Line Spacing

[wimg]

I am sorry, but no search in topic title only is not a small thing.

 

Try moving a few hundred, or even, say 30,000 topics (yes, we did that recently) without having the ability to ONLY look in titles. It took long enough. Think how long that would have taken if we only could check all text?

That's just an example.

Please bring it back.

And please fix the line spacing in the editor. I refuse now to go back and edit my post again. Please make it work like it does in 3.4.7 and older versions. My mobile users will complain bitterly.

 

Regards, Wim

P.S.: all the extra line spacing here originates from the fact that it insists on always doubling the line space on <ENTER>, in 4.0

[Flitterkill]

And please fix the line spacing in the editor. I refuse now to go back and edit my post again. Please make it work like it does in 3.4.7 and older versions. My mobile users will complain bitterly.

 

Regards, Wim

P.S.: all the extra line spacing here originates from the fact that it insists on always doubling the line space on <ENTER>, in 4.0

​The editor is full HTML and all text blocks are paragraph elements - <p>Your text....</p> <p>Your second block of text...</p>... All you are seeing is the default (or css controlled) spacing between paragraphs.

You can change the spacing on paragraph elements in the css if you want but this is working as it should be.

[wimg]

I know, I have been told so by Invision.

But tell me, why would I want to change css controlled spacing myself? Effectively you are telling me I should create a custom skin.

An alternative is to have an option to add it to configurable items in the ACP, IMO anyway, but not require skin changes, as the latter means having to do it again at every upgrade.

 

What I have been saying all along, is that this goes against mobile use, something that is supposedly the be all and end all for this version. I guarantee you mobile users will scream at this, they always scream because they have to scroll so much, and it now becomes scrolling at least twice as much.

Anyway, this really is a topic for a different subject.

For now, for this topic, I just want search in titles only back. I just got irritated once again because of the spacing set up, and felt the need to say it once again. I will keep on doing so, until it is fixed, in one way or another. Do note that in the client support area, for support requests, it works like it used to be. No double spacing etc.

Kind regards, Wim

[Charles]

While we certainly value feedback but this approach:

I will keep on doing so, until it is fixed, in one way or another.

... that really is not acceptable behavior.

You made your point, others made a counter point who agreed with the way it is now. Your feedback is no more critical than anyone else's and we chose to go with the majority in this case who like it the way it is now as that's the way many other sites work their editors. Obviously if feedback changes from everyone we will revisit it but you cannot make it your personal vendetta as that is not an appropriate approach to feedback.

[wimg]

While we certainly value feedback but this approach:

... that really is not acceptable behavior.

You made your point, others made a counter point who agreed with the way it is now. Your feedback is no more critical than anyone else's and we chose to go with the majority in this case who like it the way it is now as that's the way many other sites work their editors. Obviously if feedback changes from everyone we will revisit it but you cannot make it your personal vendetta as that is not an appropriate approach to feedback.

​Do note I said one way or another.

Please note that you, as Invision, have been saying all along, that this is supposed to be a version which will work well with all devices, and I, and my membership, have been waiting patiently for this to happen, and I kept my users at bay as well by telling them that stuff would improve. However, do note, that this setup is going to alienate those users, again and that's members, not the people who installed Invision CS as their board software. What do you think will happen?

As to the "another" option: I am quite capable of creating another skin, and if need be I will certainly do so. However, IMO, that should not be necessary.

I really do think you are missing a very big chance here. Also note that last time I checked the support requests section in the client area, it does work the old way still.

Regards, Wim

[Cyrem]

Ever heard of SHIFT+ENTER? Seems you haven't.

Double line spacing to separate paragraphs (which is used in a great majority of places, even your word processor) does NOT go against mobile-first design, whoever told you this is telling you a load of garbage.

Seems you have a bigger problem anyway with whiny members to deal with.

[Vikestart]

The current spacing is pretty much the standard these days. WordPress works the same way.

Shift + Enter for a soft line break (<br>)

Enter for a new paragraph.

It's very helpful to have that extra paragraph spacing when people write walls of text  

[wimg]

Ever heard of SHIFT+ENTER? Seems you haven't.

Double line spacing to separate paragraphs (which is used in a great majority of places, even your word processor) does NOT go against mobile-first design, whoever told you this is telling you a load of garbage.

