New forum editor interface

As you may have noticed already, today we added a visual editing interface to the forms for posting and editing forum messages. If you've used similar editors on other sites (or if you've used Microsoft Word) it should be pretty self-explanatory.

As you type your post, it will appear with all the same formatting it will have when posted. Same fonts, images, quotes, etc. Above the textarea where you type is a row of controls: bold, italic, strikethrough, quote, image, and link. You can use these to fomat your post just as you would in Word.

If you prefer the old style, you can toggle between visual and text mode using the tabs at the upper right, just above the textarea.

Hopefully this will be easier than remembering typing the formatting codes.

Questions? Comments? Bug reports? Post 'em in this thread and we'll get right on it.

All in all, I love the new format. I have noticed a few things though...

Bug #1

In visual mode, clicking return automatically double spaces.

Like this....

If the line automatically returns, as when you reach the end of the message field, the result will be a single space. (Like this) Also, I seem to be unable to place the cursor between the lines, when type is double spaced, as well.

Bug #2

If I post a reply typed in text mode, I get a red "You forgot to fill in the message field" message, and the typed text is gone.

f_klock said:

In visual mode, clicking return automatically double spaces.

The editor software is configured to behave in most cases just like Microsoft Word (for better or worse), and I believe in this case it attempts to emulate the behavior of typing in Word's default "Body Text" style, which automatically separates paragraphs with a blank line. As with Word, you can override the double-spacing by typing shift-return (or control-shift-return if you're using Safari) instead of just return.

That said, I think I can change a setting for that behavior so that it does a single-spaced returns instead. I'm personally ambivalent on this point, but if enough people feel strongly one way or the other we can probably change it.

If I post a reply typed in text mode, I get a red "You forgot to fill in the message field" message, and the typed text is gone.

Oh, that is a pretty bad one! I think I see what's happening and I'll have a fix posted later today.

I like the double space myself, it is easier for me to read and keep my place in posts with actual paragraph spacing.

On ocassion my text line has jumped and has typed over an existing line.

But I do like the new feature, thanks Dave.