Beginning December 2023 and extending through 2024, the Guide article editor is getting a makeover. This process will pave the way for future capabilities such as article multiplacement, collaboration tools, and generative AI capabilities within the editor.
The UI enhancements will be rolled out gradually throughout 2024. As changes are planned and released, we will update this article to walk you through the latest changes and show you how to navigate the new UI.
Note: Features marked as "coming soon" in this article not yet released, but are planned for release in 2024. Watch this page and Zendesk announcements for more news when the feature becomes available.
This article contains the following topics:
- UI enhancement overview
- New article editor (coming soon)
- Grouped article settings (coming soon)
- Released feature summary
- Frequently asked questions
UI enhancement overview
You can expect changes that will simplify the UI, free up more space for the article editor, and group common tasks and functions under an easy to navigate context panel and action footer, making it easier to create, manage, and publish articles. These changes will eliminate the need to bounce between tabs to accomplish actions, while simplifying access to key tasks within the UI. Over the course of the redesign, you will find that it becomes easier and faster to create, manage, and publish articles within your help center.
In the meantime, you can watch the following video for a sneak peek into what’s coming next.
New article editor (coming soon)
The Early Access Program (EAP) for a new, modern article editor will bring you new ways to create content. By participating in the EAP, you'll get a sneak peek at features that will transform your current editor experience such as
- Greater control over editing tables
- Text wrapping around images
- Drag-and-drop tools for paragraphs and other components
- Alt-text for images.
In the new editor EAP you’ll also have access to HTML blocks, which allow you to edit complex HTML and add advanced scripts when editing article source code, The article source code will also get leaner and will no longer be sliced by inserting content blocks.
As a bonus, we’ll also introduce Article Summaries - new components that let you add a concise snapshot of the content at the top of the articles. Our Advanced AI customers will be able to auto generate these summaries with the help of AI.
Participants of this EAP will be among the first to benefit from the enhanced article editor with a more intuitive and enriched content creation experience, designed to streamline your content creation process and boost your audience engagement.
Grouped article settings (coming soon)
With grouped article settings, the actions of the current article settings panel will be organized in different groups. This will continue the work to better organize the article editor space, and to cluster common functions so that you can work more efficiently within the editor. You’ll be able to focus on the changes you need to make and not get distracted with other options.
Released feature summary
Article editor UI enhancement releases began in December of 2023 and will continue to be rolled out gradually throughout 2024. See the following announcements for a description of released features:
- Announcing enhancements to the article header bar
- Announcing the new article editor toolbar
- Announcing help center translations in the article context panel
- Announcing HTML blocks in content blocks
- Announcing expanded support for HTML tags in content blocks
- Announcing article editor UI enhancements: Action footer and collapsible article settings panel
Frequently asked questions
Can I switch back to the old experience?
No, it's not possible to revert to the previous article editor design. To share your feedback on the new design, please go to our Community page. For information about how to submit your feedback, see:
- Product feedback guidelines and how to write a good feedback post
- Product feedback and feature request post template
Will these changes also include API level access?
API integrations are not in scope of this work. We'll have a separate workstream for those in the future.