Seems you have a bigger problem anyway with whiny members to deal with.

​You shouldn't make assumptions without asking first.

My word processor works fine without having to do anything extra. And so do all the other editors I use (about 7 or so). Why all of a sudden with IPS 4 a difference? Making for more scrolling?

As mentioned, the message editor in the support requests section does work the old way.

This set-up doesn't add anything, apart from more scrolling.

 

Regards, Wim

[wimg]

The current spacing is pretty much the standard these days. WordPress works the same way.

Shift + Enter for a soft line break (<br>)

Enter for a new paragraph.

It's very helpful to have that extra paragraph spacing when people write walls of text

​What's wrong with <ENTER> twice? Like most editors out there?

Regards, Wim

[Cyrem]

IPS4 is not being different, most websites with up-to-date rich text editors act this way.

I don't know what editors you are using, but all of mine (apart from code editors, they are different) have the extra space between paragraphs. Quite frankly, it just makes sense. When you physically write, you do not put the next paragraph on the next below line (If you do, English teachers everywhere are crying when you write), you put a space between them and it should not be any different in online text editors. This space improves readability. Scrolling an extra few lines does not trump readability ever. Correct spacing is extremely important and some people go to the extreme length limiting the width of lines so that they are easier to follow.

The editor in the support section, as far as I am aware, is just a plain text-area. It has no rich-text capabilities because it is a raw editor. Since it will be used for a lot of code posting that should not be passed through a HTML parser, it is fitting.

Considering most people who write on the net would put a space between paragraphs anyway I'm not sure what you're complaining about. You're going to have to deal with it regardless because you can't stop people separating their paragraphs to condense them into a Great Wall of Text, which is seriously bad for reading. Actually, considering it does use paragraphs, it gives you the ability to control the spacing between via CSS. You should be thanking IPS for giving you such control.

[The Jimmo]

​What's wrong with <ENTER> twice? Like most editors out there?

Regards, Wim

​I feel your complaints have little to no backing. Most editors I've used have gone this way. Microsoft Word (the leading word processor) is this way.

You can't expect IPS to solve something only you find not usable, that's not the way software development works. If you find it completely unusable then you find a solution that will work for your group. The majority of us here like it. I know change is always hard but changing for the better is always good.

[wimg]

​I feel your complaints have little to no backing. Most editors I've used have gone this way. Microsoft Word (the leading word processor) is this way.

You can't expect IPS to solve something only you find not usable, that's not the way software development works. If you find it completely unusable then you find a solution that will work for your group. The majority of us here like it. I know change is always hard but changing for the better is always good.

​Of course I will find a solution. As someone else mentioned, it can always be changed in the css, just that that requires creating a different skin set in order to get full updates each time, and do it over again each time. Back to square one IOW.

Whether anybody else implements it this way, doesn't mean it is right, or the correct way, or whatever.

Essentially, with this setup, you are losing the control you used to have, even though it can be restored one way or another. And with Word, that is an extremely easy fix, and will remain like that once implemented, without any upgrade problems. If there were some standard configuration options, which wouldn't require changing the css, I would be happy.

Furthermore, as I stated, it will require double the amount of scrolling, which is most annoying from a mobile POV.

You may defend the "general"  way of doing things, I have no problem with that. Whether it is the best way, is debatable. To me it is a change for the change, certainly not for better usability.

Regards, Wim

[wimg]

IPS4 is not being different, most websites with up-to-date rich text editors act this way.

I don't know what editors you are using, but all of mine (apart from code editors, they are different) have the extra space between paragraphs. Quite frankly, it just makes sense. When you physically write, you do not put the next paragraph on the next below line (If you do, English teachers everywhere are crying when you write), you put a space between them and it should not be any different in online text editors. This space improves readability. Scrolling an extra few lines does not trump readability ever. Correct spacing is extremely important and some people go to the extreme length limiting the width of lines so that they are easier to follow.

The editor in the support section, as far as I am aware, is just a plain text-area. It has no rich-text capabilities because it is a raw editor. Since it will be used for a lot of code posting that should not be passed through a HTML parser, it is fitting.

