Feedback on New Literotica Full Screen Text Editor?

[Manu]

Sorry to bother you.

We just rolled out our first attempt at a clean full screen editor (with Night Mode and Word Count) for Lit authors. We expect there to be some minor issues with browsers or devices that we didn't test on.

The next time you're in your Lit Control Panel with a little extra time, please have a look and let us know if you find any bugs or if you have suggestions for improvements.

The details of where to find the feature are here:
Full Screen Editor for Lit Authors Now Available in Control Panel

Thank you!

 

[HeyAll]

Hi,

1) It works! I goofed up and didn't save it first.

2) On a similar note, is there any way to see how many Literotica pages a story is when in preview? I love that about the old system. For the new system, it's just one long page.

I try avoiding having a story spill over to the next page with just a paragraph or two. So it's good catching that in preview. But I know that 1 page is roughly 3,500 words and 2 pages is 6,900 words or so.

thanks

 

[tomlitilia]

It looks good, but the spell check add-on didn't work for me, which makes this feature not very useful. I use Firefox.

 

[HeyAll]

On that note, will there ever be a grammar feature on Lit?

Something like the kind of program grammarly has? It would be a great option, though I'm guessing it could be costly.

 

[Hypoxia]

It looks good, but the spell check add-on didn't work for me, which makes this feature not very useful. I use Firefox.

Ditto, but with Opera. Without active spellcheck, I'll not use the LIT editors.

 

[blozo]

It looks nice, but it still pops down to the bottom of the page at random times. It will be a nice upgrade for final edits, but I wouldn't want to write a whole story in it.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I'll still be doing all the hard work in Word.

 

[yukonnights]

I'm using Firefox. Just gave it a try. In general, I think it's pretty nice—love the dark mode feature. Seems to work fine.

However, as others have said; Without an on-board auto-spell check feature, I wouldn't be able to use it since I make a lot of typos in the first drafting phase. ( I rarely use a grammar checker, but it'd be nice to have the option.) One other thing I use, and didn't see, is the ability to change the font color—I use this quite often to highlight/remind me of something I think needs work at some future time (or sometimes I just make notes at some place I want to add something later. W/o the change of font color it would be hard to go back through and find such notes.)

Summary:
1. Basically, the major missing component is a good spell checker with a search and replace function. ETA: My last look at my draft on 5/23 and I notice a spell checker. I either missed seeing it the first time or it's been added.
2. Word count function. ETA: Found it!
3. Colored font options (wouldn't need to be many)
4. The formatting options will be nice too. ETA: This alone would be worth dropping a story written off-site into the draft function to properly add some Bold or Italics.

A thank you is in order for all the work being put in!

 

[yukonnights]

Hi,

1) It works! I goofed up and didn't save it first.

2) On a similar note, is there any way to see how many Literotica pages a story is when in preview? I love that about the old system. For the new system, it's just one long page.

I try avoiding having a story spill over to the next page with just a paragraph or two. So it's good catching that in preview. But I know that 1 page is roughly 3,500 words and 2 pages is 6,900 words or so.

thanks

I bumped my very short 'test story' over to preview. I think this is pretty much showing what the work will look like published, but I'm not certain. You can just bump it back to draft if need be from the bottom of the preview page after you take a look.

 

[SimonDoom]

I have a question for Manu and for others who have posted here: what is the advantage of using this text editor? I write all my stories using MS Word, and when I'm done I upload them in real text format. It's very simple. Why would I want to write and edit them using this feature? What's the benefit? The advantage of using Word is that I can write my story without being online. I suppose if you don't have Word it makes sense to use this, but is there any other reason?

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'll still be doing all the hard work in Word.

I'm with Zeb and Simon - I do the hard yakka in Word, including spell and grammar checks. I'd never use an on-line drafting tool - but, we get many comments from users who write on their phones, so maybe there is a user base for this, but we're not it. It's an odd thing to prioritise, I'd have thought.

 

[gordo12]

I'm with Zeb and Simon - I do the hard yakka in Word, including spell and grammar checks. I'd never use an on-line drafting tool - but, we get many comments from users who write on their phones, so maybe there is a user base for this, but we're not it. It's an odd thing to prioritise, I'd have thought.

I have to agree with the above. I need highlighting for areas I want to re-write but not do it right then. Word or Libre Office does just fine. The editor is overkill for me.

 

[BigMadStork]

Don't get me wrong, I like that you are making changes and helping authors out. There are a bunch of things I would have done first like an easier way to edit old stories, the ability to republish a story, better font handling, etc. Even a reactive interface that adjusts to the screen and allows font changes in the window would be way more useful.

It's odd reading a story on my 32" monitor but only using 4" of screen. With my bad eyes, I would like to increase the font size.

