The Blog Editor #1 - Text Components

Text components are the most useful part of the new editor, in my opinion. They allow for what's called "rich text editing", without the need to learn HTML or any kind!

To get started, simply drag and drop the "Text" component into your blog content, it looks like this:

This will create a new text component which you can type directly into. This also displays text exactly as you'll see it on the blog itself, and we see this in greater effect by looking at the style bar.

When you begin typing in a text component, a style bar appear above which you can use to style your text instantly and visually. It looks like this:

You may be wondering, what do all these things do exactly? Well, they do pretty much what their icon implies:

The B makes text BOLD.

The i makes text italics.

The u makes text underlined.

The S makes text strikethrough.

The upper ^{2 makes text superscript.}

The lower _{2 makes text subscript.}

Now, I know what some of you are thinking, why don't we just use HTML components, like we used to. Well, there's nothing stopping you if you're really that stubborn, since the HTML component is capable of doing everything the "old editor" was capable of doing so. However I'll give more detailed reasons at the end why Text Components are superior for normal text.

To format text like above, simply select a portion of your text, and click the appropriate button. This will instantly format the text in front of your eyes, making it clear and easy to see what is happening.

Now you may have noticed one of the buttons was missed out above. This is the hyperlinks button, what this does is allow you to insert a link to any website, directly into the text itself! Simply place your cursor where you want the link to be inserted, then click the button to see this:

This pretty much concludes the extent of which you can use the Text Components (so far). We may add more functionality in the future!

So there are many reasons to use both Text and HTML components, and I'll highlight a few of them here.

Now, I said I would be state reasons for both sides, and as an advocate for transparency and fairness, I'll detail what you can't do with the text component and why you might use HTML still.

Overall, I personally don't think using HTML Components as a substitute for Text Components is a good idea at all. The Blog Editor itself was built to make blogging easier, more accessible and to try to prevent the CSS abuse that was happening and causing problems. To anyone who thinks they're "useless", they're just being ignorant and stubborn towards change. I understand that, but you need to open your eyes to the fact so many bloggers still don't know HTML, and refuse to try and learn. Providing better tools for these users to make better blogs is far easier and more efficient than keeping the editor the same while trying to educate every single new user.

So I kindly ask you consider using Text Components where you can, and use HTML where this is not suitable for you. And please, don't complain at others for utilising the new editor just because you refuse to change. Just be nice :)