Flock has used TinyMCE as its blog editor since the 0.5 release. Anthony and other Flock developers appreciated its clean and usually error-free HTML output. But, it also brought its share of bugs and usability quirks.
We think we can do better.
Erwan has replaced TinyMCE with the Midas rich text editor from Mozilla.org in the current continuous testing builds of Flock. Midas loads faster than TinyMCE, is more easily localizable, and has a simpler user interface.
So far, it looks pretty good. But you, the Flock users, are the ultimate experts and arbiters on whether it makes your blogging better or not.
If you use Flock hourly builds, would you please care to try a current continuous testing build and share your blogging experiences here? We'd especially love to know:
I switched from 0.5.x to 0.7.x some days ago and was slightly disappointed. Flock is still great, no doubt, but I prefered the topbar interface of 0.5 to be honest :(
April 19, 2006 - 7:53pm — Dinesh Cyanam (not verified)
Hey Poelog,
Well Flock will keep getting better and better...Just keep watching and if u didnt grab the latest build go get it...the topbar has changed a little in the last 3-4 hrs.
Nice topbar & photo browser.
This is my first test of any version >0.5.14.2 and I like it.
Posting to my blog was painless and much faster than with 0.5.14.2.
April 20, 2006 - 12:52pm — chall3ng3r (not verified)
hi, improvements are good. i have found some elements that should look and work as in flock 0.5.14, also some suggestions.
- the favs selection popup button is moved from left to right, i'm now quite used to with having it on left. and i guess it should remain at left. also the popup menu is missing "my blogs", "flickr photos" etc. they should be in this popup menu.
- the blog editor open in new window, i liked it to open in new tab.
- the blog editor looks cool now. and is simple as well. but i guess there should be option like this: user can add his button in editor toolbar with html tag this button should place in the post.
this option will allow users to setup as many button as they want according to thier needs. like i wan a button for code tag.
- the links toolbar shows a dropdown icon which links have rss feeds. but the new flock is not showing it good. it should show the icon at left, then link title and then small dropdown icon to let user know it has rss feed. now its showing me this way, icon then linebreak, text, and on right dropdown arrow which is looking not good also making a bit more height of the links toolbar.
- it's now loading even slower. i've never used FF, but using Flock for bloging, flickr-ing mainly. i found a tool called FF preloader, and it works perfect with FF, when i click FF icon, it loads in less than a sec, even faster than IE. so, i suggest you guys to make this tool an internal part of Flock setup, and in settings user can check the option to use the preloader or not. i believe this is feature will also be appreciated by other users. (also i'm not using flock for browsing bcoz it loads slow)
for now i can write these suggestions. keep up the good work.
Thank you all for your comments. Remarks on the UI is very helpful. It will also be great if you tell us about your experience for online publishing: what service do you use? Did it worked smoothly, out-of-the-box or did you have to configure manually?
It's hard for us to test all the blog platforms out there and the more platforms we can support, the best Cardinal will be.
If which embedded rich text editor to use is still a more or less an open question you should take a serious look at the Dojo Rich Text editor. My chief reason for liking it is that the authors thought long and hard about re-inventing the wheel, and in the end decided it was necessary for two main points they didn't see in the other extant editors: usability and reliability.
I agree, the presence of webclipboard, somewhat obviates the necessity of having blockquote. But having no blockquote button at all is kind of a bummer. What if I want to blockquote a reference from a textbook that is not available online?
I was dissapointed when the support from technorati tags was removed.
April 21, 2006 - 2:04pm — chall3ng3r (not verified)
great. okay, some more feedback about the blog thing. i use wordpress, and was using BlogJet previously for posting, but now it's just flock ;)
i also noticed web snippets is brought to the statusbar, and opens when somthing is draged on it. it's nice.
i had flock 0.5.14, and i donwloaded the 0.7.xx and simply installed over it, i thought it will simply work as upgrade.
it did. all the favs, and most of the settings were kept. thats good. but the blog settings are hidden. my blog account is not apprearing in Options->bloging, but when i click to publish the post, it's shown in the publish dialouge.
also, i'm not able to add blog account in options, + buttons is simply not working.
okay, now i wanna give you suggestion, how blog editor should work, i mean the posting workflow.
- currently the blog editor opens in new window, which also saparatly showed in taskbar. in my last post on my blog, i feel comfortable with it (i feeled it like BlogJet). but one thing was not well. it was not fully independent, it was opened as child of the flock's browser window, and it was on top when i selected the flock browser window. i found this child window behaviour a bit annoying when doing drag'n drop. it should open independent of main flock window.
- the blog editor toolbar is missing image and font color buttons.
- the post category selection, blog selction, and other post related settings should be placed at the right side of the blog editor window, like in 0.5 one. rather opening another popup window when i click to publish the blog.