Considering most people who write on the net would put a space between paragraphs anyway I'm not sure what you're complaining about. You're going to have to deal with it regardless because you can't stop people separating their paragraphs to condense them into a Great Wall of Text, which is seriously bad for reading. Actually, considering it does use paragraphs, it gives you the ability to control the spacing between via CSS. You should be thanking IPS for giving you such control.

​Unfortunately, there is extra width between lines, and double that extra width between paragraphs.

I happen to be someone with constantly varying anastigmatism, which basically means that it is hard to read text when things get out of kilter (my eyes that is) - over the past year I needed 5 new prescriptions for glasses. I can assure you that the extra spacing doesn't make it any easier. But that is just a personal thing, not complaining. However, I am voicing my concerns and my opinion, on behalf of the +/- 36,000 members on my site who use mobile browsers on a regular basis.

See my reply above for the rest, including css.

The question I would like to ask, is whether we are sheep who follow everybody else, or do we do the right stuff, and use all the controls we could have right from the word go?

You don't need to agree with me, to each his or her own, but I do feel strongly about this, as may be clear by now.

Regards, Wim

[SJ77]

I have to agree that auto double line space every time I hit enter is odd. It struck me immediately as weird and seems like it's broken or something. All this time I thought I changed some setting and have been meaning to fix it.  Having the double space actually encourages me to hit enter less not more. Meaning more blocks of text instead of clean breaks in normal places.

Overall I am not going to lose sleep over this though. I just wanted to point out that not everyone likes this. Many of us just don't care enough to debate over line spacing. Actually I am encouraged by this because if line spacing is one of the biggest concerns at this point, IPB must be just about ready for gold. Can't Wait!!
 

[The Jimmo]

​Of course I will find a solution. As someone else mentioned, it can always be changed in the css, just that that requires creating a different skin set in order to get full updates each time, and do it over again each time. Back to square one IOW.

Whether anybody else implements it this way, doesn't mean it is right, or the correct way, or whatever.

Essentially, with this setup, you are losing the control you used to have, even though it can be restored one way or another. And with Word, that is an extremely easy fix, and will remain like that once implemented, without any upgrade problems. If there were some standard configuration options, which wouldn't require changing the css, I would be happy.

Furthermore, as I stated, it will require double the amount of scrolling, which is most annoying from a mobile POV.

You may defend the "general"  way of doing things, I have no problem with that. Whether it is the best way, is debatable. To me it is a change for the change, certainly not for better usability.

Regards, Wim

CSS won't need to be changed when you do an upgrade if you do the skin edit correctly in the custom.css file. That's why it's created so people can create skins. IPS would have a world of backlash if every update they did erased skins. Only major versions like from v3 to v4 are skinning an issue.

I still fail to see your point. It's just as easy to make the edit in IPS as Word.

[Quillz]

I did notice there seemed to be "extra" line spacing when I hit "Enter." As in, it did look a bit odd at first because I think older releases of IPB handled line spacing differently.

But then I got used to it, and now things look just fine.
I also didn't know I could "Shift+Enter" for a single line break, which is good to know. I have to agree with the majority here, though, that it seems pretty natural to put a double line break between paragraphs. That's how I've always written things out.

[SJ77]

I did notice there seemed to be "extra" line spacing when I hit "Enter." As in, it did look a bit odd at first because I think older releases of IPB handled line spacing differently.

But then I got used to it, and now things look just fine.
I also didn't know I could "Shift+Enter" for a single line break, which is good to know. I have to agree with the majority here, though, that it seems pretty natural to put a double line break between paragraphs. That's how I've always written things out.

​double lines between paragraphs is common but not natural per se. Have you ever read a book with a space between every paragraph? Even if we give the benefit of the doubt and say that it is natural;  what is NOT natural is that the "enter" button creates TWO line spaces. For years and years in every piece of software and web form hitting enter represents a break to a new line and not a double break. Even before computers the enter button was a "return" button and hitting it was a break to a new line.
I like to break to a new line often and I don't like having this thing trying to force me to start a new paragraph with a double break.

Also if it is going to double break, why not indent also. After all a new paragraph should start with an indent.

[Feneroin]

+1 for old ENTER, don't like also this paragraph thing with just an ENTER 

[opentype]

​double lines between paragraphs is common but not natural per se. Have you ever read a book with a space between every paragraph?

