Hey Greg,

Kindly please find the response to your inquiries below:

1. I opened up a template (Template for News ).
I tried to copy a column-based block set from the (image on the left, text on the right).
I found no way to do so.
This defeats the whole purpose of a Template (to produce pages with a finished look, using new, custom material). I have a dozen images, not just two, as shown in the template.

I think you are using the wrong block. EasyBlog 5 supports nested blocks for text blocks. You just need to drag an image block into an existing text block

2. Okay. So I made my own template.
Made a copy of Template for News. Found the string in the database. The use of volatile code formatting and block UIDs makes a quick copy and paste untenable.
BUG(?): As an experiment, I was able to add a column-based block, and it showed up on the front end—but when I added two blocks, it threw a DB error in PHPMyAdmin, of "truncated, string too long" Wait, what? This can't be right. Post can only have 4 images and four paragraphs? Gave up on DB experiment.

Not really sure if I understand you here. Where are you seeing this errors and how can we reproduce these errors?

3. Decided to see if this latest EB update has solved the drag and drop problem for blocks. Nope. When you go to add a block or item (image or text, for example) to the end of a page longer than the screen height, it does not auto-scroll, so you can't drop it where you want. Sometimes you can drop it lower, then lower, forcing the placement location into view, but often even this terrible, slow method fails (when there are column-based, somewhat complex block sets, usually).

Yes, we are aware of the auto scrolling issues and we're still looking into this. Temporarily, you can use the "click" / "tap" and "drop" functionality as well.

4. Two column blocks in this news template report being 6, 6 (equal widths), but they are not.

Please let us know how to reproduce this issue as I can't seem to reproduce them internally. Upon selecting 2 columns 6 each, they appear in 2 columns.

I gave up. I'll try one more time using JCE (does that finally work?). If not, I will shift to Joomla articles for the next three months.

JCE / TINYMCE should still work should you decide to scrap the blocks altogether. Everything can work as it was previously in EasyBlog 3


The composer in EasyBlog 5 is something that is pretty new and nobody has ever created such an editor. No doubt that the learning curve initially isn't as smooth as a WYSIWYG editor, it just get's things done unlike using a WYSIWYG editor.

I have used many WYSIWYG editors before and honestly, none of them can actually help us achieve creating posts like what the new composer allows. If you don't believe me, try to get new users to insert a snippet of text and place an image beside it. They will also struggle initially until they learn how to align images and add the necessary padding.

That being said, we still offer the ability for you to switch back to normal WYSIWYG editors instead of using the new composer. When doing so, you get the exact same functionality on EasyBlog 3.9, with a different composer screen. That's just about it

Thank you, Mark, for the quick response.

For #1: if you read a little closer, you'll see I am describing the Post Template that comes with EB 5. It defeats the purpose of a template, and diminishes a tool that claims to be easy, if there is no way to replicate parts of a page easily. It's frustrating to open the post templates and have to painstakingly re-create the nice combinations you've made. There should—MUST—be a way to simply copy/paste or duplicate selected parts of the page. At the very least, a ROW (like your image/text pairs).

When step and repeat is 5-10 times faster using code than a WYSI, something's wrong. But you offer no code approach, thru the composer.

For #2: My apologies. My writing is unclear here. I made a custom template based on the News template. Then I went to look for the code file, to see if I couldn't just copy n paste. I found that your method is a string in the DB, per custom template. No problem. However, when I copied the long template code/html string into an editor and made simple modifications (this was, as noted in my comment above, an EXPERIMENT), I saw one weird issue after another. The code string's format is highly susceptible to formatting differences that even my experienced eye couldn't make sense of entirely. I made headway, though, and was able to add new image/text/HR sets. But since the UIDs are unique, I gave up on this method. However, before I quit i saw the oddity I described, as noted above, using PHPMyAdmin. Easy to replicate: a pasted in string that is twice the length of the original string produces the truncated/too long error. Makes no sense. Perhaps the table row is set wrong. (And i know this is an obscure/arcane issue, since editing the DB is NOT what you recommend.)

For #3: That alt pasting approach does NOT always work, but it works often enough. I should have credited your tool. My apologies. However, as a manager of many sites and one who must train clients, this is a serious issue. Clients hate workarounds and inconsistencies. Glad to hear you are resolving.

