The Create Update

So for those who don't know, the current quiz editor is not the first iteration of itself. In fact it may be even the 3rd such iteration, although it's hard to quantify when so many little things have been added over time. 

However, there are two distinct points where this current editor was formed, and the first was back in March 2018. Before this time, only two types of quizzes were possible: Text quizzes and Click-Map quizzes. However, the latter was only accessible by copying a quiz, it wouldn't be until summer of 2020 with The SVG Update that this quiz type was more publicly available. This means before March 2018, only text quizzes were publicly accessible to create. In March 2018, Quizmaster introduced the Picture Quiz format! Along with this came a whole reformatted editor, with expandable options on the side and more. 

The community went wild, they were thrilled and amazed by such an update. You can see their response here: Picture Quizzes on JetPunk.

We then had some updates to this new editor, including better typeins and the ability to add thumbnails, which came around in September 2018. And... that's about the extent of the major changes to Text and Picture quizzes. Multiple Choice was a new format introduced in January 2019, and then I created Tile Select in December 2019. We had a knock-on effect from The SVG Update in June 2020, as this revolutionised the SVG Selection in text quizzes and also introduced map quizzes as a native format.

Since then, we've had minor tweaks and additions but nothing major. Nothing that really transformed the editor into something concretely better. Today, we introduce the Create Update, which rebuilt the editor and introduces a whole new modern look for it.

The new editor for quizzes builds upon much of the groundwork laid during The Blog Update, reusing the modern and sleek design introduced in that. Here are the most notable changes, with Old on the left and New on the right.

A New Step Selector

Gone is the old, clunky and grey step selector which now looks dated. In comes a new one with nicer buttons and keyboard shortcuts too! You can now use Ctrl+S to save, Ctrl+Z to undo and Ctrl+Shift+Z to redo.

It's (hopefully) clear that this is nicer and easier to read. You may also notice the second change of design: No more Preview step.

Before you scream "Ahhh! The preview tab is gone!!", don't worry. The tab may be gone, but it's now just as accessible directly from submission. You see, if we look at the "Submit" tab, you now have a Preview button embedded directly onto the page - hooray for no more useless tabs!

Fancy Expandables

Something else borrowed from the Blog Update are fancier "expandables". These are the options that appear on the right-hand side of each quiz step, making it easy to add or delete answers, translate answers or change other properties as well. For this one, we'll show the options of Step 1 of the Picture Quiz editor, as these are more interesting than text quizzes, and as before the old on the left and the new on the right:

So you see, the old one was fine, but it came with some problems. First of all, the expandables were "connected" at the top and bottom, and this never made much sense to me, since they appear to be different entities. Second, why have an expandable just for "Add and Delete Answers"? This seems like a waste of space! 

And so, with a lick of paint, and some redesign, we now have nicer expandables, the "Advanced" one is gone, and the Collaborate button always appears in Step 1 (after saving a quiz once), and so no need to open the Advanced expandable all the time!

Nicer Thumbnails

We also buffed up the thumbnail selector, just a little, but it adds a lot of character! See the old two states on the left, and the new states on the right.

Minor changes, sure, but every little helps when you're modernising! 

Type Directly Into Step 2

For click-map quizzes and text quizzes, where you have a table of answers to add for your quiz, the old way looked something like this:

Now there's one major flaw with this design: the input box. Every entry is done through the input box, and this has been the cause of numerous problems in the past. But today, it is gone. No more input box! And "why" you ask? Well because you can now type directly into the grid of Step 2. See the new version of this same page:

In case it's not clear, let me zoom in on Andorra, the selected cell:

See the cursor? That's right, you can simply click a cell to edit it! It's one step closer to a spreadsheet, and no more input boxes! (In Step 2).

Better Caveat Removal and Reordering

Yep, you can now remove a particular caveat rather than just the last one, and you can reorder them too! Simply click the little chevrons on either side of the caveats:

A Better Collaborate Selection

You can now search for users directly instead of having to type their username correctly. Simply click "Add User" and search for their name directly, and click "Submit" when you are done.

After a user has been selected, you can remove them using the red X or remove all users using the button that appears.

Notice When Stats Will Reset

When a quiz's stats will reset due to changed answers, we will now show a notification of this in the Submit step, this does not necessarily mean it will appear on "Recent User Quizzes" though, since there are extra requirements for that to happen.

Now we've covered the main changes to the new editor, compared to the old one, we'll cover the specifics of the new changes you can find in this new editor that weren't in the old one!

Click Map Quizzes

Other than the global changes of new designs and the replacement of the input box in Step 2, there have been no specific changes to Click Map quizzes.

Now, we've separated out Text quizzes since there's just so many changes and additions to it. We'll ignore the previously mentioned changes, such as typing directly into Step 2 and overall design changes and adjustments.

That's about it! It really is a lot of new changes, although I suspect most people won't use many beyond the new way of entering text into Step 2, but alas the capacity for them to do so is now there.

We also made some changes to other parts of the website as well. Here's a list of them:

Overall, we've had quite a number of changes, although most have focused on the reconstruction of the Quiz Editor and further changes to it, we also had some minor changes for user in general as well.

Since much of the back-end of quiz editing was rewritten for this update, it is possible that some bugs remain. If you do spot a problem or have a suggestion for the quiz editor (within reason), we'd love to hear it! Remember if you don't report a problem we may never know about it, so won't be able to fix it. We believe strongly in user feedback, as without our users JetPunk would be nothing. 

Finally, we hope you enjoy the new quiz editor as much as I enjoyed creating it :)