How to Edit Posts on the New FP Without Corrupting Spacing

Story by James Bondage

I've noticed several people voicing their frustrations over editing posts in the new board's editor (and fought with it plenty myself) so I thought I would share some tips and tricks now that I have it (mostly) figured out.

Some may not have noticed or encountered this issue, but if you're dealing with a lot of (formatted) text and/or are playing with different fonts / font sizes, you probably have.

Hopefully these tips will save you some time and grief!

1. Edit in Source Mode

For whatever reason, editing formatted text in the normal editor has a high likelihood of messing up your post (creating additional spacing in the existing text) when you go to update it. The easiest way to avoid this is by editing in source mode (with the BBCode visible.)

https://i.postimg.cc/yxFxdcyc/source-mode.jpg

2. Corruption Triggers

If you insist on editing in normal mode, use your backspace when trying to edit whitespace / change spacing.

Using the delete key seems to be one trigger that can corrupt spacing.

Pasting new text over existing text that you're replacing seems to be another thing that can cause problems.

3. Always Preview

ALWAYS hit "Preview Post" become committing to a save. See if the formatting / spacing looks clean. If it's been corrupted, you did something the editor didn't like.

Does the text look like it should? Great. Now you can post it.

4. Posting Formatted Text In An Existing Thread Without Corrupting The Thread

"But James! If I paste formatted text into the normal editor, it keeps the text's formatting but messes up the entire post's spacing. If I paste formatted text into Source Mode, it loses all its formatting! Help!"

It's an annoying set of extra steps, but you can work around this:

1) Open up a new post / reply page

2) Paste your formatted story text into the normal editor

3) Switch to Source mode (now BBCode will be applied to retain formatting)

4) Highlight or CTRL-A to select all story text and copy

5) Switch to the post you're editing (make sure it's also in Source mode)

6) Paste

Now you've copied your story text, with formatting, into the editor and when you hit Preview Post it shouldn't mess up the overall post's spacing.