The new editor: Better than ever, thanks to you!

Over the past couple of weeks, we've been talking with you, asking questions about what you think will make our new editor the best that it can be, listening to your answers, and making changes based on your feedback.

We recently restored the old editor to most of our bloggers' accounts as we implemented these changes. We've been working on bringing back some of the features that you enjoyed in the old editor, and correcting some issues that were plaguing a few people. Soon, everyone will be able to enjoy a new editor with familiar features, like a more robust color picker and easy linking, but you'll also notice some major improvements to things like text spacing and live preview for video in the browsers that support it.

This afternoon, we'll be rolling out the improved editor to a large number of our bloggers, and we're confident that you'll be as happy as we are with the changes. Of course, we're still listening, and we want to know about your experiences once you start using the new editor. If you have any feedback for us, just open a help ticket at Help > New Ticket.

Comments

[Zalary]

Thanks for listening! Generally no one like change, but it's nice to feel heard.

[A Twitter User]

Thank you! I'm very curious to see if this improved editor fixes the error I reported.

[Mdormx]

Habría que ver la posibilidad de introducir archivos en formato pdf, rar y zip, en el editor, para optimizar espacio en el blog.
Gracias por su atención.

[Amy Flynn]

DO NOT PUT ME ON THE NEW EDITOR OR I AM LEAVING

Get over to this http://getsatisfaction.com/sixapart/topics/new_text_editor_damages_every_page_i_open?utm_content=reply_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=reply_notification#reply_3489363

Get Satisfaction thread, you have bloggers having a MELT DOWN because of your GARBAGE NEW EDITOR.

THis does not belong released yet... YOU ARE RUSHING IT ONCE AGAIN.

ONCE AGAIN I will state that we are PAYING CUSTOMERS not free members and you are not FACEBOOK.

Stop acting like it and make sure to put your PAYING customer's needs before SixApart's needs because without Customers like us, there would be NO SixApart or TypePad.

This new editor NEEDS AT LEAST 1 full month of fixing, troubleshooting and testing.. NOT ONE WEEK.

Your lack of concern and care for those who are your bread and butter is appalling! If I did business like you I wouldn't expect any customers.

Nuff said!

Thank you!

[Amy Flynn]

Sorry Zalary, this editor IS NOT READY for rollout yet. It needed at least a month of fixing, testing, troubleshooting and more beta testing.

Why you are posting as PAYING customer when you are a TypePad and SixApart employee?
You work for TypePad, of course you are going to "approve of" any move they make.

Once again, this rollout is premature. WHAT IS THE BIG RUSH? How much money is SixApart saving by rushing this editor out early? Well they'll lose money when the paying customers leave for other platforms.

[Brian Hines]

No, the new editor is NOT better than ever. It's still bug-filled. Tonight I spent an hour writing a post, pressed "publish" and was taken to the sign-in page for TypePad. That's utterly unacceptable. After I signed in -- again -- the post was completely gone. When I clicked on "compose," the recover button was grayed out, so I figured my post had been trashed.

Fortunately, I tried again a few minutes later and found that I could restore the post content. But obviously the new text editor is buggy -- maybe as buggy as the previous "new and improved" text editor that turned out to be way worse than the old one.

I can't comprehend why TypePad persists in rolling out bug-filled software that is a step backward, rather than forward. Are you trying to drive your customers crazy, or does it just seem that way? I never have been logged out of my account when I tried to publish a post until today -- which just happened to be the day the new "Improved" text editor was rolled out.

Coincidence? No. Just another day in the life of TypePad incompetence. This is getting old, guys. Until you have thoroughly tested your software, don't inflict it on your customers. I want the old text editor back.

[Account Deleted]

Yea right, I was also surprised at Zalary's comment. She was posting a comment as if she was a paying customer when she's a staff member. Hmmmmmm.

Amy, I agree with you....this new Editor is NOT READY yet....I haven't even seen any big improvement on the new editor...they just made it more difficult....you know, like a techie gadget, the more buttons to push, the more difficult it is to handle.

