Reimplement character map

[mrwweb]

The character map (the omega button in TinyMCE) is an infrequent-but-important-when-you-need-it feature that should be reimplemented for use in fields containing text.

[karmatosed]

@mrwweb what is the use this is important for? I am not saying its not, more I wonder how useful it really is to the majority of users. Would it be better as a plugin?

[mrwweb]

There are certain relatively common typographical marks that are hard to insert, particularly if you're unable to use or unaware of ALT codes. Here are a few that strike me as particularly useful: © ® ™ ¼ ½ ¢ … — – ¡ ¿ ²

I know I personally reach for it for the ellipsis, em-dash, and en-dash anytime I find myself on a computer without a number pad.

The charmap is also now extendable which is awesome for adding support for less-common languages that may not have easy keyboard support.

That latter use-case is probably less-common, but likely to become more common as WP spreads further and further outside the English speaker world.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the © ® ™ symbols would be heavily used if that button were available in the new text widget.

Do we have any access to the mythical .com editor usage stats that might provide some light on this subject?

[westonruter]

Don't operating systems more often than not have their own dialogs for this now? I use Ctrl+Command+Space on MacOS to get the system dialog:

[mrwweb]

Nothing on Windows that I know of. I believe it still requires opening a separate application.

If nothing, else I'd just like to throw out that I still think a feature parity analysis/plan for the old editor would be really helpful in communicating clearly about the future and making sure we don't overlook useful features that developers on the project happen not to use.

Also, the fact that it's filterable is pretty awesome. It opens the option to customize it to your language or profession (math symbols, music symbols, scientific symbols). If it doesn't get included in core, there at least needs to be a clear path to adding it.

[mtias]

This seems like it should come from the OS, though might also be interesting to have a component we could reuse across WP.

[mrwweb]

@mtias As I mentioned above in response to @westonruter, Windows does not have an easy-to-use shortcut-triggered character inserter. (They just added one for emojis last month but it's emoji-only.) I'd encourage you to talk to other Windows users to confirm their experiences. The "just use the OS" isn't a convenient option on Windows, and that's why the special character tool is still important.

For reference, here's the official Office documentation that suggests either using the Character Map application (not shortcut) or using ALT codes which require a numeric keypad. I rarely meet Windows users particularly familiar with either and both are clunky. Yet this is the best Windows can offer.

Word and Google Docs both include an Insert Characters menu just like the current one in WordPress. I them all the time to insert ellipses, en-dashes, and em-dashes when I'm on a laptop. I know some of my clients rely on it as well, often for trademark, registered, or copyright symbols along with em- and en-dashes.

If you could access the mythical Automattic-controlled data regarding editor button usage, I suspect you'd find a significant, non-zero percentage of users using this special characters button frequently, probably tilting toward Windows users for hopefully obvious reasons by now.

And regarding your comment about a reusable component, it has indeed been useful to extend it for at least one of my clients who needed the Hawaiian character set to be more easily accessible. I think this example is particularly instructive, as they knew how to insert these characters but found the WordPress special chars tool much easier and convenient.

Final note: I still would really appreciate a feature-parity grid for the current editor and Gutenberg showing any features that are being dropped and notes on how to reimplement buttons that are drastically changing. I worry that other important edge-case features like this could get left behind without a systematic review comparing the two editors.

[mtias]

The "just use the OS" isn't a convenient option on Windows, and that's why the special character tool is still important.

@mrwweb oh, I understand and I'm aware of it. :) It was just a comment on the fact these kind of utilities should be consistently handled by the OS, instead of every app or website doing their own implementation. (Like most mobile devices, were the native controls can do a much better job of it.) The usage of the special characters button in WP.com, last I checked, was at the very bottom of the toolbar button actions (47 of around 50 interactions).

Adding buttons to all text Editable elements is something that will be possible, and easy to extend. I'll defer to @karmatosed and @jasmussen for the design part of which buttons appear in text blocks by default.

