Public Lab editor enchancement

[imajit]

I would like to share some of my first-time experiences with Public Lab Editor when I wrote the draft for my GSoC proposal.
In the beginning, when I started to write the proposal I was a bit overwhelmed by the features of the Editor and had to check the preview multiple times to see if it was as I intended it to be.

• Markdown is set as the default writing method in Editor Body
  When I went from Dashboard to Editor, I was a bit overwhelmed by the functionalities. Markdown was set as the default method for drafting, and to switch to "What you see is what you get" mode we need to go to the bottom right of the text area and toggle the "AaRich" button. The button also says "AaRich" which also doesn't tell much about the function.
  Also,I had to see the "Preview" multiple times to make sure the content is loading as I intended. Each time the Preview opens up in a new window and after every change, I had to close the "Preview" and reopen it to load the new changes.
  On the contrary, for a first-time user, editors in other sites for example the Medium.com editor, seem more "Microsoft Word" like. It looks very clean and when we draft an article there, we kind of don't need to preview it because it mostly matches the way it looks in the Editor.
  Here is how it looks
  
  It has very few functionalities and the toolbar also floats at the beginning of the line which kind of gives an idea where the change is going to occur.

• Editor is parts divided into steps
  I feel, when a user is writing a wiki or a story, the entire idea is kind of divided into 2 parts a heading and a body, just like a newspaper column. So when I write about it I would like to first fill in the main content and maybe later add relevant tags and locations. But the structure of the Editor kind of breaks this flow. I feel we can have One big text area where the first line is the heading and it is followed by the body text area and the tags, locations and other features can be at the bottom just before submit Post button.
  These are some of my first-time experiences. I feel with a bit of restructuring of the existing Editor and its functionalities, we can have a much cleaner experience.

[imajit]

@jywarren @ebarry what are your thoughts on this?

[ebarry]

Hi @imajit thank you so much for writing this out, it's really valuable to have this experience recorded. Regarding your first point, I have to admit, I'm so familiar with the site and have built so many workarounds over time, that i don't even notice these issues anymore! so this is helpful.

Regarding your second point, there was a pretty large design process that led to the Editor being separated out into steps like this. It was designed to "scaffold" people's experiences. I hear that you are saying it breaks up your flow, so this may be something to re-consider.

For anyone following along, the Editor has a dedicated repo here: https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor

[jywarren]

Oh i really like your reflections on this! A couple small observations building on these.

1. We recently added the "Preview" button, and actually you could already (before it was added) switch to rich text (WYSIWYG) mode to see a pretty decent preview (i.e. that's the point of rich text editing). The "Preview" button was designed for the more interactive things you can add, which we can't simulate in WYSIWYG mode - like embedding collections of notes or grids of dynamically-populated pages. But, it's so prominent, that now people may use it to review regularly as they're typing, rather than relying on the rich text mode. Rather than as we had imagined, as a final look at the "100% perfect" final preview before publishing. I wonder if one small possibility here is to actually make the Preview button less prominent, and to label it (via either the button text itself or a tooltip) as "Final preview"?
2. I think Markdown shouldn't be the default. I think we could change this, and i want to say i think it didn't used to be the default so maybe that got changed by accident?
3. Generally i agree that there are -- for a first-time-user, a lot of features that seem overwhelming. We've long had challenges in balancing "lots of powerful features" with "minimal and legible to newcomers" and may need to reassess the balance here again, especially as more features are gradually added to the editor over time.

In any case, if you'd like to see some of the background research and ideas that went into the editor, you can read:

• https://publiclab.org/tag/rich-editor

In one of those posts, you can see that it used to be simpler than it is now!

That's not to say these design ideas are still the best or must be respected years later. Just filling in some background in case it's helpful.

Thanks so much for your insights, they're great!

[ebarry]

I also think Markdown does not have to be the default. Maybe this is an error! Is this something we can change relatively simply? Based on input i'm getting, we should prioritize this change.

[ebarry]

Can someone break out an issue to "Set RichText as the default formatting mode in the editor on /post" ?

[imajit]

Sure! I'll do it

[imajit]

#736

[jywarren]

This feedback is from some months back but I think it may be useful to bear in mind as redesigns are moving forward! cc @NARUDESIGNS