The Updated Text Capsule

Late last week, Paul Deeds pointed out in the forums that we’re introducing and testing some updates to the HubTool’s text capsule- and if you would like to have a look at it, you’re free to try it out!

In case you didn’t see the forum thread, here’s a full description of the Text Capsule changes:

General

• Resizable edit area – After clicking “edit” on a text capsule, you can hold your mouse down when it is over the lower right corner of the edit box and drag the corner in order to size the edit window comfortably for your screen.
• Word count – the number of words in your text will appear at the top of the edit dialog, while you are editing a text capsule.

Linking

• Hub search – search for Hubs that are relevant to your selected word, or phrase. This search takes into account the category of your Hub. So, the results should be both more convenient and more relevant while you edit your capsule, than opening another browser window to search for Hubs to link to.
• Search your own Hubs – the link tool allows you to search your own Hubs. This should be more convenient for creating links to your own Hubs, especially if you have a lot of them.
• Amazon links – the link tool will now allow you to search for Amazon products appropriate to your Hub and create links to them. Links entered in this way are subject to revenue sharing splits, and you are still bound by our rules on affiliate linking (no more than 2 per Hub).
• Keyboard short-cut – While typing text into a text capsule, you can strike ctrl-e. This will automatically select the nearest word an launch the link dialog. From there you can hit enter to search for relevant Hubs and use keyboard navigation to select the Hub you want to link to. This allows you to add links to your text without taking your hands away from the keyboard.

The man behind these exciting updates is none other than Mark Painter.  Props to him for the improvements!  Mark took a break from his work to tell us a bit more about the changed capsule:

What inspired these cool updates?

Well, we wanted to upgrade tinyMCE, the open source software package we use for our text editor. It is an important piece of HubPages. So, it is a little risky. For that reason, we wanted a phased roll out where Hubbers could try it if they wanted and back off, it there were problems. It seemed kind of lame to ask people to test the same old features. So, I asked for feedback among HubPages staff, about what they wanted, or had heard of Hubbers wanting in the way of changes to the text capsule. The features I ended up implementing are mixture of various people’s suggestions.

When did you get started with making these changes to the text capsule?

That would have been three or four weeks ago, right after I hacked the old version of tinyMCE to work with IE9; the chore that inspired wanting to upgrade.

Which is your favorite new feature?

I like re-sizing the edit module to fit my netbook’s screen, and being able to conveniently link to other Hubs. That’s two favorites, but, oh well. (I write some Hubs under a pseudonym, and those were my personal pain points.)

Where should people report any bugs they encounter?

I’ll be checking the forums for bug reports.

[Thanks, Mark!]

If you would like to start using the new and improved Text Capsule, visit your profile settings page to enable it.  If you see any bugs, follow Mark’s advice and report them in the Report a Problem or Suggest a New Feature forum 😀