Feature update: Markdown Toolbar

(Psst - we also just brought it to the comment section! Read more here)

Hello, DEV community!

Today, I have a quick (but exciting!) update for those of you who write on DEV.

We now have a markdown toolbar in our editor!

We have always prided ourselves on minimalistic and concise design. When possible, we keep things simple and straightforward. Our editor is tricky, though. While we have gotten consistent feedback that our community appreciates the simplicity, we have also gotten requests for more instruction and guidance when writing, especially around markdown formatting syntaxes. Though the majority of our community members are familiar with markdown syntaxes, we certainly don’t want those who are not familiar with them feeling uncomfortable and unwelcome to share their experience on DEV.

To improve this, we are adding a little human touch to the editor with the introduction of the markdown toolbar. We believe the toolbar should give writers just enough guidance to have an enriched writing experience without formatting getting in the way of the writing itself. If you like keyboard shortcuts (such as cmd/ctrl+b to bold), we got you covered, too. In other words, we aim to remove the distractions you may encounter, so you can focus on writing. (Hint: we also have something exciting planned around simplifying liquid tags ✨)

We are also aware that our community enjoys learning about how our features come together. If that is your cup of tea, stay tuned! Our own wonderful Suzanne (Frontend Software Engineer @ Forem) will be sharing her experience developing the Toolbar.

Have you written a post yet?

Have you written a post since this update? Have you noticed the Toolbar? How do you like it? Are you a Toolbar user or do you prefer to type out syntaxes? If you haven’t used the Toolbar yet, I encourage you to check it out and let us know what you think!

If you have never written a post on DEV, consider this your personal invitation from me to start! Check out these ideas for your first DEV post from community member @andrewbaisden for your first DEV post.

Cover image screenshot by Suzanne Aitchison.

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