Suggestion: CKEditor Paragraphs

[MageLeif]

I have a suggestion for CKEditor. Suggested this on the preview board but it never got much response and I'd like to bring it up again.

I think it would be nice if CKEditor used <p> instead of <br/> for spacing between paragraphs. For those of you who don't code, this basically means that instead of hitting RETURN twice between paragraphs, you'd just hit it once. And instead of there being a blank line the size of the font, there would be a slightly smaller space—about 70% of a regular line's height—between paragraphs.

To allow for people to still space "normally" (as it is currently), you could use SHIFT+ENTER, so no functionality is lost.

Implementing this would improve legibility, reduce keystrokes, and possibly be better for SEO (don't quote me on it, it just seems like it would be). It would also give administrators greater control over how posts look.

(For an example of how this type of system would work, check out Tumblr's post editor.)

[Taylor J]

It all depends if CKEditor is capable of it.

[KT Walrus]

I'm all for this.

The demo on CKEditor.com works this way. You might want to check it out. I'm seriously considering replacing the BBCode editor here with the CKEditor HTML editor on my site to allow posts that look like they were formatted with a good word processor (including control over where images are positioned within the post). But, I still have fear that letting my users (that I mostly trust) post HTML.

[MageLeif]

Surely a feature like this can't be TOO hard to implement and still maintain BBCode. Then again, I don't really know what I'm talking about.

[Matt]

Actually we do have CKEditor set to use P tags. We have removed the margin for P in the CSS so it emulates the old editor.

We'd get no end of complaints if one hit of enter added two lines.

[Aisha]

We'd get no end of complaints if one hit of enter added two lines.

I was totally ready to complain.

[MageLeif]

Really? When using Inspector, it displays <br/>, not <p>.

I'm interested in how to switch it to how I've suggested, since I have a small community and I would prefer it the other way.

Edit: Also, there have been complaints about several of the changes in 3.2... that doesn't mean that change should be avoided altogether. A few minutes using the new system and everyone would be used to it again.

[Matt]

It is unexpected behaviour to hit enter and have two new lines. This doesn't happen on Facebook or Twitter. Neither does it happen on almost every other comment engine I use. Neither does it happen in my word processor or text editor.

It would confuse and annoy more than it would please.

For the record, it bugs me that Tumblr does this.

However, you can easily undo this by editing public/js/3rd_party/ckeditor/contents.css and remove:

p { margin: 0px; }

[MageLeif]

It is unexpected behaviour to hit enter and have two new lines. This doesn't happen on Facebook or Twitter. Neither does it happen on almost every other comment engine I use. Neither does it happen in my word processor or text editor.

It would confuse and annoy more than it would please.

For the record, it bugs me that Tumblr does this.

However, you can easily undo this by editing public/js/3rd_party/ckeditor/contents.css and remove:

p { margin: 0px; }

Thanks! This does change how it appears in the editor itself, but not how posts are displayed. It seems that paragraphs are converted to line breaks, as I mentioned before.

[qscott86]

Edit: Also, there have been complaints about several of the changes in 3.2... that doesn't mean that change should be avoided altogether. A few minutes using the new system and everyone would be used to it again.

I think change should be avoided when they are doing it to cater to one person's demands. I don't think the majority want the enter key to produce two lines. You can hit the enter key twice just as easily.

[MageLeif]

I think change should be avoided when they are doing it to cater to one person's demands. I don't think the majority want the enter key to produce two lines. You can hit the enter key twice just as easily.

Fair enough. I just genuinely believe that this system would work better. Places like Facebook and Twitter don't use it because people aren't writing full paragraphs. They're short responses. A forum is much different, and therefore should be more geared towards long responses.

[qscott86]

Fair enough. I just genuinely believe that this system would work better. Places like Facebook and Twitter don't use it because people aren't writing full paragraphs. They're short responses. A forum is much different, and therefore should be more geared towards long responses.

I think that's a fair point, but let's be real -- most posts on forums (including this one) are short and I would say the majority don't exceed one paragraph. What you are talking about is the way Microsoft Word works as well -- the problem is that many people would not know to press shift enter ... everyone knows how to hit enter twice.

[MageLeif]

I think that's a fair point, but let's be real -- most posts on forums (including this one) are short and I would say the majority don't exceed one paragraph. What you are talking about is the way Microsoft Word works as well -- the problem is that many people would not know to press shift enter ... everyone knows how to hit enter twice.

See, but you would very rarely need to use Shift+Enter, unless you were trying to space something to exactitude. One press of enter would be enough, and people would recognize that as soon as they looked at the screen while they were typing.

And even though posts may be short, they can still contain multiple paragraphs (check out the first post of this thread).

[qscott86]

See, but you would very rarely need to use Shift+Enter, unless you were trying to space something to exactitude. One press of enter would be enough, and people would recognize that as soon as they looked at the screen while they were typing.

And even though posts may be short, they can still contain multiple paragraphs (check out the first post of this thread).

I think we'll agree to disagree on this one. If you go through most of the posts on this board, I doubt you will see a lot of multiple paragraphs except maybe in the first message. You, on the other hand, use a lot of new paragraphs. :baby:

[MageLeif]

I think we'll agree to disagree on this one. If you go through most of the posts on this board, I doubt you will see a lot of multiple paragraphs except maybe in the first message.

I suppose we will. I see your point, and it's a valid one, I just disagree. :tongue:

In any case, I'd still like to know how to implement this manually. I got it working in the editor itself changes aren't applied to posted material. I tried changing the margin of p in .post_body, but that didn't work either.