, now if I can find them all and bookmark them lol.

Charles is that a media player icon?

Evan, I would love to be able to put a mp3 link player in my posts like on WordPress ;)

[Jen]

Thanks Mark! :-)
To be honest about this, it doesn't matter to me at all. I will continue to code by hand and use my Development Editors.

I just wanted to contribute to the conversation, since I told Evan I would.

Have a great weekend,
Jen

[Valerie]

I'm not as advanced as you all so the more user friendly the editor is the easier it is for me. I add images to my text a lot and would find it very helpful if you could also add a hyperlink to the images just like you do text. Also there are issues with things lining up after you hit the save button. I have to go back in and re-edit it every time. It looks correct before I save then is all out of whack after wards...

Having a Video embed would be great too so I wouldn't have to move into the HTML format to post it. I will say though I have copied and pasted a video directly from a picture of it and the editor picked up the code and posted it before...

Also changing the fonts and sizes would be wonderful...