- i was not able to edit previous blog posts. there's no way to edit the previous post on blog. but there's an alternate, i type the post again, and when click publish, select advance and then select the previous post, to replace the new with old one. not a good way to edit post. i liked the idea in 0.5 builds, that when i click the post in topbar, it was opened for editing. but in 0.7, you can provide a long dropdown between toolbar and post title text field. the new post option should be always selected in dropdown, but user can select the post to edit from dropdown.
- the editor's toolbar icons are not good, they should be replaced with the better iconset
- photos topbar should also be placed in blog editor, and should open just like the web snippets topbar in editor. i found unconfortable when draging photos from flock browser's window to blog editor. it should feel integrated :). i guess placing photo topbar in editor will ease the blog posting process.
okay, these were the suggestions for current things. now move on to the post publishing workflow.
1. ctrl+b/editor button in toolbar opens blog editor, where the last published to blog is selected by default
2. user types the blog post using the enhanced html toolbar, phto topbar & web snippets topbar
3. user selects the post categories from rightside panel and other post settings, like date, or keep it simple with only basic stuff.
4. user clicks the publish button, and the post is published on the blog.
this is simple one window process, no popup windows, nothing complicated ;)
i've also created a imagination image of the blog editor. it seems nice to me, have a look:
http://flickr.com/photos/chall3ng3r/132566174/in/photostream/
======
okay. i'm done with the blog thing. now back to the some GUI things.
- bcoz there's not shortcut key for photos topbar, and it's gone from the links popup dropdown, i placed the photos topbar button on main toolbar, it looks nice. but when i click it, it gets i geuss in pressed state, and topbar opens. the behaviour is nice, but the pressed state of the button image is about 4pixles high then normal state, which cause the toolbar to jump every time it's pressed. in pressed state, the button looks a more whitish then others. also, sometimes there's a red border around this button, and it never removed untill the window is reopned.
take a look here: http://flickr.com/photos/chall3ng3r/132566127/in/photostream/
okay, i'm tired now. let me know your comments about the blogeditor idea i presented.
next, i'll post about photo topbar UI, and photo uploader UI 'n its workflow. maybe another imagination image of uploader ;)
Hello, I have been using Flock and posting to my blog with it - tried the Apr. 21st build posted at 20:1:25 and the blog function does not work. When I try and add my account, the finder freezes and just does nothing. Reverting back to 5.14.2 allows me to set up my account and blog as usual. I post to a Drupal powered website using a Mac.
After updating I can not post anymore. If I click Blog This the Blog Editor opens and I can type a title but the selection is not there and I can not manually enter text in to the main field.
April 22, 2006 - 8:29am — foolswisdom (not verified)
This feedback is awesome!
Blockquotes and the other functions within Flock 0.5.x's editor should be back in before release.
Brian, it was broken early Friday morning and unfortunately is still broken. Fixing this is a top priority.
[Bug 3310] "Continue" fails after entering blog address
http://bugzilla.flock.com/show_bug.cgi?id=3310
April 23, 2006 - 2:34pm — MilchFlasche (not verified)
MIDAS is a good news :) I'm sure you're going to implement all features of it, including image inserting, table constructing (how about CSS editor as in Nvu or Mozilla Suite Composer?), aren't you? :)
By the way, I'm for the 0.5 topbar :) It's really innovative. Of course the details can be modified, but the idea is good...
I just downloaded the hourly build. I like having the blogging tool as a tab because I used the uploader to upload screenshots to flickr and when I was writing a post in a tab, I could simply drag and drop a picture to the post.
@everyone complaining about the BE opening in a new window: simply force new windows to open in a new tab (tools -> settings -> tabs -> force links...)
i love Flock and the changes are nice but it feels a bit unhandy, that the blog-editor is in a different window, get it back in the mainwindow! :( The downlookin arrow in the favorite-star is not that beautiful, you can do it better, i know ;). The favorites-folder-changer in the bookmark bar is not the best one too... but it works... :D
April 26, 2006 - 7:48am — flowrobot (not verified)
i'm using an hourly build from earlier today ... gotta say i really like the new topbar and blog editor (but, yeah - bring on just a couple more buttons!) ...
however, i can't set categories on my drupal 4.7 blog ... the publishing dialogue successfully retrieves the categories, but once the post is made, it has not been assigned a category.
Good evening. Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers. Help me! Need information about: Alavert. I found only this - Alavert hives. Have you hitherto been on a combination of synthroid, compounded slow release t, and vitimins. Brief article anyone diagnosed with hypothyroidism will likely see her doctor pull - encyclopedia. Thank :cool: Faizah from Peru.