​Being a graphic designer who also designs books I can say: For printed matters there is a unique problem. The ink will show slightly through the pages and if lines on the two pages of a sheet are sitting on different heights it would look odd and distract you from reading the pages. That’s why lines in a book always sit on a so-called baseline grid. So you can’t give any paragraph or headline “a little bit” of space before or after. The lines follow each other directly or you create a space that equals a whole line, or two lines and so on.   

On the web, this baseline grid is not really necessary and therefore you can easily separate paragraphs automatically. Why not? A paragraph is one connected though. If you want to start another thought, you hit Return first and the spacing is a clear visual aid for that. In book design this visual aid is also there. But for the reasons I mentioned, it is done through a large indent on the beginning of the first line of the paragraph. But that only works for longer text and wouldn’t work very well in a forum. And that’s why clearly separated paragraphs are not a bad idea. The longer a post gets, the more clearly the thoughts are separated and that aids the reading process and makes the page more visually appealing. That is a principle that has evolved over centuries. Early books didn’t even use “returns”. The whole book would be one continuous text. I don’t understand why people here are so eager to go back to text crammed together again, when it’s not really necessary or useful. 

[Vikestart]

​double lines between paragraphs is common but not natural per se. Have you ever read a book with a space between every paragraph? Even if we give the benefit of the doubt and say that it is natural;  what is NOT natural is that the "enter" button creates TWO line spaces. For years and years in every piece of software and web form hitting enter represents a break to a new line and not a double break. Even before computers the enter button was a "return" button and hitting it was a break to a new line.I like to break to a new line often and I don't like having this thing trying to force me to start a new paragraph with a double break.

Also if it is going to double break, why not indent also. After all a new paragraph should start with an indent.

​You can't compare books with websites. Our monitors are generally bigger than books, and have unlimited space to go on, while with books you need to condense as much text as possible to save the amount of pages. For websites we don't need to do this. Websites can be more eye-appealing at the cost of more space. We do this with image illustrations and such as well.

This has been the web standard for a long time already. With the old BBCode editors, one would do it manually, however, with the rich editors this is not necessary. You still have the option to use Shift + Enter to get soft line-breaks.

Honestly, I'm surprised we didn't get this before now, as I said, it's been the standard for quite some time. You'll get used to it

Also if it is going to double break, why not indent also. After all a new paragraph should start with an indent.

Eww, no it really shouldn't. You can start with either new paragraph or indent without an extra line, but not both. But you can still do that if you want.

     Like this.

 

I find the new editor to be much better. Now I don't have to worry about formatting my posts with paragraphs anymore

[Cemmos]

I was going to post the same thing, but @opentype and @Vikestart summed it up nicely.

Adding a bit more, I believe it's also a little bit about web semantics and the way that online rich text editors, or WYISWYG editors, work. It's more common that someone will want to enter a new paragraph instead of just a line break. When pressing Enter, you get your paragraph. While holding down Shift and pressing Enter, you get your line break. This cannot be done the other way around, because this method of line breaking is OS-based. The workaround would be to insert divs instead of paragraphs, which is semantically incorrect. A <div> is meant to describe the container of data whereas a <p> describes the content of a paragraph. Another workaround would be to apply only one paragraph per post, with Enter being only line breaks (<br>) to separate content. But again, that's semantically incorrect.

To most users — especially those without any experience in mark up — they don't realize what's happening behind-the-scenes. The displayed presentation might look the same with the method you choose, but there are certain practices and standards that should be kept in mind. Semantics truly do matter when it comes to the web. It not only helps the web become a better place, it also helps your own website.

Though, I'll stop myself there. I feel like this is going a bit far since we're only talking about... line breaks.

[TSP]

I don't see a single paragraph in this topic where I see text I feel would've looked better if they were just a single line-break instead of a new paragraph. All messages would've been less readable in my opinion if you just had a single line-break between what is now paragraphs. I only see some examples of double paragraph spacing that seems inappropriate. 

I found this to be new and "unusual" when I wrote posts myself when I first tried the editor back in July, but to be honest I quickly got used to it and I now prefer it as the default method of enter 90% of the time.

As mentioned, the message editor in the support requests section does work the old way.

