Unable to permanently switch to the old markup editor

Anant Jain April 8, 2021

It appears that with the new issue view being forced down our throats, it comes with the Rich Text Editor as the only editor option. I can't seem to figure out how to switch away from this shitty editor. There is no project/user setting to go to the -simple/markdown-old editor that used to exist on the old issue view.

Is this possible or am I missing something? I see the following editor and this is a terrible component that actively messes formatting and gets in my way. How do I permanently move back to the markdown editor?

 

2 answers

2 votes
Andrew Boyer April 13, 2021

Atlassian, please fix this! This new editor is garbage. Just let us enter text directly!

Hassan Siddiqui April 27, 2023

I have to second this. It's 2023 and I don't see why the feature for viewing the raw markdown text has been removed. It is very powerful, not only for cutting/pasting code into a Jira description or comment, but to be able to go back and edit that markdown, without having to blindly fight against what the editor thinks you are wanting to do. I really don't understand why this feature was removed. 

Like Andrey Cheremskuy likes this
0 votes
Dario B
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
April 13, 2021

Hello @Anant Jain  and @Andrew Boyer ,

 

As mentioned in What is the new Jira issue view? you should be able to just write your comments using markdown and this will be converted on the fly:

The new issue view comes with the new editor, which has a cleaner look, markdown support, and industry-standard keyboard shortcuts. The editor converts things like links, code, and markdown on-the-fly, so you can paste in your content and let the editor do the work. Learn more about markdown and keyboard shortcuts

 

Can you kindly test this and let me know if it works as expected?

 

Cheers,
Dario

Andrew Boyer April 13, 2021

The problem is not that markdown does not work. The problem is that as a developer I often (almost always) want to paste a bunch of text into the box and have it appear exactly as it is written. There should be a way to get the dumb tool to get out of the way.

Anant Jain April 13, 2021

@Dario B In addition to what @Andrew Boyer said, it is not about markdown. The markdown edit does not automatically put in formatting on its own. I have control. Not so much with the RTE. And the RTE does not function well.

It behaves weirdly and sometimes messes up the formatting without intention.

Any reason why you specifically would not want to provide the simple editor/plain editor back for users to choose and use?

Dario B
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
April 14, 2021

@Andrew Boyer , This actually sounds like a bug.

Can you kindly provide an example of what kind of text is not formatted the same way it was originally after being pasted into the new issue view so that I can try to reproduce the reported behavior?

 

@Anant Jain As I already mentioned, you should be able to just enter markdown and this will be automatically formatted as desired. If this is not happening I need some specific examples I can try on my side in order to reproduce this.

 

Cheers,
Dario

Anant Jain April 14, 2021

@Dario B It does not format correctly.

For example, why does wrapping text in * turn it into italics instead of bold? Markdown converts asterisk wrapped text turn into bold.

And besides, I'm actually more keen on a plain text editor which does not mess up my formatting. The RTE messes up formatting.

For example, I needed to include a URL as text but the dumb editor kept converting it into a link and would not allow me to include the url as text only.

Other times, with bulleted text, the spacing and horizontal alignment gets messed up (I am unable to find the jira issue in my instance right now for a screenshot)

Another problem with the editor is that the formatting toolbar is stuck to the top. If I need to format the text in a long description JIRA, I have to constantly scroll to the text, select, scroll to the toolbar, format, rinse, repeat. Do you know how painful it is to do this for a largish and complicated story?

 

All this said, you did not answer my question: Is there any option to switch to the plaintext/markdown editor?

The old editor gave me control over the formatting and I prefer that. The new editor is buggy and much more difficult to use. Why do you want to force the users against their wants?

Dario B
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
April 15, 2021

Hello @Anant Jain ,

Thanks for providing examples, let me try to answer point by point:

 

why does wrapping text in * turn it into italics instead of bold? Markdown converts asterisk wrapped text turn into bold.

Please notice that you are confusing the wiki MARKUP syntax that was used in the old issue view with the MARKDOWN syntax that you should use in the new issue view editor.

Indeed, while the wiki markup syntax for bold text is *text*, in markdown the syntax for bold text is **text** or __text__. 

For more details on the markdown syntax please see:

 

 

For example, I needed to include a URL as text but the dumb editor kept converting it into a link and would not allow me to include the url as text only.