I don't see the editor as a bad thing, just incomplete. But hey, no matter what you do, we will want more. Personally, I want more stats and features for the readers. I will always use Word because I can keep multiple copies and it's easy to split up or combine stories. But hey, that's just me. I would bet there are a ton of authors that would like a nice online editor.

I thought there were utilities that help make rich text documents. Google found TinyMCE, a free utility.

How about some real feedback about what you have? The small blue square doesn't scream edit to me. How about a button that says "Full Screen Editor". Ok, last complaint. Shouldn't a full screen editor be full screen? On my widescreen monitor, it's a half screen editor.

Oh my, I sound just like Anonymous! Nothing but criticism when all you want to do is help and make thing better! I REALLY do appreciate the effort and not just sitting back and letting competitors pass you by. This is a great site and it deserves to get better. Keep up the good work!

 

[NotWise]

I tested it using Firefox and Chromium in Ubuntu 18.02LTS. The 'enlarge,', 'shrink,' and 'light/dark' icons did not appear in Firefox, but they did appear in Chromium. Firefox produced a box containing a hex code in place of the icon. Clicking on the box did perform the right functions.

Both Firefox and Chromium provided a word count at the bottom left of the page. The count didn't agree with LibreOffice (off by about 50 words out of 15,000), but that didn't surprise me.

edit: I also tried it in Google Chrome. It worked just like Chromium. I noticed that in Firefox the vertical slide bar on the right was missing the blue track and the up and down arrows at the top and bottom, but it did work.

edit2: The appearance of the slide bar in Firefox is probably correct for Ubuntu/gtk. The slide bars in LibreOffice are the same.

I opened it using Google Chrome on my old Android phone and it looked fine, but all I did was look.

 

[yukonnights]

I have a question for Manu and for others who have posted here: what is the advantage of using this text editor? I write all my stories using MS Word, and when I'm done I upload them in real text format. It's very simple. Why would I want to write and edit them using this feature? What's the benefit? The advantage of using Word is that I can write my story without being online. I suppose if you don't have Word it makes sense to use this, but is there any other reason?

I'd probably have to say I wouldn't use it much. I write offline in raw text format on a lap top I can take anywhere...even into a remote desert canyon where I might be camping for a week. That said, the dark-mode function is very tempting. I don't have Word, so I don't have to do anything to post mine. But one thing I do like is to copy the raw text draft over to another word processor on the same computer and change the font into chalkboard (or any other). Just changing the font helps a lot in proof reading/editing. I didn't mention it on my 'wish list' above, but it is pretty important.

 

[yukonnights]

I tested it using Firefox and Chromium in Ubuntu 18.02LTS. The 'enlarge,', 'shrink,' and 'light/dark' icons did not appear in Firefox, but they did appear in Chromium. Firefox produced a box containing a hex code in place of the icon. Clicking on the box did perform the right functions.

Both Firefox and Chromium provided a word count at the bottom left of the page. The count didn't agree with LibreOffice (off by about 50 words out of 15,000), but that didn't surprise me.

Duh! Now I see the word count. Firefox works fine for me, by the way.

 

[MelissaBaby]

It all looks good on Safari.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I use a kindle android for everything writing related. The text editor provides a blank page to write on, but that's it. No features, no add-ons; there's nothing to use. It's a zero for me, on this device.

I'll stick with the Open Office tools, since they're transportable and can be saved on my device. This editor saves the master copy on somebody else's server - that's not something I'd ever do, either.

 

[blozo]

MS Word

I too write everything in word. The advantage of this would seem to be that it's already attached to the site, and unlike MS Word, it's free, which is a big deal to a lot of people who can not afford it and have never heard of Open Office.

I'm giving Manu a solid A for effort.

 

[NotWise]

I uploaded part of a story to test the editor, and now I have to ask: how do I delete a draft? I've never done that before, and I don't see an obvious way to do it.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I uploaded part of a story to test the editor, and now I have to ask: how do I delete a draft? I've never done that before, and I don't see an obvious way to do it.

Ha! I was in that same boat. You have to do it from the Drafts section on your My Story page.

 

[NotWise]

Ha! I was in that same boat. You have to do it from the Drafts section on your My Story page.

I was expecting to find something like a trash can icon off to the right of the story, and there isn't one. How did you do it?

edit: Never mind! I found it.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

What a struggle.

Previewed a submission and found a few formatting errors. Tried to do it in the text editor. I did add some text and saved it. I clicked on the works tab and went to drafts. The page never finished loading. I couldn't scroll the page. I had to close the browser, I use Chrome, and go back into my works draft page to preview the story. During the preview I found some other things that needed changing.

So, I shut down the browser and made the change in Word. And started the cycle all over again.