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Everyone's been lovey dovey over the new WYSIWYG editor (JfZ, future, forum guide, hacks) While I, despite my initial "enthusiasm", still think that it has lots of problem room for improvement.
The WYSIWYG editor is at the very core, the most important feature on Blogdrive. Without it... you would be wondering how a blog host can ever be a blog host. And we really don't expect writers to be able to write properly, right?
1)  Insert Link opens a new window? This has to be the most annoying small problem. Everytime I need to insert a link, I'll need to wait till the new window loads before I can do anything else. This is a pain especially on MSIE because it takes a long time for MSIE to open a new window. Blogdrive should really just reduce to using a "prompt" javascript function to do the magic. It's less complicated and faster. Not to mention no new HTTPrequest to the Blogdrive server while editing.
Another problem is that it'll not work if the text you highlighted contains an apostrophy ' or ' . For example if you write: "Seige's dog", and wanting to add a link to these words, it'll not copy the "Seige's dog" to the window. This is a Javascript bug.
2) Different browser syntax rendering - on Firefox it's "XHTML Transitional" while on MSIE it's "plain old HTML" with CAPITALS. You can notice the differences if you use the "HTML View" feature located at the right bottom of the editor. It's odd although
3) Up Down Left Right button doesn't work sometimes - can't move the focus of the text cursor basically but the weird thing about this is... it only happen sometimes. And as for me, I can't identify what is the source of this problem.
4) In HTML View, the text cursor isn't always where it should be - more often than not it appears to be one or two characters away. How and why this happens is a mystery. It usually happens when I have a long entry that I needed to edit. It has something to do with miscalculating the string lengths or something along those lines.
5)   Undo/Redo doesn't work sometimes - Again, this is odd and I can't tell why it doesn't work. It happens to both Firefox and MSIE.
6)   Outdent/Indent uses different elements sometimes - I would really prefer the editor to implement the <BLOCKQUOTE> elements, it works great on MSIE but on Firefox, it uses <div> with margins set to indent it... how cruel.
7) Save post to clip board works on MSIE only - it doesn't work on Firefox mainly because Firefox is stupid for not supporting the copy-to-clipboard function. Sadly.
8) Firefox browser crash when reloading editor sometimes - Again, this is another one of the "sometimes" problem. It's just weird and I just can't make it out why. Don't take me wrong that it could be other webpages I'm viewing because the window crashed a few times and it's always during reloading of the editor in Firefox.
9) Can't insert Scripts or Objects - That's due to security reasons but for someone like me who do need to use some Javascripts, it's  . Though... I shouldn't fret because I still have the beloved PTE.
10) Help Guide is coming soon ever since the big bang - See that "?" up there on the top right hand corner? Ever clicked on it, No? Don't bother.
I somehow realise that all these problems have almost everything to do with browser inconsistencies. Still I don't see why an editor should be flawed just because of certain browser not working perfectly well.
Wondering if Blogdrive will ever be bothered to fix these minor things? Nah, never. Not in a century or two.
Ever since Blogdrive fixed the PTE, it has so far been a million times better than WYSIWYG editor. Although it doesn't mean it's all great (because it doesn't work all well in Firefox/Opera), it's still better than WYSIWYG editor.
Tags: Blogdrive, WYSIWYG, Plain Text Editor, PTE, Editor,
Blogdrive WYSIWYG Entry Editor v. 3.57b
JFZ just put up a hilarious entry about one of Blogdrive's new and upcoming feature, except it's all fictional. Welcome to the future.
MONROVIA, CA -- Blogdrive's Executive Vice President of Emerging Global Technology Acquistions division announced the launch of the 3.57b entry editor on the video conferencing multiscreen to the cheers of thousands of swag-wearing Blogdrivers at the Malaysian BlogCon2012 conference this evening. BlogCon Malaysia attendance has surpassed the Tokyo Auto Show in recent years.
After the Blogdrive acquistion of the Tawian-based Neural Network start-up, Hudyang, many blog pundits forecast the emergence of neural editors. Blogdrive has shocked financial market pundits with the 3.57b because it is the first low cost and functional product to truly work in the long-awaited I-wear market.
