Preview Post button

[Barkley]

Can we have a dedicated preview post button please?

Please don't dismiss the request by telling me about the wysiwyg. That 'is not' a preview button and is not working well in I.E.

Also please make visual default, or allow the admin have the option to make the change in the panel.

[Ryan Roos]

Sorry, but that's a no.

I won't tell you that the visual editor is a preview. I will tell you that's exactly what I am told when bringing this up.

I will bring it up again at our staff meeting, yet again. But honestly I wouldn't get your hopes up.

This isn't something I control, please don't think this is me just stonewalling you. This is just fact.

Wish me luck.

[Barkley]

Apr 9, 2013 6:29:36 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

Sorry, but that's a no.

I won't tell you that the visual editor is a preview. I will tell you that's exactly what I am told when bringing this up.

I will bring it up again at our staff meeting, yet again. But honestly I wouldn't get your hopes up.

This isn't something I control, please don't think this is me just stonewalling you. This is just fact.

Wish me luck.

Thanks Ryan.

I don't think for a moment that you would do that mate, and always appreciate staff response, but could you show them the following?

It's a post from another debate about this subject.

All the best.

Example:

I want to quote a paragraph from another website, so I copy the paragraph like so:

Immediately after pasting, you can see that any line breaks in the original are ignored by your editor:


OK, so we can accept that our editor is not the same size as the Wiki page, and as such may be different once pasted in to our editor, but, it still should recognise 'line breaks'. We accept that the paragraphs may be different widths, and therefore we might end up with more, or less, lines per paragraph, depending upon the editors width, and also the size of the viewers screen, but line breaks are nothing to do with width.

So, let's edit what we have in our Proboards editor:

As you can see, I've now taken the time to get all the paragraphs nicely separated, and all looks presentable again in your 'wysiwyg' editor.

Even as I write this, I can't actually see how the finished article will look with the images, as I have no preview, unless I select all, copy, and press BBCode, and then press Visual again (this is another example of why we  need a preview button).

So, pleased with my presentation, and happy that all paragraphs are in order, I press submit.

Oops, it seems our wysiwyg has yet again let us down, as once again, there are inconsistent line breaks. Did I not just take the time to add them?



So, we go to edit our post once again, but when we press edit, our wysiwyg editor is telling us that the line breaks are there.



No Mr WYSIWYG, they are not there, because WYSIWYG is flawed.

If I am to get the presentation right, I now have the job of trying to remember where all the various line breaks need to be, 'BECAUSE I CAN'T PREVIEW ANYTHING'.

Also, at this point, I should point out that when I try to highlight anything with my mouse, (in this very post) after adding a lot of content, it is extremely difficult, so when I try to make anything I write bold, or change the colour I can't, unless I happen to be pc literate (unlike many members I may have) and use the shift and arrow keys.

So, how do I get around it?

So far, the only way I have found is to create '2 line breaks' separating each paragraph. So once again, I re-edit, and add the 2nd break.

At this point, I need to point out that if I press 'select all' and try to copy my work, the highlighted selection loses the highlight when I right click to access the copy button, and I am unable to copy (in this very post, here on Proboards)

So now, I have added 2 line breaks.

At this point, I should point out that select all / copy has started working again (in this Proboards post), as has the highlight. Why the stop and start?

WYSIWYG is supposed to give me what I see, is it not?

Well, it doesn't. Because as you can see, I now have one line separation in my line breaks; and ...... err ....... occasionally 2.

Oops, I spoke to soon. I can't highlight yet again.

So, to summarize:

If you write everything out yourself, without pasting anything, you 'might just' get what you want from wysiwyg (the reason your staff think all is ok when they test) as their tests are generally small sentences and lines, not complete articles, but, if you want to use your editor to add pictures, you can't preview, and if you want to paste anything else into the editor, it won't give you a wysiwyg, and instead become an editorial nightmare, as shown above.

I could keep editing my original post until I get it right, by which time the news becomes 'yesterdays news', and any members I may get who won't have the same patience as I, will no doubt look at the BBCode as default, and think "What on earth is this?" and submit posts that are presented in the style of a blind illiterate author with the shakes.

