Council Spotlight: What would you want a Content Editor to be like?

First thing's first; please read this post from Peter Laker (this explains the forward movement to dreaming up a new community platform):

We're continuing our discussion with the community about the migration process and the new platform. We're building on our last two related discussions:

There are many different topics to chat about, and this one came to mind, based on a comment from .paul:

  • "I think we should concentrate on getting the quality of the wiki editor... before anything else…"

That's right. It's a very important topic, and we should have led with that before PMs. So now we're getting to it!! ...

What would you want a Content Editor to be like?

Here's what the Wiki Editor looks like:

I happened to have it open on another tab (Wiki Ninjas Blog Authoring Schedule - 2018) so that's our image!

It's funny; I had one person go on and on about what the Wiki Editor should be like instead. I said, "I agree. We've had all those requests out for years." "Oh." -- Lots of conversations go that way.

So nobody built the Editor as the perfect system. We started with an Editor that we got by default with the platform back in early 2010. By mid 2010, the Wiki's PM (Eric B) got a new editor implemented. That editor worked fantastic on the website where we played with the prototype, but then when it was implemented, it actually solved very little. So the problem wasn't with the toolbar and editor. The problem was with the limitations of how the platform could interpret what the editor was trying to create and format. That's what limited it.

With that in mind, we'd hope to take a fresh approach to what a community-authoring editor should look like!

Please answer the question (and the following related questions) in the comments below.

  1. Should the Editor be more limited? For example, you might have one available default font and font size (with no font color or highlighting). Would that be beneficial or just a limiting pain? What would you want to limit like that? Would you remove strike through and underlining? This next question is related...
  2. What would you want to keep in the Editor? (Such as Bold, Italics, Bullets, Left/Center/Right Justify, Indent, Insert/Edit Link, etc.)
  3. How should the Editor handle tables?
  4. How should the Editor handle Code Snippets?
  5. How should the Editor handle images and embedded videos?  
  6. How should the platform handle External Links? Currently the Wiki automatically flags links that go to external (non Wiki) locations. It also opens up those URLs in a new tab. That way it promotes and expects navigation on the Wiki. If the platform as a community section on Docs, would you expect it to have similar behaviors (where it flagged links that take you off of Docs and opened those links in a new tab)?

 

Please drop your answers in the comments below, and I personally want to thank all of you for the impact you've had on the community!

- Ninja Ed