I switched from 0.5.x to 0.7.x some days ago and was slightly disappointed. Flock is still great, no doubt, but I prefered the topbar interface of 0.5 to be honest :(
Works absolutely fine Eli....and the new editor looks good too...
Gr8 work by all the Flock Developers. Ur all awesome.....
It works, but the funcionality is just so limited. What about blockquote?
Hey Poelog,
Well Flock will keep getting better and better...Just keep watching and if u didnt grab the latest build go get it...the topbar has changed a little in the last 3-4 hrs.
Hey Dinesh,
I normally update morning and evening, so lets see what happens this evening ;)
Nice topbar & photo browser.
This is my first test of any version >0.5.14.2 and I like it.
Posting to my blog was painless and much faster than with 0.5.14.2.
Looking forward to Cardinal!! :)
Hi Poeloq,
Can you identify specific aspects of the "the topbar interface of 0.5" that you prefer?
Thank you,
Lloyd
hi, improvements are good. i have found some elements that should look and work as in flock 0.5.14, also some suggestions.
- the favs selection popup button is moved from left to right, i'm now quite used to with having it on left. and i guess it should remain at left. also the popup menu is missing "my blogs", "flickr photos" etc. they should be in this popup menu.
- the blog editor open in new window, i liked it to open in new tab.
- the blog editor looks cool now. and is simple as well. but i guess there should be option like this: user can add his button in editor toolbar with html tag this button should place in the post.
this option will allow users to setup as many button as they want according to thier needs. like i wan a button for code tag.
- the links toolbar shows a dropdown icon which links have rss feeds. but the new flock is not showing it good. it should show the icon at left, then link title and then small dropdown icon to let user know it has rss feed. now its showing me this way, icon then linebreak, text, and on right dropdown arrow which is looking not good also making a bit more height of the links toolbar.
- it's now loading even slower. i've never used FF, but using Flock for bloging, flickr-ing mainly. i found a tool called FF preloader, and it works perfect with FF, when i click FF icon, it loads in less than a sec, even faster than IE. so, i suggest you guys to make this tool an internal part of Flock setup, and in settings user can check the option to use the preloader or not. i believe this is feature will also be appreciated by other users. (also i'm not using flock for browsing bcoz it loads slow)
for now i can write these suggestions. keep up the good work.
flock rocks!!!
// chall3ng3r //
Lloyed,
chall3ng3r basically brings up the stuff I was thinking of, maybe an option like: Load Blog Editior in New Tab or Window would be nice
The custom HTML Button would be great too.
yeah, keep up the good work. I'm a little busy so I can't spend too much time testing. Sorry guys, I'll pay you back someday :D
Thank you all for your comments. Remarks on the UI is very helpful. It will also be great if you tell us about your experience for online publishing: what service do you use? Did it worked smoothly, out-of-the-box or did you have to configure manually?
It's hard for us to test all the blog platforms out there and the more platforms we can support, the best Cardinal will be.
If which embedded rich text editor to use is still a more or less an open question you should take a serious look at the Dojo Rich Text editor. My chief reason for liking it is that the authors thought long and hard about re-inventing the wheel, and in the end decided it was necessary for two main points they didn't see in the other extant editors: usability and reliability.
http://dojotoolkit.org/docs/rich_text.html
Bloggers like a few things like
1. Blockquoting
2. Tagging
3. Crossposting
Could we have at least one of the above three?
I agree, the presence of webclipboard, somewhat obviates the necessity of having blockquote. But having no blockquote button at all is kind of a bummer. What if I want to blockquote a reference from a textbook that is not available online?
I was dissapointed when the support from technorati tags was removed.
great. okay, some more feedback about the blog thing. i use wordpress, and was using BlogJet previously for posting, but now it's just flock ;)
i also noticed web snippets is brought to the statusbar, and opens when somthing is draged on it. it's nice.
i had flock 0.5.14, and i donwloaded the 0.7.xx and simply installed over it, i thought it will simply work as upgrade.
it did. all the favs, and most of the settings were kept. thats good. but the blog settings are hidden. my blog account is not apprearing in Options->bloging, but when i click to publish the post, it's shown in the publish dialouge.
also, i'm not able to add blog account in options, + buttons is simply not working.
okay, now i wanna give you suggestion, how blog editor should work, i mean the posting workflow.
- currently the blog editor opens in new window, which also saparatly showed in taskbar. in my last post on my blog, i feel comfortable with it (i feeled it like BlogJet). but one thing was not well. it was not fully independent, it was opened as child of the flock's browser window, and it was on top when i selected the flock browser window. i found this child window behaviour a bit annoying when doing drag'n drop. it should open independent of main flock window.
- the blog editor toolbar is missing image and font color buttons.
