'Rich' Editor feedback.

priorslee

{couldn't get quote to work}
"Rich Editor is the editor you’ll use to write and format text when creating forum posts.
It’s designed to be intuitive, so you can usually work out how to use its features quickly without a guide,"

Sorry, failed at the first hurdle - like many others have said, I'm finding it it very unintuitive.

Two specific questions:
1. Where has the Preview button gone when creating a new thread/post?
Without this, the forum is going to have a lot more errors.

2. Is there a way of getting code from the previous version to work on the new one?
eg <b><a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.{url}">{text}</a><br>
When pasting in an old version it appears with the commands

Coupon-mad

The angry complaints you are now getting are from very regular posters, @MSE_Stephen

This is untenable for the many boards that rely on a fill linear view of quoted posts which are not clipped or hidden.

I never saw anyone complain on the parking board about the old editor (we have newbies who don't understand how to hop around a forum but that's completely different and not to do with posting and quoting).

Where did your team see complaints? We know of none.

MSE_Stephen

Hi everyone,

I'm afraid I can't answer all questions, as we're using our time to document and resolve issues.

So just to answer one of the points for now -

While many users won't have seen complaints about the old editor, they do regularly come into forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com. To grab the first 4 from a long list in our ticketing system -

• 'DMs appear empty if you include the @ symbol in the message'
• 'iOS keyboard will not appear using certain iPhones'
• 'Tagging - Allowed tags won't show unless delete letter and retype (IOS)'
  (Delaying the introduction of tagging)
• 'When @ mention using WYSIWYG, all text on that line disappears'

…and many, many more.

Unfortunately, the answer we often have to give to such complaints was essentially we were sorry we couldn't do anything to help and it will be resolved when we upgrade our editor.

While many members have been frustrated by the new quotation system and formatting, we have to weigh that against many members having difficulty because the previous editor was increasingly having more and more issues. In the case of some users - like the one above where the keyboard won't show on certain devices - this might mean not being able to use the forum at all!

We are continuing to collect feedback from this thread for our forum provider

PennysIntoPounds

Thanks for all your work @MSE_Stephen

Have they given any indication of how quickly things like taking out double spacing, and having to reload the forum when pasting into text box could be sorted?

HillStreetBlues

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81860473#Comment_81860473

Isn't the whole point of having a FB forum to see it if it's just that users issue and can it be solved, as you would expect the if it was a common issue this forum would be inundated with those issues.

maman

Just checking whether anyone else has this problem. When addressing another poster like @@joedenis e. It's coming out with an extra @ and a space before the final letter so I have to go back and edit before posting.

Also the double spacing is irritating so more editing needed before I post.

P. S. Apologies to @@joedenis e for me using your username as an example.

Section62

'DMs appear empty if you include the @ symbol in the message'

'iOS keyboard will not appear using certain iPhones'

'Tagging - Allowed tags won't show unless delete letter and retype (IOS)'
(Delaying the introduction of tagging)

'When @ mention using WYSIWYG , all text on that line disappears'

…and many, many more.

I'm sure those are annoying, but there won't be much of a forum left if the members who volunteer a lot of their time to respond to people's moneysaving issues decide a forum which lacks the basic functionality of quoting another post (in an editable form) isn't a forum they want to volunteer their time to when it has been made much harder work than it used to be.

If only the editor was something each user was able to choose… those who need or like the whizzy one could opt for that. Those who want one which works for basic tasks could stick with the old one.

Grumpy_chap

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81860545#Comment_81860545

@maman

I previously had that (sometimes) with the old editor. I have not had it with the new editor, but only two examples to reference (including yours in this post).

Bridlington1

MSE_Stephen Posts:1,028 Community Admin   Today at 4:45PM edited Today at 4:49PM Hi everyone, I'm afraid I can't answer all questions, as we're using our time to document and resolve issues. So just to answer one of the points for now - While many users won't have seen complaints about the old editor, they do regularly come into forumteam@moneysavingexpert .com. To grab the first 4 from a long list in our ticketing system - 'DMs appear empty if you include the @ symbol in the message' 'iOS keyboard will not appear using certain iPhones' 'Tagging - Allowed tags won't show unless delete letter and retype (IOS)' (Delaying the introduction of tagging) 'When @ mention using WYSIWYG , all text on that line disappears' …and many, many more. Unfortunately, the answer we often have to give to such complaints was essentially we were sorry we couldn't do anything to help and it will be resolved when we upgrade our editor. While many members have been frustrated by the new quotation system and formatting, we have to weigh that against many members having difficulty because the previous editor was increasingly having more and more issues. In the case of some users - like the one above where the keyboard won't show on certain devices - this might mean not being able to use the forum at all! We are continuing to collect feedback from this thread for our forum provider

Firstly thanks for the explanations so far. I'll also say that I have a great deal of sympathy with the forum team at this time, largely because I've seen first hand how difficult rolling out a new system can be, and how what many consider to be very simple fixes can actually demand many hours of work to complete, very few things are just the click of a button, especially when you're dealing with something provided by an external company, and I fully appreciate this.

For me the one thing I would really hammer home on this is the way it quotes things is awful, it's much more difficult to follow conversations if you just get a link appearing instead of the full conversation. The Top Regular Savers Discussion thread is a notable example of where this becomes an issue.

Everything else is perfectly manageable, some are actually improvements (tables for instance are much better in the new editor in my opinion), spacing can be annoying but is workable. Formatting going all over the place when copying from old to new posts and vice versa is easily fixed for the Top RS thread, I'll just launch a new version, it's a fair bit of work, but once done it's problem solved

But if they can only fix one issue, please get them to get rid of the links when quoting.

As a slight aside could I request someone close the old versions of the top RS discussion threads when the new one is launched? Happy to send an email into the forum team when done if it's easier. It just saves someone accidentally posting in the old thread and us having multiple RS discussion threads on the go simultaneously.

ColdIron

Hi MSE_Stephen. In the spirit of reading all the comments:

You may recall my previous posts, I still cannot paste (Ctrl-V)
A basic problem I have is that if I write 3 paragraphs, or 3 sentences within one paragraph, and decide to move a paragraph or sentence up or down all I can do is delete it and type it all out again

Whilst I cannot paste, I can cut (Ctrl-X) and then undo (Ctrl-Z)

I understand that you are dealing with a 3rd party supplier but could I ask if you have queried Vanilla to see if my problem has been reported before?

Reading the feedback since Monday it appears that this problem is unique to me, but after 14 years and 10k posts I'd hate to end up in the 'too difficult' box

I have discovered that I can paste into the 'Insert Media' dialogue box (see below). I assume this is because it is not a Rich Text Editor control. From this it would seem to me that the issue is not with my setup, or the medium between me and MSE but the RTE itself

Thanks, I'd be grateful to hear what Vanilla have to say