Hi all,

We've been having some debates here at mbed HQ about the editing mechanism used on the site for forum posts and other types of content which I'm working on.

Basically the choice comes down to sticking and building upon what we have in the forum at the moment, which is the TinyMCE rich text editor, or switching to a markup syntax like ReStructured Text, Markdown, or similar.

There are pros and cons to both, but rather than influence anyone by listing what I prefer about each method,  I'd like to get your feelings on it from a user experience point of view.

WYSIWYG (what we have now in the forum), or a plain text box (with editing tools to help you insert images, etc)?

Personally I like the TinyMCE text editor, very easy to use you and don't need to worry about remembering another syntax.

As with the forum itself, it would be great if it could show which messages are read and unread because now the only way to know if there is a new post is to subscribe to the topic.

Thanks Vlad,

Thanks for reminding me about that feature - I'll add it soon. Not sure if you are aware, but if you tick the 'Keep me updated via email' option on the front page of the forum, you will get subscribed to every new topic by default.

Cheers,

Dan

Thanks Dan, I found this feature a few days ago, its great in the meantime but when there are 10 replies to a topic it can get overwhelming getting 10 emails and trying to read them all to catch up.

Also an HTML editor for the posts would pretty much nullify the need for a markup syntax and could be very helpful.

I like the current TinyMCE format.  I tend to lean towards WYSIWYG editors.  I'll add a +1 to a read/unread feature. Good to know about the email option, going to go set that up now!

My preference is tagged plaintext but looks like I'm in minority here.

I would like to see some Opera support or at least some bbcode tags like [code]. Currently "insert code" doesn't work in Opera.

BTW, why not use an existing engine like vBulletin or phpBB? Can't afford the license?

I also have another request, since we are at it.

The whole Post reply area does not work on the iPhone Safari. Its probably one line fix.

Hi Vlad,

We are aware of that, but unfortunately it's not a one line fix!

You can work around it by disabling JS on your phone, but that's far from optimal of course.

Will try and come up with something better.

Dan

Thanks Dan, thought you guys did not know about it,  will try disabling JS.

Igor Skochinsky wrote:
BTW, why not use an existing engine like vBulletin or phpBB?

It is less about what the forum is now, but more about the mbed-specific plans we have for it :) We'll hopefully have some stuff for you to test soon...

Simon

Will we be able to attach code/libraries to a post and import it to the compiler in one click?

Vlad Cazan wrote:

Will we be able to attach code/libraries to a post and import it to the compiler in one click?

For my (late) $0.02 worth, I prefer plain text with markup. Easier to write when off-line, easier to keep copies.

GB