The client area on www.invisionpower.com is still running IPS 3.4.7, while this community board is running IPS 4 Beta 6. They decided to change the behavior for version 4, as you've noted, so obviously it's still the old way in the support request editor. 

Are you saying you would've wanted your post below to have looked like how I've edited it to be in the quote-box below? 

​

​Unfortunately, there is extra width between lines, and double that extra width between paragraphs.
I happen to be someone with constantly varying anastigmatism, which basically means that it is hard to read text when things get out of kilter (my eyes that is) - over the past year I needed 5 new prescriptions for glasses. I can assure you that the extra spacing doesn't make it any easier. But that is just a personal thing, not complaining. However, I am voicing my concerns and my opinion, on behalf of the +/- 36,000 members on my site who use mobile browsers on a regular basis.
See my reply above for the rest, including css.
The question I would like to ask, is whether we are sheep who follow everybody else, or do we do the right stuff, and use all the controls we could have right from the word go?
You don't need to agree with me, to each his or her own, but I do feel strongly about this, as may be clear by now.
Regards, Wim

​

Please note that I do agree that the enter-behavior is problematic for mobile and tablet users when they write certain types of replies, as they usually don't have a way to shift+enter. So I do see that concern and I'm personally worried that I'll get complaints on this too. But on a desktop PC, where you have the option of shift+enter, I find the behavior to be okay. 

The cases I can come up with right now, where I feel a single line break is the most appropiate is for poems, lists and titles. All of which will be harder to do for mobile users now, for lists you can use the list function in the editor, but that may not be available for mobile and tablet users. (Dependent on the editor settings on the community)

I personally feel this should be addressed by IPS for mobile and tablet in some way, but I don't know how.

Example of poem with a title
Roses are red
I'm going to bed
Hold me tight
don't give me a fight

And a list with a title:
1. Game of Thrones
2. Rome
3. Sherlock

So I do agree on some of this feedback, but I don't see any cases where single lines would've been better in a majority of replies on this community board.

[opentype]

 

The cases I can come up with right now, where I feel a single line break is the most appropiate is for poems, lists and titles.

I would only agree with poems. 

Lists and titles are “structural” elements and should use the proper markup. So for lists, one should use the list function from the editor and the line-space should come from the settings of the ol and ul tags, not from manually choosing soft or hard line breaks. If headlines are wanted in a forum, one should install a CKEditor plugin or button that actually inserts h tags. The owner of the forum then might choose that there is no space after these h tags. 

[craigf136]

I'm going to defend @wimg here, although this isn't an IPS issue persay, it is a text editor issue. Using this method takes a bit of getting used to and as @TSP mentioned, I have seen a few double <p><p> before the paragraph begins.

I've seen this in the editor when creating a post and it creates the double <p> and in other posts here on IPS. Mobile posting in wysiwyg editors isn't the best and it can be frustrating, this just compounds to the user frustration. It's not IPS's fault, it's the fault of modern editors.

As has been mentioned by @superj707 the enter key used to be the return key and a difference existed between them. On the macintosh pages is a good example, return create a line break and enter starts a new paragraph (or is it the other way around, I can't remember). I think the understanding and difference between return and enter have been lost over the years.

Maybe the mobile browser could be a rich text editor by default?

[wimg]

CSS won't need to be changed when you do an upgrade if you do the skin edit correctly in the custom.css file. That's why it's created so people can create skins. IPS would have a world of backlash if every update they did erased skins. Only major versions like from v3 to v4 are skinning an issue.

I still fail to see your point. It's just as easy to make the edit in IPS as Word.

​Your first sentence makes a lot of sense, it is the first remark I see that really provides a solution, one I personally completely forgot about.

As to whether it is easy or not to make the edit in IPS is easy, is a matter of opinion. In word any user can change the look, without affecting anybody else, in IPS it is the person who has Admin access to the theme section who can, and thereby makes it look different for everybody else.

The old way allows for people to make things look the way they want it themselves, without any interference from fixed formatting in the editor. That is what it is about.

Even using Shift-Enter still doesn't disable the 1.15 line-height. That has to be done from the ACP. I can't, for example, do that here unless I am allowed to write html., and know exactly what I am doing. Most users don't. My beef is on behalf of all those users.

Anyway, time to start playing with the theme setup in IPS 4 once again. Thanks for that tip!

Kind regards, Wim