The 3.57b has not only been crowned product zero in the I-wear market by EEEI, but also its software has been rumored to be up for multiple awards for idiot-proofing among social networking and marketing industry groups. Blogdrive's own logo serves as the 3-button comand interface.
When one of the 121.3 million Blogdrivers is using the the 3.57b editor, they can compose in the language of their choice, preview and verify their entry on the heads-up display, and then simply process that entry with one touch on the Blogdrive logo. Tapping the orange control means cancel, blue saves draft, and green publishes the entry.
Blogdrive's Emerging Global Technologies division is currently working on the automatic classification of blog entries using the Neural Emoticon System Generator, but the roll-out of the NESG Blogdrive feature has been hampered by the recent inclusion of the bi-polar algorythm.
I noticed that the insert hyperlink button in WYSIWYG Entry Editor is a little buggy. Nothing serious really but I think someone should look into it.
First thing first, I'm not exactly happy that every time I want to insert a link, I'll have to Open A New Popup Window before I can insert the links. This is, on the surface not a big issue because it's easy to understand and it allows us to select whether if we want to open it in a new window or otherwise. But it takes a long time to open a new window, especially in Microsoft Internet Explorer and it will add up to the time if I want to insert many links all the time. I certainly do hope that Blogdrive will just make it a normal javascript prompt function rather than a new popup window.
Secondly the bug, which is why this entry is written. To insert a link, you basically highlight some text and click on the hyperlink button. A popup window will come up and you can just fill in the details for your link. It works fine most of the time. Most of the time... It doesn't work if your selected text involves a ' Yes, an aprostrohpy. This is evidently a javascript error, Blogdrive ought to add a filter to escape this aprostrophy so that it'll work. Like I said, nothing major. Tags: Blogdrive, WYSIWYG, Editor, Hyperlink, Bug, Popup,
*Updates* Blogdrive fixed the Plain text editor.
Since Blogdrive's PTE isn't going to be fixed anytime soon, I've decided to write up my own fix for it since I can't use the greasemonkey fix that was created by Xr.
Here's the link and features surrounding it:
1) URL is similar to that of blogdrive
http://design.blogdrive.com/manage/blog_entries?big=123456&pid=
http://www.blogdrive.com/manage/blog_entries?bid=123456&pid=
2) includes Extended Entry and Keywords.
3) behind the scenes features: dates automatically changes to current time
4) behind the scenes features: BID/PID auto updates from the URL.
5) behind the scenes features: inserting images in old fashion.
6) Not able to call up your previous entries contents. It does not enable editing of previous entries however it allows you to REPLACE it.
7) I tried to include Amazon affiliate thing to this, but I realised there's a server indifference here that disallow variables to be passed through. So I have no choice but to disable it.
So, there you go.
Instead of moaning of the problem over and over again, Xr decided to write up a GreaseMonkey fixer for the BlogDrive PTE Posting Dates problem. Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension which lets you to add bits of DHTML ("user scripts") to any web page to change its behavior. If you uses Firefox and have the Greasemonkey installed on your computer, You may use this tool. Download the script here. Below are the details, note the explanation: Blogdrives gives the time based on configured timezone. However, when creating a new entry, "Current" doesn't mean anything. In those cases, the hours are set to local time. Think about it if the machine from which you edit your blog is not set to the same timezone as your blog. // Blogdrive PTE Fixer v 0.2.2
// Copyright (c) 2006, Xr
// Released under the GPL license
// http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
//
// This is a Greasemonkey script. if you don't have GM, go to
// http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
// GM is an extension for Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/)
//
// Known bugs :
// - Blogdrives gives the time based on configured timezone. However, when
// creating a new entry, "Current" doesn't mean anything. In those cases,
// the hours are set to local time. Think about it if the machine from which
// you edit your blog is not set to the same timezone as your blog.
//
// Version history :
// 0.2.2 : Fixed date systm where "09" would be interpreted as octal
// Fixed date showing GMT instead of local time.
