Greetings, Silvrbackers!

As you can tell by the look and feel of this blog, something is quite different on Silvrback. Well, we're pretty excited about that! 

Really. And we think many of you will be as well. Ok, I'll calm down a bit here.

As I'd discussed here a few weeks ago, in addition to Markdown, we've been developing a second editor for those who are perhaps a bit intimidated by Markdown, or who simply would like a few more editing options for their blog. Let's face it, most of us grew up using a text editor and all the things it allowed us to do with a document.

While this editor is no Microsoft Word, it does offer several of the capabilities we've come to expect in an editor. The what-you-see-is-what-you-get nature of this type of editor provides you instant "preview" while you write. If you click outside the writing space, the toolbar disappears for an even cleaner quick-look. And, your full preview viewing option remains at the bottom of the pages.

First, to activate the editor, you need to go to your blog setup screen in your account controls menu and scroll down toward the bottom of the page to select the wordprocessor option. Save the selection. Your selection will be in effect for the next article you write. That means that existing published and unpublished articles will still be under the previous editor.

Details About the Editor

Most of the toolbar features are intuitive and familiar. The image and video/code upload, and linking functions are a bit more complicated, but not wildly so. Experimentation will get you most of the way there. There is a cheat sheet help "?" located at right end of the toolbar, which provides a quick tutorial on these options. The FAQ will address these areas in more detail as time goes on.

Image and video uploading allows you the option to position either on the left- or right-hand side of the article page. Text wrapping is possible, as well as creating larger or smaller spacing between the upload and text. Further, you are now able to place a border around images, as well as adjust proportionality and the size of the images. There's only one color option for the border. Image dimensions and borders are in pixels (this image has a 4 pixel border).

One thing to expect, and we're trying to improve on this, is that the larger the image in resolution density, the longer it takes to upload. That's not unusual, but noticeable. Once it has loaded, it may not immediately render in the page. If you click the preview button at the bottom of the article page and then go back to your article draft, this will likely speed this up (if the image has loaded). 

Video embedding is relatively straight forward, fast and the same text-wrapping, embed-sizing and positioning options are available. This is the same function to be used when embedding podcasts and audio files.

Programming code should be copy-and-pasted directly into the article page.

def self.add_remove_subscriber(email, user)
  subscriber = user.email_subscriptions.find_by_email(email)
  unless subscriber.present? && subscriber.subscribed
    if subscriber.present?
      subscriber.delete
    end
    subscriber = user.email_subscriptions.build(email: email, subscribed: true)
    subscriber.save
  end
end

However, HTML code formats, such as Twitter, are the exception. These types of code will need to be inserted in the code position you want through the "source code" button (<>) on the toolbar. No direct embeds will work in these cases.

Occasionally, we have a request for footnotes. This is doable now, at least the giving of the appearance of a footnote is possible.¹ 

For those using Mathjax, the editor allows such coding under the same rules as Markdown. The cheat sheet is on the toolbar as well, but you still must activate this feature in the Blog Setup screen for it to function in the page.

$$x_1^2+2y_1+3=0$$

One last thing. As with any new feature of this complexity, there will likely be things that don't quite function as hoped. We will work to clean these up as we find them, and as you bring them to our attention.

Thanks for Silvrbacking with us..... 

Kermit

^{_________________________}

¹ Footnotes can be imitated with this editor.