Somebody brought to my attention that there was no preview button. Blow me they were right!

I then came along to this forum and did a search on "preview button". There are lots of queries and clearly it's taken people lots of their time asking about it.

It turns out that there is a preview button – and when I went back to my own forum, I found that – yes – there is a preview button. It's actually very good one because you can check the appearance of your post in desktop view, tablet view and phone view. A very nice feature. Bravo.

The only problem is that the preview button is in a relatively obscure place – partly because it doesn't fit in with the worldwide Internet culture of preview button positioning. I think that this is shown by the very large number of comments related to the preview button on this forum.
I think that this shows that the preview button should be repositioned so that people will find it in the conventional place.

So here's the request – how about putting the preview button in a place where everybody can find it because that's where they expect it to be.

Thanks

I suppose you could take the link code for the Preview button in the editor and code into the template a button that uses that link code...

I think the reason IPS moved it to the editor toolbar and made it a toolbar button was most people don't preview their posts the majority of the time.

partly because it doesn't fit in with the worldwide Internet culture of preview button positioning.

Exactly the same reasone that my users (and I) did not find it at first either. Had to ask here for it. A very small magnifying glass with the editor buttons for several users points to what a magnifying glass would do, zoom in to see better, some would not expect a preview option on it either.

So even when left at it's current position, maybe another icon then a magnifying glass (like maybe an eye).

Anyway, it's probably something internal from the editor, but it would be nice to have a choice for a preview button on/off which then can appear next to the reply button where it's expected.

There was a free plugin called Preview Post Big Button doing this. Sadly it's gone.

That's how it looks like, a good inspiration for the ips dev team:

 

Edited June 29, 20196 yr by Ramsesx

1 hour ago, Ramsesx said:

There was a free plugin called Preview Post Big Button doing this. Sadly it's gone.

That's how it looks like, a good inspiration for the ips dev team:

The perfect button in the perfect place

I am just curious: since the editor is WYSIWYG what is your use case for preview? It's something I never did "get" personally 🙂

28 minutes ago, Charles said:

I am just curious: since the editor is WYSIWYG what is your use case for preview? It's something I never did "get" personally 🙂

It was discussed a lot when "preview" button was removed from IPS at all in 4.0.x and we all asked to bring it back. Two main points is:

1. While editor is called "WYSIWYG", it's actually not, in a lot of cases.
2. Ability to quickly check how the message will look on different devices is useful.

Yes, point #2 is valid but I guess I have never actually seen a case where what I typed was not WYSIWYG.

@Charles

This looks completely different in the editor and in the final output. As well as any other interactive elements(even links) in editor can't be quickly checked, this is why preview feature is great).

Just imagine how different is this message in editor from what we see in the topic :)

24 minutes ago, Charles said:

Yes, point #2 is valid but I guess I have never actually seen a case where what I typed was not WYSIWYG.

I remember doing some JS code that would work with that plugin that is now no longer on here - I'll dig it out and see if it still works, and see if I can put something together here.

28 minutes ago, Nathan Explosion said:

If you still use BBCode you're on your own 😉

1 minute ago, Charles said:

If you still use BBCode you're on your own 😉

I don't but you asked for a use-case and I provided one, just playing devil's advocate.

Honest reason it's located where it is: we do not feel it has sufficient usefulness for most sites and most users to justify giving it a more prominent location next to the submit button. We made it a customizable toolbar button so that it's available for those few edge cases where you could argue it's useful, without it being a fundamental part of the editor UI.

Apart from anything else, it is a question of choice. I don't see any reason why Invision developers should limit the choices of their customers. After all there are hundreds/thousands of Invision communities around and it seems particularly bold for a developer or a team of developers or working for the same organisation essentially to say that – this is the way will be – this is the look and feel we have chosen for our clients and they will not be offered any other option.

In exactly the same way, many people like having a preview button. Maybe reassures them – I don't know – but it is part of the culture of online communities and once again it becomes a question of choice. Leave it to the owners of the individual communities to decide whether or not to configure the preview button. I think Invision's role is simply to make it available.