[Account Deleted]

I thought I was the only one who thought about that----that the New editor is NOT BETTER.....the old one was working fine, very functional and great and I don't know why these Typepad staff DON'T LISTEN. I'd been bugging them about the Commenting System for years now and they haven't done anything yet except add those log-on options...that's it.
You're right---it's incompetence is showing now.

[Anna Green]

I've been having a LOT of problems with the editor - font sizes not appearing the way I want them to is the main one. This is a big problem as it makes my blog look totally amateurish. Quite often blog posts come out looking different to how they did when I previewed them too. Blog entries which should be straightforward and take little time are taking me ages - and then I have to go back again and try to adjust font sizes (often with little success). Aaargh!

[Anna Green]

Meant to say that this has been an ongoing problem - not just down to the 'new' editor (not even sure if I'm on that yet)

[The Franchise King]

Guys and gals at Typepad,

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Leave it be. It's fine, and I'm a little gun-shy.

I know that you've put time, money and effort into this, but who asked for it?

[Melanie]

Hi Amy,

We really appreciate your feedback! I know that it can seem quick when you're not "behind the scenes," but our Engineers and the entire TypePad team have spent months working on the new editor. What seems like a premature release is actually the end result of a long development, troubleshooting, fixing and Beta Testing process. The issues that needed to be corrected were able to be fixed quickly simply because we had already put a lot time and work into the editor.

And actually, Zalary doesn't work for TypePad or Six Apart any longer. We were very sorry to lose her when she moved to Austin earlier this year, and she is simply a TypePad blogger now, just like you are (in fact, we're all TypePad bloggers).

[Melanie]

Hi! Please see my reply to Amy. Zalary hasn't worked for TypePad for awhile (unfortunately, because we miss her!), actually.

The editor has changed only very minimally, but if you're having trouble getting around the new features, we're happy to help if you'd like to open a ticket, or have us open one for you!

[Melanie]

Hi Amy,

Hopefully my answer above will help clear up some confusion over the length of time that we've been working on the editor - it's actually been much longer than a month.

We're listening, though! If you need further clarification or more information about anything at all, just let us know.

[Melanie]

Actually, our very own bloggers asked for it :-)

We work hard to make sure that we're meeting the needs of our bloggers, and the new editor was developed specifically based on many months worth of feature requests and feedback from folks just like you.

[On Leadership]

PLEASE RESTORE THE OLD EDITOR TO MY BLOG IMMEDIATELY AND KEEP IT THERE.

YOU DO NOT HAVE MY AUTHORIZATION TO CHANGE IT.

THIS IS IMPORTANT ENOUGH FOR ME TO USE all-caps IN EXPRESSING MY DISAPPROVAL OF THE NEW EDITOR!

[Melanie]

Hi Anna,

I didn't see an account for you based on your linked URL, but I'm happy to check and see which version of the editor you're on, and definitely happy to check into any issues you might be having. You can open up a help ticket by going to your Dashboard and clicking Help > New Ticket - that will give us all the information we need to help out!

[Melanie]

Hi Brian,

It actually sounds more like an issue with your session expiring than the new editor. If you've been working for a long time on a post, we highly recommend saving as a Draft intermittently. This is a good practice for anything you're working on for a long time, because sessions do expire, and we'd never want you to lose your hard work. The editor wouldn't actually be related to this issue - that's not a bug. We are working to increase the length of the sessions though! We never want anyone to lose their work - but saving as a Draft is a good idea in general.

[Amy Flynn]

Thanks for the reply Melanie. I did not know that Zalary had left. She was great with support while she was there.

I can't agree that the editor was ready, it's not the amount of time it takes, it's whether it works completely, not just 70%! And when you released it a week ago, it was a DISASTER. We are PAYING customers, and for many of us our blog is OUR BUSINESS. We pay you for a service, not to ruin our ability to run our businesses.

