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Apple support communities text widget causes unwanted variations in font size

Typing a simple message into the Apple Support Communities using the built-in rich text widget often results in the published message containing unwanted variations in font size.


At a random place in the published post, the font size gets slightly bigger, then at another point it gets slightly smaller, then slightly bigger and so on. I can't discern any pattern to when these variations occur - it's often in the middle of a sentence.


It is not just me; I've seen the same effect in posts written by other people.


I find these variations in font size are incredibly distracting to read; they really detract from whatever message that the poster is trying to convey.

At first I thought it only happened when I pasted text in from elsewhere, but then I realized it happens even when I compose the message entirely in the web site's rich text widget.


EDIT: You can see the variations happening in this post, even though it was composed entirely by typing and editing text within the site's built-in editor, without selecting any deliberate changes in font type or size. A quick look at the HTML from one of the paragraphs above shows some of the craziness going on:



<p>At a random place in the published post, the font size gets slightly bigger, then at another point it gets slightly smaller, then slightly bigger and so on. <span style="font-size: 13.3333330154419px;">I can't discern any pattern to when these variations occur - it's often in the middle of a sentence.</span></p>

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), Chrome v41.0.2272.118 (64-bit)

Posted on Apr 13, 2015 3:52 PM

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21 replies

Jul 3, 2015 4:36 PM in response to turingtest2

Experimenting with your workaround(s)


I have a Firefox Add-on called "Clipple" - a multiple ClipBoard that just works with text - one caveat is that the #1 slot seems to be the System clipboard and the rest are placed and retrieved from a list


EXAMPLE:

  • Submitting posts in Chrome is copied from the Using ASC and pasted with the System clipboard - maintains the HTML link value
  • if I copy something else - then paste the "Submitting posts in Chrome" from Clipple, it pastes only that with NO HTML
    Submitting posts in Chrome << pasted from Clipple
    User uploaded file

If I try your "Notepad" idea with TextEdit, copy from here > paste there > copy there > paste here again, I get:

  • Submitting posts in Chrome is copied from the Using ASC << the last step result
    User uploaded file
    User uploaded file
  • In TextEdit, you can see the LINK looks alive, which it is... goes here - switching from TextEdit to a new TAB in FF like it was in an email
    User uploaded file

The hard part of this troubleshooting + debugging this is the intermittent nature... if you can't reproduce it "at will" with certain steps, it can't be addressed - except by lucky deduction.


Fixing it with a workaround does nothing to explain why all the oddball formatting happens to some and not others - intermittently.


I'll bet this is not a high priority in the AppleJiveRoom.

Jul 8, 2015 9:57 AM in response to ChitlinsCC

Someone could submit a bug report to TinyMCE. I'd bet that would kind of speed things up. Could be apple/jive is running a backlevel version of TinyMCE.


For the record, wikipedia.org is developing their own wysiwyg editor. I'd expect it to be better debugged, but will include wiki specials.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Beta_Features/General

Jul 8, 2015 1:56 PM in response to rccharles

rccharles wrote:


Someone could submit a bug report to TinyMCE. I'd bet that would kind of speed things up. Could be apple/jive is running a backlevel version of TinyMCE.


For the record, wikipedia.org is developing their own wysiwyg editor. I'd expect it to be better debugged, but will include wiki specials.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Beta_Features/General

I searched TinyMCE forums - but my "search terms skills" seem lacking to find anything relevant - OR - there is nothing there because it doesn't happen in stock version of TinyMCE


Jive calls TinyMCE "RTE" (Rich Text Editor?) - appears to be interchangeable in source code, leading one to believe what I have glanced at in Google results - that being one can "customize" RTE/TinyMCE with javascript.


The outward appearance (toolbars) of the editor panes are identical in ASC and at the JiveForums <(has some other functions in addition) - my $$ would be on "Customized version" rather than "backlevel"


RE: WikiEditor - Can you imagine the hoops one would need to jump through to even get an audience to pitch fixing something in JiveSoftware that it feels is not broken? Much less AppleJive!!

Apple support communities text widget causes unwanted variations in font size

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