(I wanted to copy the word illiterate and paste it into Google to spell check, but your editor won't let me)

I've been using the Internet for as long as most here, and have had the pleasure of hundreds of forums during that time, but never have I had this problem, because on all the other forums, I could 'preview' anything before submitting it ..............................

But heck, what you see is what you get seems to be the response here, as though we are all silly for even suggesting it might not work properly. The editor is 'THE' most important bit of any forum, yet the stubborness of Proboards to offer a simple preview button is simply puzzling.

Again, at this point, I 'select all' and try to write click / copy, before submitting, in case the forum / Internet loses my work, and the right click loses the highlight.

By the time I wrote the above quoted line, it was working again.

Please take my post as helpfully intended, and not critisism.

[Ryan Roos]

Still haven't had our meeting.

I can tell you that most of your issues stem from the fact that you are copy and pasting content. Even if we add a dedicated preview button the issue above isn't going to change at all. You would just be mad that the preview button isn't matching what you were typing in the Visual Editor. Though the Preview would literally render how a post would, so as long as you're fine continuing to edit your post.

If you were typing a post and entering the line breaks yourself you wouldn't have any issues. There are different types of breaks and they are registered differently by different things. When you copy content directly from another source like that you are copying (and not copying) certain formatting. There's no right way to detect and use certain types of line breaks in the manner that is happening.

My big suggestion to solve your problem 99% of the time isn't a preview button. It's BBCode. You should be pasting any copy and pasted content into the BBCode editor. Format it how you wanted just like you would in v4 and then preview it in the Visual Editor. That is the equivalent of v4. What you're doing is more akin to taking a Word document and copy pasting the content into Cassiopeia on a mac. It's not one to one. They aren't identical. There's to many little differences to account for. It will be close. Just like what you're pasting is close. But the hidden formatting you can't see is what is breaking. If you paste in BBCode that won't be a problem. The formatting is stripped out. Then you format it how you want it formatted.

This seems to be more of a process issue instead of a software issue. Do things like you did them in v4. If you paste from one visual type editor to another you're gonna have a bad time. Take your wiki and paste it into Word or Notepad, or paste it into Wordpress, or Facebook, or Twitter. You're gonna have different problems on all of them. Because everything is different. So the best thing to do is strip it down to the content and then format it yourself. Those breaks that are appearing or disappearing aren't. They are or aren't there respectably.

Even with all of the above, I'm still going to have the discussion about the preview in our meeting. But be aware you're problem won't change, even if we do. Though maybe the way you perceive editing a post will change as a result. You need to alter how you're doing things in either scenario.

Also I think you might be able to understand why we might not be super concerned about making sure content copied form other sources has to work perfectly. Odds are copied content doesn't belong to the person copying it and we aren't going to facilitate that. We built our system to work for people composing new content, and it does. That being said I just explained to you how to better format your content.

[Ryan Roos]

Just a side note.

There is a huge list of updates that just got made to the Visual Editor. They aren't even live yet (meaning not on your forum). We are still in Beta. It's entirely possible that some of these updates could fix what's happening with your pasting... or not. Like I said you might want to adjust your habits to be more in line with v4 and the method used then.

[Barkley]

Apr 9, 2013 6:53:32 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

Still haven't had our meeting.

I can tell you that most of your issues stem from the fact that you are copy and pasting content. Even if we add a dedicated preview button the issue above isn't going to change at all. You would just be mad that the preview button isn't matching what you were typing in the Visual Editor. Though the Preview would literally render how a post would, so as long as you're fine continuing to edit your post.

If you were typing a post and entering the line breaks yourself you wouldn't have any issues. There are different types of breaks and they are registered differently by different things. When you copy content directly from another source like that you are copying (and not copying) certain formatting. There's no right way to detect and use certain types of line breaks in the manner that is happening.

My big suggestion to solve your problem 99% of the time isn't a preview button. It's BBCode. You should be pasting any copy and pasted content into the BBCode editor. Format it how you wanted just like you would in v4 and then preview it in the Visual Editor. That is the equivalent of v4. What you're doing is more akin to taking a Word document and copy pasting the content into Cassiopeia on a mac. It's not one to one. They aren't identical. There's to many little differences to account for. It will be close. Just like what you're pasting is close. But the hidden formatting you can't see is what is breaking. If you paste in BBCode that won't be a problem. The formatting is stripped out. Then you format it how you want it formatted.