[mrwweb]

Thanks for the clarification, @mtias! As long as the feature remains in TinyMCE and can easily be added to any toolbar (ideally just once!) then that would seem sufficient, especially in light of that usage. I appreciate you sharing it.

[jasmussen]

It sounds like this one ended with the character map being accessible in the Classic Text block, and possible to implement using plugins:

As such, I'm closing it. If I misunderstood something here, and the ticket should not be closed, I apologize in advance and let me know and we'll reopen!

[TheDavidJohnson]

This .org forum post kicked off a discussion that found its way to #8782 today. Now that I'm trying to make Gutenberg my "daily driver" editor, not having the "Special characters" available while writing is highly frustrating.

Inserting a Classic block (or converting a Paragraph block to a Classic block), then activating the "kitchen sink" and then clicking the Omega symbol represents far too many mouse clicks to insert characters like:

• the em dash (used constantly by journalists, for example)
• non-breaking spaces (for orphans and widows in subheadings)
• accented vowels for words of Spanish and French origin
• as well as the intellectual property and other typographical symbols that @mrwweb mentioned previously

This really does seem like something that belongs in Gutenberg.

[TheTracyL]

I've been doing the same thing: Using Gutenberg for a site I create content for a few times a week so I get used to it. Not having the special characters is a pain and slows down my workflow.

It would be great if it can be added as an inline element block. Thank you.

[lazharichir]

Indeed, always used this for the mdash and i miss it so bad.

[kojidaggett]

Having a character map only available on the classic editor block does not fit user needs. People use special characters in titles. Additionally, since you can't convert a paragraph block to the classic editor block, once you realize you need an em dash, you have to create a new block, copy paste your text into it, delete your old one. It is quite clunky. A character map really should be available.

[designsimply]

Closed #12297 as a duplicate and noting the request from that issue:

I frequently need to insert special characters relating to statistics. Ex. x-bar, delta, alpha, beta, etc.

[culturetim]

I have just run a usability study on Gutenberg and the lack of this feature totally makes the application a pain to use for any professional editor or author. These characters matter in writing and in picture attribution using © This needs to be in the fast follow feature set for 5.1. The suggested workarounds are hacky and not user centred. If you want to know how to do it look at Google Docs special characters dialog

[KokkieH]

Another request from the WordPress.com forums

[Jan-Paul-Kleijn]

Am I getting this right? WordPress removes the character map functionality with this GB plugin and now they want to wait until enough people complain about its abscence before considering to reintroduce it?

Same can be said of the ABBR functionality, which in some cases is legally mandatory to use when writing abbreviations (WCAG). And now WP will wait until enough people complain?

This is insane.

Reading the previous posts I can conclude the logic behind it all was: "Well, I don't use it so ... bugger off or buy a Mac." Very, very professional.

I'm having serious doubts on using WordPress now. If this is your best then I foresee a bleak future for WP.

--- edit
After half a day of searching I found out how to activate the classical editor for a certain block. Before input of any text I must click the '+' sign to create a new block on the place where apparantly a block already resides (which is of course confusing). Then I must scroll down to the part of 'Formatting' and open it by clicking. Then I choose for 'classic' in the list under 'Formatting'.

Then I noticed that if I make more than one block that makes use of the 'classic Formatting' way of realizing the content I want to publish a bug rears it's head. Namely when I choose to view the contents in the code editor, suddenly the second 'classic Formatting' block is emptied and I can start over writing the second 'classic Formatting' block.

Oh, and for the Gutenberg team that has apparantly never heard of WCAG or the ABBR tag, feel free to read up on this: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H28.html. In extension to this, I also want to remind the team of the fact that their userbase publishes hypertext markup, not text with hyperlinks. What I mean with this is that you should not create an editor that is built upon the things YOU desire, it should be an editor that is built upon the things HTML desires.

It's not difficult to create a plugin that can add simple markup to text in the Gutenberg editor. That's true. But when it comes to the abbreviation tag it's a whole different story. It's about adding a custom attribute inside the markup you add, based upon input done by the user in a popover box. There are no explanations mentioned in your developers handbook on this, nor examples.

