In the second look at the new Text Editor functionality coming soon to IP Board and subsequently TIWWA, chief programmer Matt Mecham reveals more about the cool new features that we can look forward to seeing later this year...

I recently introduced the new text editor in 3.2.0. This new text editor brings a robust rich text editor coupled with custom BBCode and an auto-save feature.

Today, I wanted show some user interface and usability improvements we've made in this area.

Firstly, where space is tight or where you don't want to be overwhelmed with the text editor, it is shown 'minimised'. The screenshot below shows this minimised state and the editor looks just like a regular HTML text area that everyone is familiar with.

Upon clicking the text area to begin making your post, it'll expand into the full editor ready for use:

We've also gone ahead and added 'Ajax reply' and 'Ajax quoting'. This improves the responsiveness of IP.Board by removing the page reloads and gives it more of an 'app' feel by posting and updating the page instantly.

I've taken a short video of this in action. Please note that you are viewing an in-development feature so the final design is not set for both the board and the editor and also that I'm currently working in "development" mode with CKEditor which means that there is a slight pause as it loads. This will not be the case when we package it up for release.

We hope that you enjoy these enhancements to commonly used areas and that it makes a common task more enjoyable. Please do keep in mind that cosmetic style issues and such will be addressed in future blog entries.