// 0.2.1 : Title is not lost anymore
// 0.2 : Moved to a better way of getting input field, fields are now selected
// depending on posted date / current date
// 0.1 : Initial script
//
//
// ==UserScript==
// @name Blogdrive PTE Fixer
// @description Allows Plain Text Editor to correctly edit dates
// @namespace http://xr.i-jeuxvideo.com/?cat_id=progs
// @include http://www.blogdrive.com/manage/blog_entries*
// ==/UserScript==
// Get the invalid <input> field. I have not tested it, but looking through the codes it appears to be doing it right since it's well organised and written. Try it out if you uses Greasemonkey. References: Plain Text Editor (PTE) bugs and issues, Dates of Edited Posts, Can't Change My 'Publish Date', BlogDrive PTE Fixer, Greasemonkey,
Tags: BlogDrive, WYSIWYG, Editor, Firefox, Greasemonkey,
I know I've always suggested to everyone that whenever a problem arises with their blogdrive they should send in a trouble ticket to let the authorities know about their problem. However, as far as BlogDrive's customer service is concerned, trouble tickets, or in other words support tickets are not to be bothered, whether it's a mojor bug or not.
Trouble ticket are meant to be a form of method for BlogDrive users to communicate with BlogDrive administrator whenever there's a problem. However, many people tend to misuse this service and often lead to giving the admins too much unnecessary work.
On the support ticket page, it's clearly stated that due to large amount of tickets received, they may not respond especially to problems with designs.
Due to the large number of trouble tickets received, we may not respond to all. Especially those which are in regard to Blog design, are obscure or trivial in nature. If you are experiencing a problem setting up or editing your Blogdrive account, or if you would just like to leave a comment, please fill out the form below. We will contact you as soon as the problem is resolved. Any information you provide here may be shared with others.
It's also stated that they will respond as soon as the problem is resolved. This makes a lot of sense when no trouble tickets (known) have been responded, ever. Because no bugs or other known issues have been fixed yet (that are of any concern). This goes back to things like PTE, Page not Found, and some others. It's reasonable, just as stated they will not respond. Unprofessional. In a way. Sadly. Personally, I've send in many trouble tickets and have never once received a reply. Not once. Could be my memory failing. Do you have a similar experience? Tell us about yours. References: Plain Text Editor bugs, BlogDrive Disaster, Tags: BlogDrive, Support Ticket, Trouble Ticket, Customer Services,
The plain text editor (PTE) on BlogDrive serves as an alternative for those who can't or just refuses to use WYSIWYG Editor, mainly due to browser issues, technicality or just plain stubbornness. It's useful as a backup tool in case there's a problem with the WYSIWYG.
Posting Date Issue
However, in the last couple of months there's been an increasing amount of complaint regarding the PTE post date problem. It appears that the post date automatically changes to the current date when a user edits a submitted entry. This only affects a small number of users but evidently the frustration of these people are heard.
"The Blogdrive teams regard this as a known issue and are currently working hard to fix it.
In the BlogDrive forum: Dates of Edited PostsCan't Change My 'Publish Date'One of the user pointed out the "bug" for this problem, and it appears to have a very simple solution. If it's correct, I can write up the fix for this very quickly and problem solved. I think I should do just that. Also, a tip from some unknown sources says this bug is there for a purpose: to help fight spam. It doesn't make much sense. Other problemsCurrently the PTE doesn't support a number of new features that came along with the new WYSIWYG editor. This includes the "Amazon Current things", "Smilies", and some upgraded account features such as "Extra Entry" and "Keywords". Not AcceptableThe PTE is supposed to be an alternative for using the WYSIWYG editor, a backup. It should be much more reliable because it doesn't include fancy features that usually cauces bugs. Being less competent than the WYSIWYG editor is not an option really. ConclusionOverall, the PTE needs a major make over. I hope this is the only reason that's keeping the working PTE without a postdate issue from releasing. As this is the most frustrating of all. On another note, "Du bist Deustchland" is still the highest search on Technorati for several days now. The Germans sure are excited about the World Cup, and me too. Tags: WYSIWYG, Editor, du bist deutschland, Amazon, Smilies, BlogDrive
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