The same reasoning holds for the BLOCKQUOTE tag (with the 'cite' attribute for mentioning the source) and the 'lang' attribute for every tag.

Can you now understand why people like me are a bit frustrated with your lack of willingness to help or even explain your own UI works? (Which should never be neccesary by the way.)

[designsimply]

Adding the example use case from a separate comment @JanPaulKleijn mentioned at #8782 (comment) in order to consolidate example use cases to one place.

I live in Europe, and everytime I want to insert a euro symbol I need the special character tool to insert it because my keyboard does not support it.

[benthebear]

Just some feedback from an agency perspective: Delivering a new tool, claiming it's the best thing since bread came sliced, and then having less features than the previous tool instantly ruins the reputation of the new tool.

Someone should really consider adding the basic WISIWIG-Tools of the Classic Block to the new paragraph Blocks.

[designsimply]

You've got me thinking about this issue and I think it makes a lot of sense as a plugin at this point.

[benthebear]

Thanks for the quick feedback. Yeah it does esp. as it got a lot easier to add buttons to the Wisiwig-Features. I've (of cource) been looking for plugins which will do that, but couldn't find any, and then started coding that myself … I'll mention it here if we (the tiny company, I'm part of) finish and release that.

[designsimply]

started coding that myself … I'll mention it here if we (the tiny company, I'm part of) finish and release that

😍 yay! (and I was hoping you'd say that 😁)

[jakyo-dev]

The missing character map was one of the first things that annoyed me when changing to Gutenberg. If Wordpress is all about writing, there's absolutely no reason to not re-implement it.

[Creat1veM1nd]

Well, I am also one of the people who often use special characters and I wonder how it could be a solution in a new shiny editor to use the old editor a classic block.

[SiobhyB]

I just spoke with a WordPress.com user who's missing the character map as they often write about scientific topics that require special symbols. The classic block is workaround for them for now, but they'd prefer the character map to be implemented in the newer editor.

[helen]

Just wanted to leave a note here that we (@adamsilverstein and me via @10up) have a functioning plugin for special characters. It's got some UX clunk at the moment (some of them probably related to format vs. insert) so I'm not ready to publicly release yet, and would also like to see if @benthebear did end up getting anywhere with their plugin.

[mrwweb]

@helen 👏🎉 Count me in as an eager beta tester if/when you're thinking about a public release.

[A-Buzon]

I too thinks it's insane that this oversight was reported 2 years ago and it was decided that a plugin or reverting to a Classic block is acceptable. Copyright, registered trademarks, trademarks, any language but English... I'm dumbfounded and highly disappointed in this decision. And adding a plugin is temporary fix that should have been temporary (as in, not 2+ years); this needs to be standard functionality.
Please add my vote to include this standard functionality in the new text editor.

[martin8032]

I can't believe that the character map has such a low priority for the Gutenberg development team (or is even considered as not important or rarely used). I need special characters every day (for example « » which are the official quotation marks in my country), and if you have a Windows machine there is no simple way to create these special characters on a system level. The character map is a must if WordPress claims to be a web publishing tool for everyone.

[tom-sundown]

I need often to insert the degree symbol in angles or temperatures. I need a way to do so.

[helen]

Hi everyone! We (@10up) have finally released 1.0.0 of Insert Special Characters to add a character map popup to the block editor. I would like to continue to refine the styling and UX of it over time, but I think it's very usable now and also includes a JS hook so you can filter the character set to be exactly what you need and in what order you want them to be in if you're so inclined. There's a screenshot showing you where it is in the menu bar, or you can press ctrl/cmd-o. If you have any feedback or further thoughts, please let us know over in the GitHub repo. Happy Friday!

[phpbits]

Hi all! I've recently added Special Characters inserter format to EditorsKit plugin alongside other missing formats from Classic editor. Here's the preview and I hope everyone will find this useful. Thanks!

[jeffpaul]

Note that the recent Insert Special Characters 1.0.3 release should add in all the requested special characters (and more!) so update your installs to benefit from all the newly added characters!