New Rich Text Editor for the Discourse Composer

questions
1

Members — including @CarlBarnes — have mentioned that the new mobile editor in Discourse 3.6 (which we use on ClarionHub) can feel harder to use, especially when they want to type Markdown directly (like backticks for code blocks).

By default, Discourse now opens the Rich Text Editor (RTE).
However, you can switch to the classic Markdown editor at any time using the left-most button on the composer toolbar — it toggles between Rich Text ↔ Markdown instantly.

There is an option on our end to choose which mode opens by default, and since this affects everyone, I’d like to get a sense of what the community prefers before changing anything.

What should be the default editor mode on ClarionHub?

  • Rich Text (new editor)
  • Markdown (classic editor)
  • No preference
0 voters

Feel free to add any comments about your experience, especially if you’re using the site on mobile.

1 Like
2

I think it really depends on what you are used to.

For those of us who regularly use Markdown, we do it without thinking so that editor is easier and more intuitive.

But for users who don’t the RTE is probably a better fit.

3

Can you please remind me of the difference from before?

 LOOP 30 TIMES
   MESSAGE('It Looks like backticks still work, but something does seem different')
 END
4

Ha! Mystery solved… and it wasn’t the plugin after all — it was you sneaking in with a capital “C”.

Turns out

```Clarion

(with the Mighty Uppercase C)
confuses the highlighter, so the colours all go on strike.

The official syntax is:

```clarion   ← lowercase please!

So you’ve now earned the honour of being the first person on ClarionHub to break the new highlighter… by typing Clarion “fancy-style.” :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I’ll take it as proof the new setup is working just fine — as long as we don’t try to elevate the language to Proper Noun status. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

1 Like
5

I’m glad to see I was not the only one who ran into that!

The last thread where I used fencing to show Clarion code it didn’t work for me with Clarion either, but I’ve been doing so much Markdown lately that I just switched to clarion and figured it was just a quirk of the plugin.

6

Found this post “Introducing our new Composer, making writing on Discourse easier than ever” discussing the new Rich Text editor. They seem to call the Editor the “Composer”.

Here is a GIF showing the button on the top left to switch between Markdown and Rich Text:

I don’t see how to enter a Line the new Rich way. in Markdown its 3 underscores. Doing that in the new composer yields MD of \__\_ not ___. The last button on the toolbar is a (+) with some features but not underline.

I have not voted yet as I want to use it more. But currently I prefer the old Markdown editor. I find the editor instantly changing my MD to be confusing, but the new way I probably should not be entering MD and instead using the toolbar. I had a lot of trouble with Code formatted, so would not use Rich for Code.

7

As this survey is getting low traction (9 replies and all were markdown or now preference) I’ve switched to markdown as the default option.

Let the complaints roll in :rofl:

Mark

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