Family Historian User Group

tatewise wrote: ↑

14 Dec 2022 21:15

Particularly in mixed mode, when there are many notes on both plain text and rich text, I'm not happy with some of that.
What is wrong with always opening existing plain text in the plain text editor and existing rich text in the rich text editor?
When opening rich text while plain text is the default, I would find it annoying to keep confirming that I want the rich text editor and running the risk that an inadvertent click on the wrong option removes the formatting.
There are ways of removing formatting in bulk, etc. So any remaining rich text is likely to need to stay as rich text.
Likewise, opening plain text while rich text is the default should open the plain text editor to avoid inadvertently adding formatting.

There is already the requirement that "User should be able to switch from one mode of working to the other while an editor is open." So that always allows the mode to be changed.

• Users who want to operate in Plain Text mode always (i.e. to turn off rich text which is the basic request we're dealing with) will set their preference to Plain Text (On) and the vast majority (if not all) of their notes will be Plain text. (They may have to run a bulk conversion process as a one-off to 'cleanse' any formatted text they have inadvertently acquired to date).
• If the default editing mode is determined by preference setting, all notes will open initially in Plain Text mode which is most likely to be what they want. If by some mechanism (e.g. a merge) they have acquired a Rich Text note, it would open in Plain Text mode with a warning about possible content corruption. Most likely, they will want to convert it to Plain Text so will continue in Plain Text mode, but at that point they have the option to switch to Formatted editing -- perhaps to inspect it fully before conversion. Result: the need to switch editing mode is very very low, and users can completely disregard Formatted mode if they wish.
• If the default editing mode is determined by the note format, the majority of notes will still open in Plain Text mode but a very few might open in Formatted. If they do, the user is most likely to switch immediately to Plain Text mode for the reasons outlined above. Result: a slightly higher need to switch editing mode, and users may still see Formatted mode from time to time, even though they have asked to 'turn it off'.

• Users who want to operate in 'mixed mode' (i.e. using rich text in some or all of their notes) will set their preferred mode to Plain Text (Off). They will standardise on Formatted mode editing because Plain Text mode has few if any benefits for them. (I can't think of a single one, assuming the 'uninvited formatting' problem is solved.)
• If the default editing mode is determined by preference, all notes will open in Formatted mode, which is exactly what the user wants.
• If the default editing mode is determined by the note format, a high proportion of notes (50% or more?) will open in Plain Text mode, even though the user has requested to 'turn Plain Text off'. In every such instance, the user will have to switch mode to get to their chosen editing experience.. Result: some very peeved users!

• An edit control invoked by a plugin via the FH API will behave the same as an edit control invoked by the user within FH

tatewise wrote: ↑

15 Dec 2022 12:33

The premise of the rich text editing mode relies on the rich text editing feature being 'well behaved'.