Ability to edit HTML | Feature requests

Ability to edit HTML

Eleanor Cave

We're really missing this feature from the old version of Gather. Being able to remove the odd break tag and quickly resolve any HTML issues (e.g. the odd bullet list issue) is really important, especially if your CMS doesn't allow you to access HTML. Having 'clean' HTML helps ensure that content is accessible from the outset. PLEASE reinstate that functionality.

October 1, 2018

Lisa McGowan

This feature is critical for our enterprise client: they need to be able to edit the HTML to remove SharePoint and Site Studio tags.

James Peacock

marked this post as

open

Aldert Berends

An ability to edit HTML also allows you to add ID's to headings for jump-to links.

There is no way to add an ID on a heading now.

Hope McPherson

Yes, please bring back our ability to edit html. I would save lots and lots of time if I could jump in to do this, and my co-workers have talked about skipping the GatherContent step since we can't make even small tweaks before a page is built.

Halie Jeanes

Considering that I have yet to find a developer who consistently populated my content correctly, this feature is very important to me. As a content developer, the ability to control the html so that the content appears exactly how I want it to was one of the best features of this software (even if I did have to go back and clean it after copy and pasting). Also, I’d rather not use the WYSIWYG editor all the time and I really miss the full formatting toolbar. Really don’t want to waste time highlighting and toggling between two short bars with limited options.

Angus Edwardson

marked this post as

under review

Hi everyone, and thanks so much for getting so involved with this discussion. It's seriously appreciated, and really helps us improve the product.

HTML has been a real hot topic recently, and we've now done a few things to try and improve this. It seems there are a few major themes:

Our HTML is not clean, and contains a bunch of unexpected <br> tags
Copying HTML out of GatherContent lead to loads of extra formatting needing done in the CMS - often because of the wrapping of HTML when you 'Copy HTML' from a field
There needs to be away to quickly confirm if HTML is clean
HTML editing is simply more efficient for certain editing tasks

Would you all agree with this summary?

I'm really sorry that the update has caused these issues for you, and we're very much determined to fix them all.

I just wanted to update you on what has been done to resolve these issues so far:

Extra tags: We've done a load of QA and fixes to make sure extra tags aren't created when writing or pasting content
View HTML: We've made some improvements to the view HTML modal, to hopefully make it more readable
Wrapping HTML: We've removed the wrapping from HTML when you copy from a field, to prevent any unwanted breaks in the code (will be live early next week)
Copy raw HTML: We've added an option to copy completely raw HTML from the View HTML modal, so both formatted and raw HTML are available now (will be live early next week)

Beyond this, we are also having internal discussions around how we could potentially enable some form of HTML editing. The challenge is doing this while retaining the new live collaboration content functionality, and also making the editor as intuitive as possible for non-technical authors.

If anyone is interested in discussing any of the above in more detail, then please let me know. And thanks again for all the input here 🙌

Karen Gould

Angus Edwardson: Removing thé HTML functionality was a huge disservice to all your customers who had come to rely on it. 
The HTML functionality was the component I relied upon the most for all the reasons stated throughout this thread. 
I especially need it for formatting tables. In 2015 that functionality literally saved the day on a huge site we redesigned as tables were critical on over a hundred pages. 
Yesterday, I started to build out a new template and was so excited to get back into Gather Content (I had not used it yet this year) because I knew GC could support a long list of specifications for this project only to discover that this critical functionality was GONE. 
Did I miss some type of survey or feedback request from GC before you decided to make this change? I did try to watch the webinar about the updates but it was so long and so dry and did not seem to be terrifically informative that I did not make it through the long thing. Was the removal of the HTML editor covered by that? 
PLEASE bring it back! 
There must be a better way to allow multiple people to edit a doc at the same time. 
Thank you for your attention to this issue. 

James Deer

Karen Gould: 👋
We're really sorry to have disappointed you here however the goal is for the new editor to produce the HTML you expect the first time, without the need to edit the HTML as you once did.
We're obviously failing on this front at the moment.
I'd be very keen to understand how the HTML we generate for tables in the new editor varies from the HTML you expect, and need to get your job done.
In the old editor you were editing the table HTML which, in our opinion, means it wasn't giving you the HTML you needed the first time around.
Any specifics you can share on what HTML you are expecting, vs what HTML you are getting will greatly help our product team solve this challenge.
Thanks,
James

Karen Gould

James Deer: Maybe I am missing something. I hope I am!
I want to be able the format the rich text fields in templates I create with tables. In the past I did that in the HTML editor.
In general, I want to format the rich text fields for templates with copy and lists and anything else that would make the template a tool that provides consistency without mindless copy past repetition for all users of the templates. 
Please let me know if this does not make sense. 
I made be able to show examples from templates made before the Gather Content update.
Suggestion: Could GC allow users to toggle back and forth between options to either be working with the HTML editor or a mode for multiple people to edit simultaneously? 

Karen Gould

OR for thé time being could you reinstate the HTML functionality for building templates?

There is no need for multiple people to be editing a template at the same time. I don’t even recall that being an option for templates.

James Deer

Karen Gould: If I've understood you correctly, you want to pre-populate a rich text field inside the Template Editor? That way when an item is created, it has the the pre-populated rich text fields inside by default?

Karen Gould

James Deer: Yes, that is what I need to be able to do.

James Deer

Karen Gould: Got it. Unfortunately you aren't able to pre-populate rich text fields inside templates any longer. There is a work around though:

Create a new item with the required (unpopulated) template.
Open the new item and populate it with the temptable content/tables/lists etc you wish to add to each field.
Click on the menu (3-dots, top right) and hit Duplicate (screenshot: https://cl.ly/76884cb8e7d4).
The new Duplicated item contains the Template + the pre-populated content inside the rich-text areas ready for you to edit.
Rename the new Duplicated Item to whatever you wish.

Not perfect but you can achieve what you are looking for. Hope this is helpful.

Sofie Falkenbach

Being able to edit HTML also allows you to rearrange content more easily. 
You can use the HTML view to copy/cut and paste content that has associated comments and still have the comments display within the editor. 
When you copy and paste content using the WYSIWYG the comments disappear. I think they still stay in the comment history, but not everyone looks there and it's not as easy to understand the relationship between the comment and the content. I think it also lists the original location (template field) rather than the new one.
Otherwise you have to move all the content around the commented text, which is fiddly and time-consuming, and only works if you're moving content within a field. 
ETA: Just saw there's another request about keeping comments when you cut and paste text https://gathercontent.canny.io/feature-requests/p/keep-comments-when-cutting-and-pasting-text
That's actually a better suggestion because it means people who aren't comfortable with HTML could also do it. 
But I still agree that having the ability to edit HTML is useful generally. 

Taryn Eby

We've been avoiding the switch as long as possible because of this change. Being able to edit HTML was one of my favorite GC features. Really sad it's being taken away in favor of an inferior system. I don't care how good your editor is - nothing trumps being able to fix errors yourself. Now I'll have to edit the HTML elsewhere, which is inefficient.

Julie Miller

Being able to edit HTML also meant you could copy some existing HTML in before jazzing it up for stakeholder review. Having to recreate everything manually is a huge drag - especially when it has things like a table within a table, which I find I'm unable to actually do at all in GatherContent.

Andy OHSE

I am not sure of the value of removing the ability to quickly edit source code. There will always be a need to be able to edit HTML before the content goes into the CMS - many of them already outlined in the comments here. Can you please reinstall this option?

→