I can honestly see no justification in what TypePad has done. You clearly were not thinking of your paying customer's best interests.

[Zalary]

I no longer work at SixApart, so I speak here as a paying customer, just like everyone else.

Even when I did work for SixApart, I didn't have to "approve of" everything that was implemented, but I do know both sides of the story. I see the bitching about things as they are, I see the bitching if things get changed, I see the bitching if things go back, and I see a lot of people who feel entitled.

FWIW Wordpress uses the same base editor as the new Typead editor that you're all bitching about. Drupal doesn't have a built in text editor. Squarespace uses the same base editor as TypePad's old one, and has the same issues we heard about so many times. So while everyone can talk all they want about taking their toys and leaving, you may want to consider that SixApart employees do actually give a shit and TRY to help everyone, despite company decisions outside their control. Good luck finding that elsewhere.

[Zalary]

Are you going to go to Wordpress, which uses the same editor as the one you are so adamant against? Or to Squarespace with the old editor that has the spacing and crashing issues? Or perhaps you'll just roll your own custom CMS and show TypePad how easy it is?

[The Franchise King]

Melanie,

I've been extremely please with Typepad, especially the past year.

I wish that you would have asked me.

Are you going to be ast BWE10?

JL

[Brian Hines]

Melanie, I beg to differ. I've been using TypePad for many years, blogging daily. I've often taken hours to finish a post. Sometimes I leave the text editor open all day, or all night, and come back to a post later. I've never been logged out of my account after clicking 'publish" before. Nor, should I be. I've also never had a session expire while I was working on a blog post, no matter how long it took.

With all due respect -- because I know you guys work hard and have good intentions -- there is a lot of denial going on at TypePad about the "new and improved" text editor. You aren't listening to the feedback you're getting, seemingly because you really want to believe that the new editor is better than the old.

It isn't. When the concerns of customers/subscribers are discounted or dismissed, this is a bad sign for a company. Try contacting Apple sometime, and learn how a quality technology company deals with its customers. The support people stick with a problem until it is resolved. They don't say "Oh, that's not a bug, it's a feature" or "You're doing something wrong; it's not our problem."

I keep reading comments from TypePad staff that put the blame for blogger problems on the customer, rather than on the crappy new text editor. I'm a scientific sort. On the day that TypePad releases a new version of the editor, if I encounter problems that I've never seen before in many years of blogging, I reasonably attribute that to the new software.

You guys should also. Start thinking logically, not hopefully.

[Editor]

The new editor is horrible! Editing existing blog posts is impossible. Extra line feeds appear all over the place. If I remove them, they keep coming back and multiply.

Can we please stay with the old (working) editor?

[JOHN LOBBAN]

TypePad did it to me again!

Here's my ticket submitted yesterday when the new editor went online (this is the 3rd time I've been switched to the new editor, including when it rolled into beta and I left the beta group):
____________________________________________________________
Have you pushed me back onto that new editor with all the problems? Once again I can't go back and edit old posts without tons of extra line feeds. I delete the extra lines and save...they reappear. NCIS Season Premier is TUESDAY and this will be the busiest week of the year for my www.NCISfanatic.com and www.MikeWeatherly.com websites. PLEASE return me to the old editor so I can get my blogs posted and updated. YOU'RE KILLING ME WITH THE NEW EDITOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
____________________________________________________________

You guys can't believe my current level of frustration. My websites are for fans of the NCIS television series and the season premier is Tuesday (Sep 21st) and less than a week before my highest traffic expectations of the year (20k+ visits in a single day likely) TypePad has bumped me up to the new editor with the SAME OLD PROBLEMS....NOTHING'S FIXED!!!!!

I pay for quite a few online services for myself and I have other commercial clients I've put on TypePad for their blogs. I've never had this type of experience with any other company. TypePad, please take the new editor and SCRAP IT! It offers nothing new and creates a mess when updating existing posts.

