I have been using Ghost since version 0.x, being really happy with the star feature of the lovely markdown editor. Never had any bad experience so far, but that was until upgraded to version 2.x where the editor was replaced with Koenig.
At first I thought this would be no problem, I wanted to continue writing in markdown, so inserting a markdown block was good enough.
However, as I was finishing my article, I had some kind of weird screen focus problem in the browser and after hitting backspace on my keyboard I ended up deleting the markdown block were my entire article was, losing all my work; my intent was to just delete a word… CTRL+Z didn’t help recovering my lost post.
I never had this kind of unpleasant experience with any other blog platform before. I loved Ghost over Wordpress for the simplicity and the power of the markdown editor that now seem lost.
I really would like to suggest two features:
Implement a way in Koenig to prevent accidental block deletions such as the one I experienced. A confirmation would be nice…
Bring back the full markdown editor and allow us to choose between the two of them. I want to focus on my content and markdown was perfect for that.
Hey @cmilanf That really doesn’t sound like fun - could you share any more details around how this happened? What browser and computer were you using? Do you have any extensions installed, etc?
We don’t doubt that it happened, but the more info we have to find and track down these issues in our new editor the better.
We’ll definitely look into making sure that this isn’t so easy to happen. Ctrl + Z should certainly bring the block back.
Most importantly, what exact version of Ghost are you on, are you self hosted, and what DB are you using? We very recently started storing revisions of posts in the DB for emergencies.
Thank you so much for answering my post. I will be more than happy to share any detail.
The computer was Windows 10 based and the browser Chrome 69, with several extensions installed, but I don’t think they are related in any way. I think the key in what happen is my own behaviour, let me give full detail you can reproduce:
Started my article, inserted a markdown block in Koenig.
After writing it, I switched to another window to look for images I could put into it.
As I clicked back to the browser window, it was the markdown block the one to get the focus, not the text inside it.
I hit backspace two times because I was trying to delete a word, but I ended deleting up the whole block.
Tried to use CTRL+Z to restore the block, but I think that hitting backspace twice is what rendered it useless, as I was only able to undo one backspace.
Things that could prevent this is an undo buffer of more than 1 action (I don’t know if that is tied to the browser) or a confirmation before removing a block.
Now the other details:
Ghost version: 2.2.2
Database: MySQL 5.7
Self-hosted: Yes, using official Docker container at Docker
Properly working undo would be nice, but I still think it is way too easy to delete cards. For the ones who stick to markdown it is common to have a single markdown card for the whole article; a confirmation before deletion is a must from my point of view.
Maybe it would make sense to only show the confirmation if the card has content?
This has also happened to me on numerous occasions, and is getting more and more frustrating.
I self-host Ghost 2 and I’ve had it happen on Firefox on Ubuntu 18.04 and Windows 10.
It doesn’t matter if you save whilst writing in the markdown block or not, every now and again for some reason it’ll switch focus from the markdown card (sometimes when I scroll, sometimes when I hit backspace) and I’ll lose all my changes.
I would be keen to understand why Koenig can’t be turned off, and whether this functionality will exist in the future? I have no interest in writing in anything other than Markdown, so the cards for me are just a faff that takes away from my writing experience. I don’t see why you can’t leave the option open for users?
I can’t help but feel annoyed, up until now Ghost has been absolutely fantastic, and has never got in my way, but now I’m losing hope in it.
Seconding this. For those of us who chose Ghost because of the ability to write in pure markdown, not being able to turn off the rich text editor and being forced to use unreliable markdown blocks is unbelievably frustrating and is definitely something that would cause me to stop paying for Ghost Pro if it isn’t resolved.
I wonder how many others feel the same out there? I was just going to live with it but I lost changes I had made to a whole post yesterday because of it despite saving multiple times.
If the markdown block becomes much more reliable then great (I still don’t see why you can’t just add an option to turn off Koenig? You had an experimental option to turn it on in the last version, can’t you switch that round?) but taking options away from people that use your service especially when those options were the default for so long just seems shortsighted and like you aren’t listening to your customers. I’ve never liked it when companies do that. Wish I hasn’t bothered upgrading.
I’ve written about how I left WordPress behind for ghost precisely because of how easy it was too just write in markdown, if that is not the direction ghost is going now I’ll genuinely be gutted but I’ll just have to look elsewhere. Granted I’m self hosted so I’m not a paying customer but I’ve still been a passionate user that has recommended ghost to lots of people.
What’s happening to me a lot as well is when I drag an image into the markdown block it will for no apparent reason create it’s own image block for that image instead. So instead of inserting it into the markdown block it’ll lose focus and the image will become it’s own image block at the top of the post. It all just takes away the finer control and ease of use we previously had. WYSIWYG editors always lose that.
It would be nice for poweruser using markdown heavily to have the markdown card fully open all the time AND having the hability to edit that content just like the text in Koenig.
Another reason for my previous comment. When you add HTML stuff within the markdown card, it usually looks bad. The editor should NOT interpret markdown in the editor