This seems to be more of a process issue instead of a software issue. Do things like you did them in v4. If you paste from one visual type editor to another you're gonna have a bad time. Take your wiki and paste it into Word or Notepad, or paste it into Wordpress, or Facebook, or Twitter. You're gonna have different problems on all of them. Because everything is different. So the best thing to do is strip it down to the content and then format it yourself. Those breaks that are appearing or disappearing aren't. They are or aren't there respectably.

Even with all of the above, I'm still going to have the discussion about the preview in our meeting. But be aware you're problem won't change, even if we do. Though maybe the way you perceive editing a post will change as a result. You need to alter how you're doing things in either scenario.

Also I think you might be able to understand why we might not be super concerned about making sure content copied form other sources has to work perfectly. Odds are copied content doesn't belong to the person copying it and we aren't going to facilitate that. We built our system to work for people composing new content, and it does. That being said I just explained to you how to better format your content.

I agree with your points Ryan, but I tested on other forums to be sure.

One paste, one edit, one preview, and one submit was the result. The initial paste didn't recognise original line breaks either, but a simple edit, preview, and submit was all it took.

Folk don't like 'edit signatures' in their posts as you know, especially as on a busy forum, they can be quoted before they have the chance to re-edit.

BBCode is great for you and I, but it wouldn't be great for a guy who switches his pc on, spams a forum, Googles a little, then switches off. As for copied work not belonging to the author, that is irrelevant.  My car isn't allowed to go more than 70mph in the UK by law, but if it wasn't able to do 71mph it would be in the garage.

Not everything we copy from the Internet is copyrighted. The problem lies with pasting first and foremost. The other forum providers have theirs working. Surely we want Proboards to be the best, and have ours working too?

[Barkley]

Apr 9, 2013 7:08:40 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

Just a side note.

There is a huge list of updates that just got made to the Visual Editor. They aren't even live yet (meaning not on your forum). We are still in Beta. It's entirely possible that some of these updates could fix what's happening with your pasting... or not. Like I said you might want to adjust your habits to be more in line with v4 and the method used then.

I've not used V4 Ryan.

I came to PB after realising it's potential after I was asked to help another admin with his site. I liked it, so created a forum with which to get used to it's features.

I should point out that I also pasted into Notepad, before copying and pasting into the forum, just so I could ensure a clean paste in both scenarios.

[Ryan Roos]

We talked it over. Assuming we don't have any issues we will try to implement the Preview button. This is more for the mass of users that are converting in 3 weeks to v5. Be aware this will not solve you copy and pasting issues at all. It's going to be no different than you pasting into Visual mode and then clicking post. The only difference is it's going to show you the preview above the compostion area. And with pasted content that's going to look different if there is hidden formatting.

We are constantly making improvements to the editor, but at the end of the day pasted content is just that. Pasted. It's never going to be 100%. That's not a ProBoards problem, that's an internet/computer problem that will never be fixed. There is no standard for word processing formatting. Every software developer makes up their own stuff. And unless you are pasting plain text you're going to have issues. And if you're copying a formatted page straight off a website it's going to be even worse. An internet page like your Wiki you're copying from is coded in HTML and then rendered by your browser. You're copying rendered text with the expectation that it will appear even remotely the same when you paste it. That's never going to happen. We can't fix or account for that.

Thank you though and wish us luck in the implementation of the new button.

[Barkley]

Apr 9, 2013 9:18:07 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

We talked it over. Assuming we don't have any issues we will try to implement the Preview button. This is more for the mass of users that are converting in 3 weeks to v5. Be aware this will not solve you copy and pasting issues at all. It's going to be no different than you pasting into Visual mode and then clicking post. The only difference is it's going to show you the preview above the compostion area. And with pasted content that's going to look different if there is hidden formatting.

