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Cannot change formatting with code blocks



Posted Mar 11, 2022

I recently noticed that I am no longer able to set bold property on selected text within a code block.  I have been using this for years and am disappointed I can no longer do this.

For example - when notifying clients about disk space alerts, placing the output of a terminal command into a code block (taking advantage of monospace) is necessary for proper column alignment:

# df -hlTP -x tmpfs -x devtmpfs --total
Filesystem     Type  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1      xfs   8.0G  2.7G  5.4G  33% /
/dev/vdc       ext4  3.9G  1.5G  2.2G  42% /var
/dev/vdd       ext4  976M  1.4M  908M   1% /home
/dev/vde       xfs   1.5T  1.4T  134G  92% /data
/dev/sda       xfs   256G   33M  256G   1% /archive
total          -     1.8T  1.4T  398G  78% -

I would then select the line of interest and set it to bold to easily identify the volume at risk of filling up:

# df -hlTP -x tmpfs -x devtmpfs --total
Filesystem     Type  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1      xfs   8.0G  2.7G  5.4G  33% /
/dev/vdc       ext4  3.9G  1.5G  2.2G  42% /var
/dev/vdd       ext4  976M  1.4M  908M   1% /home
/dev/vde       xfs   1.5T  1.4T  134G  92% /data
/dev/sda       xfs   256G   33M  256G   1% /archive
total          -     1.8T  1.4T  398G  78% -

 

In the past week the bold option is no longer available for selected text within a code block.  I then came across this article:

https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408884153242

Which states:

Changes from the legacy editors

This section describes some differences between the new combined composer experience and the separate legacy editors for rich content and markdown.

  • This new editor experience is not available in the macro editor, yet. This feature is planned for later date.
  • Rich-content formatting inside code blocks is not supported.
  • Using the down arrow key to escape the code block is not supported. To escape a code block, press the Return key three times.
  • Image resizing using the up and down arrow keys is not supported.
  • Horizontal rule elements will always be on their own line. They cannot be inside of other elements.
  • You can only indent a list item if it is at the same level as a previous list item. You can’t indent blockquotes. You can only indent the text inside of blockquotes.
  • Using the markdown underline symbol (_) for underlined text is not supported. For example, typing _Important_ does not appear as Important. You can use underline symbols (_) in addition to asterisks (*) to make text bold or italic. For example, typing _Note_ and __Caution__ appears as Note and Caution.

I am trying to understand why this change was deemed necessary and request that it be reverted.  Or is there a way for agents to choose between "combined composer experience" and "the separate legacy editors for rich content and markdown"?  Perhaps a config option in agent preferences/settings?

I find it interesting that I was able to set formatting within code-block as I composed this forum post, but am no longer able to do the same within my zendesk agent ticketing system environment...


38

8

8 comments

We experiencing the same issue as mentioned by Chris here.

Our devs feel that they lost the feature to highlight parts of the code and I would like to understand why this was disabled. Half of our agent were using this feature and we would like to have similar solution to be able to highlight parts of the code in some way.

I also find it interesting that I was able to set formatting within code-block as I composed this forum post, but am no longer able to do the same within my zendesk agent ticketing system environment...

5


image avatar

Nara

Zendesk Customer Care

Hi Chris and Miroslav,

Thank you both for bringing this concern regarding the new formatting to our attention. While at this time there are no plans to revert the formatting in the new composer, ultimately posts with a high number of upvotes/comments in this forum do get the attention of our product team for future dev work. So while we are unable to offer a fix in the short-term, posts like these are helpful points of feedback for ZD to look to for future work. We'll keep an eye on this thread.

-4


Hi Nara,

how much it is "high number of upvotes/comments" for PM to consider revert this old feature?

Regards,

PJ

5


This is a really negative impact on our typical support flows - highlighting blocks of logs and code is critical to a significant proportion of our tickets. Please can we emphasise the importance of this feature parity, or can we have the option to revert back to the legacy editor?

8


Nara

This issue is now at 31 people in agreement. This forum is filled to the brim with complaints about the new editor and how it has broken functionality across your entire userbase. 

This is not good. 

3


As a software house, this is causing a massive issue for us and is making our code look amateur at best without indentation. 

This needs to be corrected. 

Any update?

3


Support team,

 We have had to completely redefine our process and now place manual restrictions (via constant email reminders) on what our agents can and cannot copy and paste into tickets with respect to code, database manipulation language queries or ANY references to critical names that contain underscores in them. Some of our agents are non-technical staff members who have now stopped using Zendesk, because they are now spending double the time re-examining large code which they should not have to do, just to go back in and manually type in potentially lengthy strings with underscores in them manually.  Can you ask your development team to address this, and at the very least provide an option to disable the bolding and italicizing using asterisks and underscores? I am not sure how the convenience of quick italicizing is wholly important compared to highlighting something and pressing CTRL-i?

This issue is not only a risk if code ever references similar objects that may or may not have underscores in them, but it has brought down workflow as a result. 

2


image avatar

Amisha Sharma

Zendesk Product Manager

Hello everyone,

Thank you for sharing feedback.

We understand that this must be frustrating as it seems like we have taken away a functionality. We upgraded our composer technology to a different new technology, which has helped make our composer more stable and reliable and has also unlocked the possibility of new features. While the new technology has come with several benefits, it does not support formatting inside code blocks.

Unfortunately, there are no plans to bring that back as we want to be consistent with the industry guidelines for code blocks and want to encourage customers to use code span instead if you would like to add formatting. Thanks!

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