- the post category selection, blog selction, and other post related settings should be placed at the right side of the blog editor window, like in 0.5 one. rather opening another popup window when i click to publish the blog.
- i was not able to edit previous blog posts. there's no way to edit the previous post on blog. but there's an alternate, i type the post again, and when click publish, select advance and then select the previous post, to replace the new with old one. not a good way to edit post. i liked the idea in 0.5 builds, that when i click the post in topbar, it was opened for editing. but in 0.7, you can provide a long dropdown between toolbar and post title text field. the new post option should be always selected in dropdown, but user can select the post to edit from dropdown.
- the editor's toolbar icons are not good, they should be replaced with the better iconset
- photos topbar should also be placed in blog editor, and should open just like the web snippets topbar in editor. i found unconfortable when draging photos from flock browser's window to blog editor. it should feel integrated :). i guess placing photo topbar in editor will ease the blog posting process.
okay, these were the suggestions for current things. now move on to the post publishing workflow.
1. ctrl+b/editor button in toolbar opens blog editor, where the last published to blog is selected by default
2. user types the blog post using the enhanced html toolbar, phto topbar & web snippets topbar
3. user selects the post categories from rightside panel and other post settings, like date, or keep it simple with only basic stuff.
4. user clicks the publish button, and the post is published on the blog.
this is simple one window process, no popup windows, nothing complicated ;)
i've also created a imagination image of the blog editor. it seems nice to me, have a look:
http://flickr.com/photos/chall3ng3r/132566174/in/photostream/
======
okay. i'm done with the blog thing. now back to the some GUI things.
- bcoz there's not shortcut key for photos topbar, and it's gone from the links popup dropdown, i placed the photos topbar button on main toolbar, it looks nice. but when i click it, it gets i geuss in pressed state, and topbar opens. the behaviour is nice, but the pressed state of the button image is about 4pixles high then normal state, which cause the toolbar to jump every time it's pressed. in pressed state, the button looks a more whitish then others. also, sometimes there's a red border around this button, and it never removed untill the window is reopned.
take a look here: http://flickr.com/photos/chall3ng3r/132566127/in/photostream/
okay, i'm tired now. let me know your comments about the blogeditor idea i presented.
next, i'll post about photo topbar UI, and photo uploader UI 'n its workflow. maybe another imagination image of uploader ;)
// chall3ng3r //
Hello, I have been using Flock and posting to my blog with it - tried the Apr. 21st build posted at 20:1:25 and the blog function does not work. When I try and add my account, the finder freezes and just does nothing. Reverting back to 5.14.2 allows me to set up my account and blog as usual. I post to a Drupal powered website using a Mac.
Keep up the great work!
TIA
After updating I can not post anymore. If I click Blog This the Blog Editor opens and I can type a title but the selection is not there and I can not manually enter text in to the main field.
oO
This feedback is awesome!
Blockquotes and the other functions within Flock 0.5.x's editor should be back in before release.
Brian, it was broken early Friday morning and unfortunately is still broken. Fixing this is a top priority.
[Bug 3310] "Continue" fails after entering blog address
http://bugzilla.flock.com/show_bug.cgi?id=3310
MIDAS is a good news :) I'm sure you're going to implement all features of it, including image inserting, table constructing (how about CSS editor as in Nvu or Mozilla Suite Composer?), aren't you? :)
By the way, I'm for the 0.5 topbar :) It's really innovative. Of course the details can be modified, but the idea is good...
It seems a lot of people preferred the 0.5 topbar in fact. Yes Yes Yes, all for it!
I just downloaded the hourly build. I like having the blogging tool as a tab because I used the uploader to upload screenshots to flickr and when I was writing a post in a tab, I could simply drag and drop a picture to the post.
@everyone complaining about the BE opening in a new window: simply force new windows to open in a new tab (tools -> settings -> tabs -> force links...)
Hey,
i love Flock and the changes are nice but it feels a bit unhandy, that the blog-editor is in a different window, get it back in the mainwindow! :( The downlookin arrow in the favorite-star is not that beautiful, you can do it better, i know ;). The favorites-folder-changer in the bookmark bar is not the best one too... but it works... :D
i'm using an hourly build from earlier today ... gotta say i really like the new topbar and blog editor (but, yeah - bring on just a couple more buttons!) ...
however, i can't set categories on my drupal 4.7 blog ... the publishing dialogue successfully retrieves the categories, but once the post is made, it has not been assigned a category.
I also prefer 0.5 topbar, just nice and simple.
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Good evening. Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers. Help me! Need information about: Alavert. I found only this - Alavert hives. Have you hitherto been on a combination of synthroid, compounded slow release t, and vitimins. Brief article anyone diagnosed with hypothyroidism will likely see her doctor pull - encyclopedia. Thank :cool: Faizah from Peru.