For #4: Easy to replicate. It's a reporting problem. Click on the columned sets in the template. Your templates show narrow side columns on left and wider columns on the right, but the tool for setting the columns says "6, 6." It doesn't matter if 'technically' it's right or it 'looks right'. It doesn't make sense.

I am happy to report that so far so good with JCE. Looks much smoother. No probs today.

I have done what you suggested, worked with clients and staff to text with an image beside it using EB 5. NO ONE gets it, but not because your UX ideas and tools are "wrong". Like many who've posted here, my clients found the bugs, inconsistencies, and incomplete documentation a fatal flaw.

We must ask our clients to embrace a new paradigm. It WILL be better. But the tool, as it is now, embodies the two worst problems for selling, marketing, and training: it requires education, and it burns the buyer. i am more than ready to educate my clients, because I can see where you are going with this. But I will only do so when the delight factor far outweighs the burnt finger sensation. It MUST be smooth. They won't try a third time.

Sincere love and affection to all of you, Mark.

Hey Greg,

I am really sorry that delay of this reply,

For #1: if you read a little closer, you'll see I am describing the Post Template that comes with EB 5. It defeats the purpose of a template, and diminishes a tool that claims to be easy, if there is no way to replicate parts of a page easily. It's frustrating to open the post templates and have to painstakingly re-create the nice combinations you've made. There should—MUST—be a way to simply copy/paste or duplicate selected parts of the page. At the very least, a ROW (like your image/text pairs).

When step and repeat is 5-10 times faster using code than a WYSI, something's wrong. But you offer no code approach, thru the composer.

Can you take a look of my video link here : http://screencast.com/t/4bMia57TXUo
You can move the image block to nested text block, but unfortunately that was not possible to copy the block paste into multiple empty block row at this point of time.

For #2: My apologies. My writing is unclear here. I made a custom template based on the News template. Then I went to look for the code file, to see if I couldn't just copy n paste. I found that your method is a string in the DB, per custom template. No problem. However, when I copied the long template code/html string into an editor and made simple modifications (this was, as noted in my comment above, an EXPERIMENT), I saw one weird issue after another. The code string's format is highly susceptible to formatting differences that even my experienced eye couldn't make sense of entirely. I made headway, though, and was able to add new image/text/HR sets. But since the UIDs are unique, I gave up on this method. However, before I quit i saw the oddity I described, as noted above, using PHPMyAdmin. Easy to replicate: a pasted in string that is twice the length of the original string produces the truncated/too long error. Makes no sense. Perhaps the table row is set wrong. (And i know this is an obscure/arcane issue, since editing the DB is NOT what you recommend.)

Perhaps you can try export this table data `#__easyblog_post_templates` from your database then attach the file on this thread so that we can replicate this in our local as well?

For #3: That alt pasting approach does NOT always work, but it works often enough. I should have credited your tool. My apologies. However, as a manager of many sites and one who must train clients, this is a serious issue. Clients hate workarounds and inconsistencies. Glad to hear you are resolving.

We're still looking into this issue.

For #4: Easy to replicate. It's a reporting problem. Click on the columned sets in the template. Your templates show narrow side columns on left and wider columns on the right, but the tool for setting the columns says "6, 6." It doesn't matter if 'technically' it's right or it 'looks right'. It doesn't make sense.

I am still a little bit lost here, are you referring the 6:6 width size or?
perhaps you can take a look of my video link here : http://screencast.com/t/GJNTxh6h5
Maybe you can describe again the issue here? Please advise.

I am not trying to be a hater here, but it is important you get candid feedback about your new features. I have to agree strongly with this/Greg Correl's post. I have had similar issues and troubles with the block editor. It is in NOT ready for production sites. I struggled for 8+ hours over three days trying to get things to move and format correctly.

Post Templates not saving.
Post Template customizations disappearing.
Blocks spontaneously moving.
Column widths spontaneously switching.
Image directory and subdirectories totally unintuitive
Much more than I have time to describe here.


Every time I tried troubleshooting, I uncovered yet another issue. I have gone back to using JCE as the editor, instead of the EasyBlog composer. The built-in EB Composer and Block Editor feels like early-beta software. If you would like more comprehensive and detailed responses about what I encountered, please let me know. I will try to provide constructive critique.

