# Convert text to "preview view" as you type?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [May 8, 2020, 3:22pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834 "2020-05-08T15:22:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@JQ331](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JQ331)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 3:22pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/1 "2020-05-08T15:22:43Z")
Right now in Discourse you have your “editor” window where you type, and a separate preview window that shows how what you type will be displayed. Is it possible to merge those two, so the user doesn’t need to look at two different windows as they type?
When you’re composing a message in gmail, for example, if you highlight text and hit bold, the text you just highlighted becomes bold in your message window. In Discourse, the text will not become bold–rather, it will show the markdown asterisks around the text, and the text will be bold only in the separate preview window.
Is there a way to make it more like gmail for my users?
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### Author:  [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 3:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/2 "2020-05-08T15:32:00Z")
Try looking herre: [Search results for 'wysiwyg' - Discourse Meta](https://meta.discourse.org/search?q=wysiwyg)
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### Author:  [@JQ331](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JQ331)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 3:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/3 "2020-05-08T15:38:13Z")
Thanks. Looks like this topic has been addressed in an extended [discussion](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-use-only-one-editor-window/139464/15) already, and looks like there is no plan to add this functionality.
For my use case, at least, it’s really the bold and italic functionality I would care about: So that when a use hits bold on some text, it actually makes the text appear bold, instead of showing just the asterisks.
Is this in fact an exceptionally difficult feature to implement?
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 3:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/4 "2020-05-08T15:45:40Z")
> [@Summary outcome of the debate on wysiwyg?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/summary-outcome-of-the-debate-on-wysiwyg/41413/6):
>
> There are zero plans for that in the forseeable future. If pure WYSIWYG is an absolute bedrock must-have requirement, the sooner you look elsewhere, the happier you will be.
We are pretty clear about WYSIWYG not being on the road map.
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### Author:  [@JQ331](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JQ331)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 3:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/5 "2020-05-08T15:47:14Z")
Yes, but what about allowing the bold and italics to be visible in the text editor itself. Would that be a very hard plugin to build?
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/6 "2020-05-08T15:49:56Z")
Hard enough for it never to have been finished [WYSIWYG Editor Plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wysiwyg-editor-plugin/68246)
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/7 "2020-05-08T15:50:06Z")
That is WYSIWYG. Doesn’t matter if you want all or a couple of features.
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### Author:  [@JQ331](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JQ331)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/8 "2020-05-08T15:55:27Z")
Maybe with javascript? Could catch the user hitting “bold”, and run a function to make the text in the window bold. I’m not sure that would work, but it seems possible.
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 4:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/9 "2020-05-08T16:06:04Z")
Did you follow my link? There’s a repo. Perhaps you can fix it?l (if it needs fixing. I’ve not tried it)
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### Author:  [@JQ331](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JQ331)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 4:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/10 "2020-05-08T16:10:50Z")
I did see that. Looks to me like trying to totally overhaul the discourse editor has proven too intimidating. But to start maybe there is some javascript in there that we could add to our forums to make the bold text be bold in the editor. I’m not finding where that is in the repo, but from the video in the post, it looks like that piece had been addressed.
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 4:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/11 "2020-05-08T16:12:31Z")
The composer is a plain-text text area so afaics you will need to make more substantial changes. Makes sense to use the existing plugin as a starting point. Fork and try to improve it?
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### Author:  [@JQ331](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JQ331)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 4:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/12 "2020-05-08T16:20:41Z")
I think a key issue is that making the full on plugin work is not quite worth the effort. You’re saying you’d have to do the whole thing to make the “bold” functionality work?
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/13 "2020-05-08T16:23:15Z")
I have no idea. Sometimes you fix a couple of issues and suddenly you can leverage all of the functionality that was already built. Markdown has not changed.
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### Author:  [@JQ331](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JQ331)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 4:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/14 "2020-05-08T16:28:41Z")
Ok. I’ll keep this in mind and report back if I find something productive.
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2020, 9:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/15 "2020-05-08T21:00:04Z")
This topic was automatically closed after 5 hours. New replies are no longer allowed.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2025, 12:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-text-to-preview-view-as-you-type/150834/16 "2025-03-13T00:04:02Z")
Discourse is now shipping an experimental WYSIWYG composer 🎊
> [@Test our new composer!](https://meta.discourse.org/t/test-our-new-composer-on-meta/352347/1):
>
> We have been working on a new rich text editor mode for our composer so that it’s easier to write on Discourse. We’re now ready to start testing it out to get more feedback from our community on this feature! Our implementation builds upon the excellent [ProseMirror](https://prosemirror.net/) and its non-core [Markdown module](https://github.com/ProseMirror/prosemirror-markdown), using the module’s schema, parsing, and serialization definitions as the base for further Discourse-specific features. This topic will serve as both a guide to testing the new composer and a hub for…