You can actually have links displayed as simple text by selecting the link or hovering it with the mouse and then click on "unlink" as shown in below screenshot:

unlink.jpg

 

 

Other times, with bulleted text, the spacing and horizontal alignment gets messed up (I am unable to find the jira issue in my instance right now for a screenshot)

I am not sure which behavior you are reporting in here, but maybe you are facing one of the below bugs. Can you kindly review them and either confirm or provide more details:

 

 

Another problem with the editor is that the formatting toolbar is stuck to the top. If I need to format the text in a long description JIRA, I have to constantly scroll to the text... [...]

This is indeed something annoying when adding a long text (I am experiencing the same behavior when adding this comment in here) and indeed we have the below feature request open in our system in order to have this functionality added:

However, please notice the above feature request is open since August 2019 and didn't get much traction so far (only 21 votes). However, now that the new issue view is the only option there might be more customers asking for this.

You may want to vote and watch the above feature request so that you will get notified in case of any update. The  feature will be addressed according to the Implementation of New Features Policy.

 

 

All this said, you did not answer my question: Is there any option to switch to the plaintext/markdown editor?

At the moment such functionality is not available. Also for this we already have a feature request open in our system that you may want to follow for updates:

  

 

I hope this helps.

Dario B
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
April 15, 2021

@Andrew Boyer ,

I believe I have found a bug ticket that matches the scenario you have described in your last comment:

 

Can you kindly review above bug ticket and confirm this the same issue you are facing?

Anant Jain April 15, 2021

@Dario B 

Please notice that you are confusing the wiki MARKUP syntax that was used in the old issue view with the MARKDOWN syntax that you should use in the new issue view editor.

Indeed, while the wiki markup syntax for bold text is *text*, in markdown the syntax for bold text is **text** or __text__. 

Thank you for correcting this. I've updated this thread's title and body to reflect the ask much more accurately. My ask is the old, simple editor being available.

In that editor, *text* did bold the text earlier and does not anymore. I guess I can use the markdown style

 

You can actually have links displayed as simple text by selecting the link or hovering it with the mouse and then click on "unlink" as shown in below screenshot:

I do not get that hover for some reason :-/

 

I am not sure which behavior you are reporting in here, but maybe you are facing one of the below bugs. Can you kindly review them and either confirm or provide more details:

Neither actually. The behaviour I see is that the bulleted items get horizontally centrally aligned with some vertical padding put in place as well. I don't have a screenshot unfortunately at this time and I'm also unable to reproduce this at this time. Previously the issue was intermittent/random, so...

 

At the moment such functionality is not available. Also for this we already have a feature request open in our system that you may want to follow for updates:

Understood. Hopefully an option is made available

Andrew Boyer April 15, 2021

"Can you kindly provide an example of what kind of text is not formatted the same way it was originally after being pasted into the new issue view so that I can try to reproduce the reported behavior?"

No. I do not want the automatic formatting to be "fixed," I want an option to turn it off completely.

Dario B
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
April 16, 2021

Hello @Anant Jain  and @Andrew Boyer ,

In this case I would advise to vote, comment and follow the feature request for the text-only editor: 

 

This is because, as mentioned in the Implementation of New Features Policy :

[...] Your comments and votes on suggestions help us understand what you’re passionate about and how you want our products to support you and your team. The most helpful information you can provide us when commenting on issues is how a particular suggestion would help you. If you describe your use-case to us, and how the suggested change would benefit you and your team, it lets us gain a much deeper understanding of the need behind the suggestion.

Suggestions often have an impact on what we work on, even if we ultimately choose not to implement a suggestion exactly as it’s described. Our ultimate goal is to understand what you and all of our customers need and to create products that meet those needs. Occasionally, that’ll mean implementing a suggestion as described, but it usually means working to understand the need behind the suggestion and how we can meet that need for as many users as possible.

While we endeavor to update and respond to popular suggestions, the volume we receive means there will often be occasions when we can’t provide an update or response. We don’t provide any compensation or credit for feature suggestions that we implement.

 

Also, for @Anant Jain , I have been told that the sticky editor toolbar is already on our roadmap and, even if I cannot provide any ETA, this is going to be released and therefore you may want to watch the below feature request as well:

 

Have a nice weekend!

 

  

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