We are constantly making improvements to the editor, but at the end of the day pasted content is just that. Pasted. It's never going to be 100%. That's not a ProBoards problem, that's an internet/computer problem that will never be fixed. There is no standard for word processing formatting. Every software developer makes up their own stuff. And unless you are pasting plain text you're going to have issues. And if you're copying a formatted page straight off a website it's going to be even worse. An internet page like your Wiki you're copying from is coded in HTML and then rendered by your browser. You're copying rendered text with the expectation that it will appear even remotely the same when you paste it. That's never going to happen. We can't fix or account for that.

Thank you though and wish us luck in the implementation of the new button.

Ryan, that's great news mate.

You are an angel.

[Stinky666]

Apr 9, 2013 9:18:07 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

We talked it over. Assuming we don't have any issues we will try to implement the Preview button. This is more for the mass of users that are converting in 3 weeks to v5. Be aware this will not solve you copy and pasting issues at all. It's going to be no different than you pasting into Visual mode and then clicking post. The only difference is it's going to show you the preview above the compostion area. And with pasted content that's going to look different if there is hidden formatting.

We are constantly making improvements to the editor, but at the end of the day pasted content is just that. Pasted. It's never going to be 100%. That's not a ProBoards problem, that's an internet/computer problem that will never be fixed. There is no standard for word processing formatting. Every software developer makes up their own stuff. And unless you are pasting plain text you're going to have issues. And if you're copying a formatted page straight off a website it's going to be even worse. An internet page like your Wiki you're copying from is coded in HTML and then rendered by your browser. You're copying rendered text with the expectation that it will appear even remotely the same when you paste it. That's never going to happen. We can't fix or account for that.

Thank you though and wish us luck in the implementation of the new button.

Quick question. Does that mean there will now be 3 tabs? Visual, BBCode, and Preview ?

[Ryan Roos]

Apr 9, 2013 13:08:18 GMT -8 Stinky666 said:

Apr 9, 2013 9:18:07 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

We talked it over. Assuming we don't have any issues we will try to implement the Preview button. This is more for the mass of users that are converting in 3 weeks to v5. Be aware this will not solve you copy and pasting issues at all. It's going to be no different than you pasting into Visual mode and then clicking post. The only difference is it's going to show you the preview above the compostion area. And with pasted content that's going to look different if there is hidden formatting.

We are constantly making improvements to the editor, but at the end of the day pasted content is just that. Pasted. It's never going to be 100%. That's not a ProBoards problem, that's an internet/computer problem that will never be fixed. There is no standard for word processing formatting. Every software developer makes up their own stuff. And unless you are pasting plain text you're going to have issues. And if you're copying a formatted page straight off a website it's going to be even worse. An internet page like your Wiki you're copying from is coded in HTML and then rendered by your browser. You're copying rendered text with the expectation that it will appear even remotely the same when you paste it. That's never going to happen. We can't fix or account for that.

Thank you though and wish us luck in the implementation of the new button.

Quick question. Does that mean there will now be 3 tabs? Visual, BBCode, and Preview ?

No.

[Barkley]

I see the button called 'visual' has now been changed to say 'Preview', but there are no changes to the function itself.

[Ryan Roos]

Apr 20, 2013 18:33:01 GMT -8 Barkley said:

I see the button called 'visual' has now been changed to say 'Preview', but there are no changes to the function itself.

What we wanted to do with the Preview wasn't able to be added. Instead it was decided that to help new convertees we would rename Visual to Preview. We launch one week from today and simply couldn't add the button and functionality.

[Former Member]

I like this preview - much easier for most of my members….

[Barkley]

Apr 22, 2013 6:27:50 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

Apr 20, 2013 18:33:01 GMT -8 Barkley said:

I see the button called 'visual' has now been changed to say 'Preview', but there are no changes to the function itself.

What we wanted to do with the Preview wasn't able to be added. Instead it was decided that to help new convertees we would rename Visual to Preview. We launch one week from today and simply couldn't add the button and functionality.

I'm surprised at the functions you have settled for if I'm honest.

The features of the admin panel, and the the tools available to admins are among the best I've used, but unfortunately the posting side of things with regards to the editor functions are among the worst, and that's a shame, as with basic changes it could have been so much better.

Launch dates should be delayed until you get it right, rather than launching a flawed product in my opinion. I can't speak for others, but after a preview function request, I personally found the name change to be a little bit insulting and patronizing.