Editor Discussion

[User 2877]

The editor is the core part of discussion software. Please get the best and most expensive option. PLEASE.

I use Quick Reply most of the time. I manually type all my mycode. I very rarely use the WYSIWYG editor and I always use it in Source Mode.

I'd love to see a poll asking how often members post using the editor.

[K'sariya]

The MyBB Development team needs to consider (if not already) the cost of investing in a paid editor software that will work with MyBB.

• The ROI (Return On Investment) if MyBB would purchase a licensed editor software.
  
• What are the benefits of obtaining PAID over OPEN SOURCE software? (feature-wise)
  
• What are the benefits of obtaining OPEN SOURCE over PAID software? (feature-wise)
  
• Will a paid licensed editor benefit MyBB in terms of increased usage of the forum software? (Can this be accurately measured? Pre-licensed editor in MyBB versus Post-licensed editor in MyBB)
  
• If a paid license editor is chosen, how fast and accurately can the editor developers fix any issues that may arise?
  
• Will the paid licensed editor provide a better user overall experience while that user is on the website?
  
• If a paid editor license is chosen. How will the MyBB Development team determine whose name the editor license will fall under?
  
• What if that designated person decides to leave the MyBB Development team? Is the editor license transferrable to the "new person in charge"?
  
• Is getting a new editor a high priority over all other major components of the MyBB forum software? Are there any major components that should be addressed FIRST before getting a new editor?
  

I think that this is one of the best ways to consider the choice, especially the first few bullets. I definitely empathize with the desire to give users the highest quality editor in Redactor, but ultimately, I think it'd be nice to see if there's some way to do an ROI on it/anything money is spent on. I do like the fact that you can freely modify the source code--that's a definite plus.

I like the customizability of BBCode and MyCode, but I do agree with concerns that it's slowly falling out. I run a text-based game that uses the forums for long-form text bits and recordkeeping and some creative exploits, and Discord for most other live activities. Our recruitment is mostly through Discord now, not through forums, and we get a lot of people who are turned off when they hit the forum block, and who don't know anything about BBCode. Things are definitely shifting, but I do agree with the problem that Markdown currently has no official standard, which creates an obstacle there.

I flipped my vote several times. I like QuillJS' interface, responsiveness, and overall style, but I swapped from it because I don't see an option to view source code, which is a strict requirement for me because I tend to have a lot of issues with the code that WYSIWYGs make. Summernote seems nice, but some of its styling makes me hesitant; I'm not sure how we would adapt their code view to BBCode, and how much work that would take.

Redactor seems nice, but again, viewing source code is a personal requirement of mine. I'm not sure how easily something like that could be adapted/added (they seem to have plugin documentation that would aid with that).

Ultimately, I'm unsure. My less-personal-biased priorities in a decision are (in no particular order):

• Cost feasibility
  
• MyBB development effort/time to create a BBCode parser on any 3rd party options
  
• Adaptability
  
• 3rd party's development activity/availability
  
• User experience

Do you guys have an idea on how difficult a BBCode parser is to make for most of these third party softwares? That's my biggest uncertainty--I'm not sure how big a task like that usually is, so maybe getting an idea can help me.

[User 125795]

The editor is the core part of discussion software. Please get the best and most expensive option. PLEASE.

I use Quick Reply most of the time.  I manually type all my mycode. I very rarely use the WYSIWYG editor and I always use it in Source Mode.  

I'd love to see a poll asking how often members post using the editor.

I think there should be more advanced editor in Quick Reply too. Maybe not full editor, but some more features (MyCodes)

[Eric]

The editor is the core part of discussion software. Please get the best and most expensive option. PLEASE.

I use Quick Reply most of the time.  I manually type all my mycode. I very rarely use the WYSIWYG editor and I always use it in Source Mode.  

I'd love to see a poll asking how often members post using the editor.

You're looking at this with tunnel vision. MyBB isn't trying to KEEP it's small amount of users, it's trying to gain new ones. At least that should be the goal.

I type all my MyCode too, doesn't mean that WYSIWYG editors aren't the clear advantage for onboarding less technical people.

[s3_gunzel]

LOL people actually voted for a custom editor.

Yes, I did - but if you read my first comment, I also stated that I would envision this for a future deployment, not for 1.9; not at this late stage of its development. This seems like a 'change it because we can*' situation.

*Yes, the current editor does have issues; for example, I had to multiquote this post because it kept wiping the quoted post by Eric in the full editor.

[Eric]

The editor is the core part of discussion software. Please get the best and most expensive option. PLEASE.

I use Quick Reply most of the time.  I manually type all my mycode. I very rarely use the WYSIWYG editor and I always use it in Source Mode.  

I'd love to see a poll asking how often members post using the editor.

I think there should be more advanced editor in Quick Reply too. Maybe not full editor, but some more features (MyCodes)

There should only be one editor interface, quick reply, and it should be fully featured. Why you have to load an entire page to be able to get an editor is beyond me.

[iAndrew]

There should only be one editor interface, quick reply, and it should be fully featured.

This, or at least make it an option in the admin panel for people that want the full editor shown on the quick reply.

[User 2877]

There should only be one editor interface, quick reply, and it should be fully featured. Why you have to load an entire page to be able to get an editor is beyond me.

There is actually some sense in that. I can't find an argument against it. When you hit REPLY in a post it can still quote that post and drag you down to the Quick Reply box. You got my vote for that.

[effone]

There should only be one editor interface, quick reply, and it should be fully featured. Why you have to load an entire page to be able to get an editor is beyond me.

I support this too. Unnecessary process and reload.
( Party over, EJ made a strong statement )

[Euan T]

The only time that the full new reply page may be needed is when JS is disabled in my opinion. I've also never understood why quick reply is so limited - you should be able to do everything via that interface that you can do elsewhere.