As I improve my own web text editor, I’m reflecting on what it felt like when the first WYSIWYG editors hit the market. PageMill launched and we said, “Amazing, this is what web editing should be.” But it turns out rich text just gets in the way. Markdown + limited HTML when needed is the way to go.
@manton There is a place for the WordPress block editor, or Medium, or Squarespace, or any number of very nice editors. But if you want to write natively for the web, those will never be quite right.
@manton I think it really depends on audience. My main objection to complex editors is almost entirely about data serialization formats and not at all about the user experience.
That said, Tumblr’s editor with post types and a fall back to Markdown remains an unrivaled marvel of blogging, in my opinion.
@jsonbecker Totally agree about audience. I should poke around with Tumblr's editor again, it's been a while.
@manton @jsonbecker I agree with both of you. Must remind myself everyday "just because you can, doesn't mean..."
@manton I admit to goading you a little. Between post types and short codes, Hugo has some really nice primitives to bring a more Tumblr-like experience. One of the reasons I like the idea of custom frontmatter is a back door to building a more Tumblr-like experience. It’s been on my mind since I started blogging here. I don’t like themes on Tumblr and can’t get along with various parts of the service, but I think it absolutely nails the best, most blog-like authoring experience on the web. And I think its design does a lot to have clever progressive disclosure to meet some of your own goals of having a simple quick post experience while having a very solid complexity ramp.
@manton Gonna second a look at the Tumblr editor - I think they got a lot right back in the day, and part of why I stayed on that platform so long even after the original dev team moved on.
@microadrian Right, the original foundation was just right. Very similar to Micro.blog in some ways: everyone gets feeds, their own hostname, easy posting.
@manton Ghost has neat little widgets as a part of their editor (like the product widget), but those fall apart when read through RSS. Knowing your blog posts will look good in different contexts is an important part of the experience.
@manton I mostly just write emacs org mode and export to markdown where needed (hugo, micro.blog). It's quite powerful. There are libraries that render sunsets to HTML. On most git* platforms, you can write raw org and it renders acceptably.
@manton 💯
You said WYSIWYG and my first thought? MS FrontPage. (It’s how I got my start, but still… oof)
@jsonbecker @manton I remain active on Tumblr.
I’d love to see Micro.blog do a first-rate job embedding posts from other places. Link previews like on Masto/Bluesky/Threads, embedded posts from Reddit, Tumblr and other services. Also, a queue, like Tumblr has.
Manton, I concede this may a million miles from your vision for Micro.blog and I won’t complain if you say “ain’t gonna happen.” Still, a lad can dream.
I sometimes think I should learn to code to write my own blog platform. But I don’t have that kind of time. I expect it would take me four years to learn enough to even get started. I have zero coding skills — can’t even do a simple AppleScript.
@canneddragons RSS, as lovely as it is, is highly niche. People who use ghost aren’t likely targeting an RSS audience. But it does scare things up when I cross post. I like embedding music, but it does fall apart once it hits any timeline.