John

[JOHN LOBBAN]

p.s. Have you noticed ... there no positive subscriber comments about the new editor.

[Editor]

By the way, our main account (this one) is still on the old editor which works just fine. We were logged into one of our other accounts with the new editor when we had the problems.

We had hoped we could edit, using this account to post into the other account's new editor. No such luck. We tried pasting the HTML into the new editor and it's the same mess.

Hopefully typepad will consider giving us a choice of editors so only those (few) who like the new editor will have the option of using it. Those of us with existing websites and stories to edit could continue editing our older stories with the old editor. -- IS THAT SUGGESTION POSSIBLE?

[M.T.]

My two problems remain:

- I can no longer pull up the image formatting box that I used to get with a right click. I can't resize my images, I can't add a border, I can't even change their position on the page besides centering them.

- When adding pictures from my computer, the file browser goes back to the top level of my file system every single time. It used to remember which folder I had been in and, like most people, I keep all my blog-destined images in one folder. It is a huge huge pain to navigate through the file picker for every single image.

- I really wish that after reading your posts about this new editor, I could actually understand WHAT EXACTLY IS BETTER ABOUT IT. But I don't. I just see that the image formatting I use every day has vaporized and that's unpleasant. :(

[Editor]

If you double-click instead of right-click on the image, you'll get a box for resizing. Of course here on the Mac using Safari, that also pops-up the picture in a separate little window. It's a real pain closing those each time.

Try editing an old post originally done with the old editor and see what you get. We get extra line feeds and none of our staff likes dealing with that mess.

[Mary]

I hope your corrections to the "new, improved" editor include the ability to select a list and have it bulleted or numbered automatically - like in the OLD EDITOR. I had to individually bullet the items in my list and I am not a happy camper.

[valerie]

hi there - i'm a transport from vox, so i'm new to typepad. i know this isn't part of the comment thread here, but i'm not finding a place to send comments, only problem tickets.

the one thing i truly, truly miss from vox is a community and the ability to search through random people's blogs and find people you really click with.

i'm only finding blogs of entrepeneurs and small business owners selling things, or advertising for things, or otherwise not average people posting about their lives. i know that those blogs are out there on typepad, but i'm just not finding a way to locate them.

will there ever be such a thing at typepad? it's the thing that made vox different and better, in my opinion, than any other blog site out there and i miss it greatly.

thanks!

[Gunpowder]

The new editor is not good!!!
When you double click a picture to hyperlink it to another page it doesn't give the option. why?
I have to go in manually and change all of the html.
Thanks for making more work for me - Kudos on the changes!
While you're at it could you change all of language on the site to Chinese?
I also can't change settings to not to open in a new window or to open in a new window. I also can't change the file hyperlink text.it just says "download ". great..have to maually change too.

anything else you guys wanna a change before testing? Change it back immediately...or we'll be moving our sites to WordPress!!!! (we are a paying customer).

[jessica]

when I insert my pictures into the post the coloring is way off...almost a dull, grayish cast to it. has anyone else had this problem with this new editor?
yeah I say switch back to the old.

[JOHN LOBBAN]

Here's a ZIP file that contains the HTML comparisons that I just submitted to TypePad support.

http://www.ncisfanatic.com/Editor-Comparison.zip

Perhaps looking at the text files contained within this .ZIP file will help others see the problem I'm trying to explain here.

Email to TypePad Support:
____________________________________________________________

Here's a comparison of an existing post opened in the OLD editor vs. the same post simply opened in the NEW editor.

!NEW-EDITOR.rtf
!OLD-EDITOR.rtf

Here's an existing post opened today using the NEW editor:

OldPost-OpenedWithNewEditor.rtf

I've also provided .txt versions of the same files. All 6 files are contained in the attached Editor-Comparison.zip

There's something about the new editor that causes a bunch of extra line feeds to be inserted in the post. If I clean it up by removing the extra line feeds and save the post, they reappear the next time I open the post in the new editor. If I save and open again without making ANY changes, the problem gets worse!