Hey Mark,

Thanks for your input on this and don't worry, we definitely appreciate your feedback! To be honest with you, we have actually spent over 16 months for the composer and I have to admit, we were being too ambitious and web browser's these days aren't ready for the prime time yet simply because there are just too many incompatibilities between different web browsers.

During the 16 months, we spent close to 3 months just solving all web browser compatibility especially with javascripts and css. We begin to realize that it is getting over our head to maintain this.

Therefore in EasyBlog 5.1, we will be going back to our roots! Making things easy with standard WYSIWYG editor as everyone is much more comfortable with what Joomla already provides by default. We should have done that on the first place and focus on improving what we already had.

It was a very expensive lesson (16 months of development time) but it's definitely worth it because not everyone would have the luxury to experience this

Hi Mark,

Please allow me to jump in here, so we in our company are 100% up to date what is going to happen to the composer.

The compose is a great concept and our members like it and the same goes for some of our team members.

We are also facing some problems with the composer such as changing font colors, sub headlines are not saved properly and other issues as well. I thought it would be possible to fix these issues and maybe even develop a user option, so it is possible to choose if they want to use the composer or the WYSIWYG editor .

So, if it is correct that you in EasyBlog version 5.1 are going to take out the composer and replace it with the WYSIWYG editor, I would like to know when to expect this to happen. At the moment we are working on tutorials videos and user manuals, and it would be waste of time for the composer - if it is going to be removed.

Thank you,

....Finn

We are most likely going to move back to what users are most comfortable with. As for the composer, it will not be removed but it will probably be an "Advanced Editing" option for users who really want to enable this.

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your reply.

Our team are pleased to understand that you will keep the composer on in the new versions of EasyBlog.

...Finn

Hi Finn,

Thank you for being patient with us! I hope later on when we have improved on the composer, everyone will have fun using it again

We are most likely going to move back to what users are most comfortable with. As for the composer, it will not be removed but it will probably be an "Advanced Editing" option for users who really want to enable this.

I would miss the composer for sure and it is one of the main reasons for me to buy EasyBlog. It is a great and cool looking editor when your site deals with technical unexperienced members. My members on my site were shocked when I once switched to JCE because they said something is wrong when there comes up a 'raw' design with so many buttons.

So I would suggest in case you want to stop developing the composer to make it an addon at least instead of giving it up completely. Maybe this will make the future work of the composer worthwhile...

Hi Sabih,

What you said is true; the composer is part of EasyBlog's selling point, as flawed as it is at the moment. As such, we most likely won't give it up for that reason and considering the effort that we spend on it.

The idea of the composer being an add on instead comes in the package might be counter intuitive considering that a lot of effort has been done to promote the composer and the clients might question why such an important item being given separately. It will also increase their work before they could use EasyBlog. And despite its state, a lot of people still like and want the composer.

We rather have it bundled together so it would be the case of “Better to have, and not need, than to need, and not have.”

I hope this answer your question

Stackideas is an exemplary company. I am thrilled to hear the composer will continue, and evolve. I want it to succeed. If the world was full of Mark Lees, handling all our products and services, and the growing pains of new technology and innovation, life on Earth would be paradise.

a lot of people still like and want the composer

Phew! I have to say that I was afraid of being the only one who definitely wants the composer. Thank you for your explanation.

Thanks for the constructive input guys, and you won't know how appreciated our developers would feel These are some of the major setbacks that we face with the new composer editor:

1. Redactor and cross browser compatibility (It's extremely painful to fix all these teething issues)

2. Template and plugin conflicts! Many plugin and template developers are selfish, they only care about what they build and they wouldn't careless about the entire ecosystem. While we can fix it on case by case basis, we are getting really tired fixing their codes.

One very good example is saving the blog post via AJAX. There are more than a ton of plugins that couldn't care less about the document type before trying to attach js / css. This causes massive issues when ajax calls are made. When contacting some of these plugin devs, their answers are extremely cold to us and they will not even apply the patch which we have provided. This makes our life so much more difficult.

The above is only one of the two major set backs out of the dozen of them that prevents us from enhancing this awesome composer