WYSIWYG editor?

[adriangb]

@Astralis-Lux did you ever find something? Most of my users are non-techs, and have expressed confusion over the editor (they expect it to act like most software, GMail, Word, Facebook, etc.). And there's no chance in hell they're going to use markdown, and probably not even copy pasting embed code from YouTube and such. All I need is basic options (font size, color, bold and bullets).

[jarey]

@adriangb check the plugin buttons-galore. It might adjust to what you are looking for.

[adriangb]

@José-Ángel-Rey-Liñares said:

@adriangb check the plugin buttons-galore. It might adjust to what you are looking for.

That adds the options for bold and such, but the composer still uses the split screen mode, which was literally too much to handle for one of the users I tested it with. I had to explain to him that the left is where you type and the right displays it with formatting. I'm looking for something like what traditional forums use, or what Facebook uses (but with font options, but this is secondary to the simplification of the composer).

[leksar]

I've got to agree, it would be cool to have an option to change the editor. Not because Markdown is bad or something, but i don't want my visitors had problems with interface and syntax. NodeBB gives you ability to make forum looks like you want to and it's very important to keep a balance between usability and functionality, and the Markdown with no alternative is like imposed on service IMO.

[PitaJ]

@leksar what would you like? BBcode? Plain text?

[leksar]

@pitaj BBcode would be nice and familiar.

[a_5mith]

@leksar said:

@pitaj BBcode would be nice and familiar.

There did used to be a converter for bbcode. You could write in bbcode and it would convert to md.

[Bri]

TL;DR:
Markdown is cooler than traditional WYSIWYG, but the editor could benefit from having familiar controls

I will admit that I do love the fact that this forum software uses Markdown. It's clean, easy to learn, and easy to read in either text or formatted view. It certainly is not "old school"; I've seen WYSIWYG editors since the 90's, markdown was invented around 2004, and only recently began gaining in popularity (thanks to GitHub and Stack Overflow). I like to think that traditional WYSIWYG is to Markdown as MySpace is to Facebook.

But to be fair, it seems it's really embraced by people in the tech industry, but that's because we're familiar with the alternative of editing raw HTML, which is what is output by WYSIWYG editors anyway. There are many reasons why editing and storing HTML is bad / cumbersome, but the layperson is unaware of it because it's been hidden behind the WYSIWYG editors.

What seems to really bridge the gap is SO's editor, which would be more familiar to most people (because of the many options), but it still outputs and allows input of Markdown.

But that being said, I respect you guys @julianlam @baris @psychobunny for not catering to every request. You have a clear vision of what you want this to be.

[ajayumi huang]

[drew]

@KingCat @ludam @pitaj @hek @Astralis-Lux @nockgeneer @jarey
It's in its early stages, but it's an official NodeBB component:
https://community.nodebb.org/topic/6093/official-plugin-redactor-composer-now-available-in-0-7-1

If any devs are able to contribute to adding all of the available functionality that'd be great.

[PitaJ]

@BDHarrington7 what is the difference between the SO and NodeBB editors? Functionally they seem to be exactly the same.

@drew that's awesome! I'll contribute whatever I can.

[Bri]

Addressing only the desktop view, there's more of a word processor feel to SO's editor:

While you can do pretty much the same thing in NodeBB's editor, it requires more knowledge of Markdown only because there are less buttons. I feel like this is what might be scaring people away from Markdown on NBB.

However I just checked SO's composer on mobile and it's pretty sparse. As in, zero formatting buttons., so NBB wins there

[julian]

@BDHarrington7 SO's markdown also contains other formatting options, like text alignment, that we don't do... at least, judging by your screenshot.

[Bri]

Those last two? that's just

Heading

and HR

---

[julian]

ah! we can add hr to markdown

[PitaJ]

I'm pretty sure hr is in markdown

Test:

---

That's an hr ---

[julian]

Yup, I meant add the button to the formatting toolbar.

[whitts]

I wanted to use this plugin but it seems to be missing icons from other plugins like the nodebb Poll plugin that allows you to add polls to your posts.

Thanks

[yariplus]

@whitts Unfortunately, plugins currently have to add buttons to redactor separately, because they're fundamentally different. Composer-default parses plain text, while composer-redactor understands real html. You could have a button that plops down poll code into the editor, but that kind of breaks the magic of using a wysiwyg.

[a_5mith]

@adriangb said:

@Astralis-Lux and probably not even copy pasting embed code from YouTube and such. All I need is basic options (font size, color, bold and bullets).

YouTube embed code won't work on nodebb. You just paste the URL and it converts it automatically.

Bold and bullets is already in the kitchen sink.

Colours and font size are relatively pointless, I'll just make all my text massive and white. You'd have massive gaps that look messy.