The fact that there are quite a few threads and posts on this Invision forum asking about the preview button, shows that is something which is not unimportant to Invision clients – I would venture to say that most of the Invision team don't have the day-to-day experience of running an Invision community in the same way that we do.

I think Invision's role is that of a provider – not of a decider

2 minutes ago, BankFodder said:

 it seems particularly bold for a developer or a team of developers or working for the same organisation essentially to say that – this is the way will be – this is the look and feel we have chosen for our clients and they will not be offered any other option.

Oh, come on! Can you misrepresent Rikki’s answer any more? What he provided was a reasoning for the current placement. Nothing more, nothing less.  

4 minutes ago, BankFodder said:

I think Invision's role is that of a provider – not of a decider

They are both. A software where popular vote decides the way it works, not the provider’s careful considerations of feedback and goals, would be a huge, terrible mess. 

1 minute ago, opentype said:

Oh, come on! Can you misrepresent Rikki’s answer any more? What he provided was a reasoning for the current placement. Nothing more, nothing less.  

 

I don't think this misrepresents the position at all – but I'm very sorry that you seem to be so upset about it

Plugin pending approval

 

Bravo. That is really impressive.

You must be the author of the one which was originally referred to on this thread. Thank you very much and I will put some feedback once I've got it going.

One question – how do I get it going? I've installed it and I've seen your screen images show that it can be switched on or off in two places but I don't see where those switches are.

Thanks

On 7/1/2019 at 2:27 PM, Charles said:

I am just curious: since the editor is WYSIWYG what is your use case for preview? It's something I never did "get" personally 🙂

 

On 7/1/2019 at 4:28 PM, Rikki said:

Honest reason it's located where it is: we do not feel it has sufficient usefulness for most sites and most users to justify giving it a more prominent location next to the submit button. We made it a customizable toolbar button so that it's available for those few edge cases where you could argue it's useful, without it being a fundamental part of the editor UI.

 

8 hours ago, opentype said:

Oh, come on! Can you misrepresent Rikki’s answer any more? What he provided was a reasoning for the current placement. Nothing more, nothing less.  

They are both. A software where popular vote decides the way it works, not the provider’s careful considerations of feedback and goals, would be a huge, terrible mess. 

And to all you people - it's about keeping your customers happy.

 

Geddit?

4 minutes ago, BankFodder said:

And to all you people - it's about keeping your customers happy.

Geddit?

No, it never occurred to me to consider that. Thanks for enlightening us. </sarcasm>

15 minutes ago, opentype said:

No, it never occurred to me to consider that. Thanks for enlightening us. </sarcasm>

😂😂😂 🔥🔥🔥

23 minutes ago, BankFodder said:

Bravo. That is really impressive.

You must be the author of the one which was originally referred to on this thread. Thank you very much and I will put some feedback once I've got it going.

One question – how do I get it going? I've installed it and I've seen your screen images show that it can be switched on or off in two places but I don't see where those switches are.

Thanks

 

 

And to all you people - it's about keeping your customers happy.

 

Geddit?

I don’t want a preview button. Invision should keep me happy and not have it there. And since I’m their favourite customer, that’s exactly what they did. Geddit?

20 minutes ago, BankFodder said:

And to all you people - it's about keeping your customers happy.

Absolutely - and we did this with a compromise. Make a preview tool available for those few customers who have valid edge cases, without adding Yet Another Button in a prominent location for all our other customers. Every extra button or toggle we add to a page increases the complexity for users a little bit more, mostly unnecessarily. We try to consider all users and balance functionality with simplicity as much as we can.

11 minutes ago, Rikki said:

Absolutely - and we did this with a compromise. Make a preview tool available for those few customers who have valid edge cases, without adding Yet Another Button in a prominent location for all our other customers. Every extra button or toggle we add to a page increases the complexity for users a little bit more, mostly unnecessarily. We try to consider all users and balance functionality with simplicity as much as we can.

That's really great to know, Rikki

3 hours ago, opentype said:

No, it never occurred to me to consider that. Thanks for enlightening us. </sarcasm>

Oh, I've upset you again.  I'm sorry