Please switch me back to the OLD editor!

John

[Account Deleted]

I imagine that all the people who haven't had any problems with the new text editor are too busy happily blogging to comment. Unfortunately, more companies only hear from people when they have problems, so it looks as if everyone is unsatisfied--and this probably isn't the case. Anyway, I just want to say that I appreciate what the staff at Six Apart have to go through whenever there is a new feature release. For what it's worth, I haven not experienced any of the problems that people here are complaining about.

[Geo]

Believe it or not, Valerie, TypePad migrated to their cherished new system (at least according to their original statement on the subject a couple of years ago) so that TypePad users would experience the same feature-rich goodies that Vox users had. I'm thinking that hasn't quite happened yet.

[Geo]

Zalary, part of the problem (addressed elsewhere in these comments) is that customers are frequently made to feel as if the problems they are experiencing are entirely their own fault. I spent *months* trying to get somewhere with Help Tickets over the useless and glitchy 'new' image editor that rolled out with the major platform change two years ago until I simply gave up because nobody - and I mean absolutely *nobody* - appeared to understand the basics of the issue no matter how plainly and succinctly it was spelled out. Every response I got made it seem like I was the ass clown who couldn't do anything right and I finally got fed up and started using LiveWriter as a work-around.
Working in customer service myself, I know how frustrating it is to be on the receiving end of complaints, but very often it is like talking to a wall when dealing with TypePad. I have used WordPress, Blogger, Squarespace and, though I don't care for their overall design aesthetic, which is why I stayed with TypePad, I have *never* had an issue with their compose screens or their photo editors - not like I've had with TypePad's 'New & Improved' version.
And, really, the 'entitlement' comes from paying someone your hard-earned money for something that is supposed to work correctly and have it do nothing but waste your time, lose your posts, and piss you off and then not being able to get any tangible assistance when you ask for it.

[Erie Chapman Foundation]

I am unable to post a video to my blog...can you check on this problem, and advise?

[A Twitter User]

I have to say I'm rather surprised at the hostility levels here; I'm rather new to Typepad, is the blog always like this? Perhaps just comes with the territory of making a product for such a vocal userbase? =P

Personally I love the new editor, when I originally tried Typepad and saw it had the YUI Editor I wasn't too impressed, then joining the beta program and seeing TinyMCE I I was very happy; I've had no problems with it so far, it's the same editor used by wordpress and other large sites so I'm rather suprised so many people seem to be having issues.

Please don't remove the new editor, some of us do like it, and I've had no problems =)

[Mike Albo]

Same with us.

When we paste ordinary YouTube embed code into HTML view and save the draft, the video is there. But when you go back to the rich text view to continue working and then save the draft again, the editor re-writes the video embed code into useless nonsense: the video is gone from both rich text view and the post preview.

Here's what YouTube gives us (which works):

Here's what your wonderful new editor takes it upon itself to change the above into (which does not work at all):

As so many have pointed out above, the new editor simply does not work for many of the most vital parts of blogging.

Please -- at the very least -- make it OUR option whether to adopt this, since it's critical piece of our business.

[Mike Albo]

Same with us.

When we paste ordinary YouTube embed code into HTML view and save the draft, the video is there. But when you go back to the rich text view to continue working and then save the draft again, the editor re-writes the video embed code into useless nonsense: the video is gone from both rich text view and the post preview.

Here's what YouTube gives us (which works):

[Note: removed all "angle-brackets" to get code to display here]

object width="640" height="385" param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BGODurRfVv4&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_profilepage&fs=1" /param param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /param param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /param embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BGODurRfVv4&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_profilepage&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="385" /embed /object

Here's what your wonderful new editor takes it upon itself to change the above into (which does not work at all):

[Note: removed all "angle-brackets" to get code to display here]

object width="425" height="344"
param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/z3FDSIzC0Uo?fs=1hl=en_US" /
param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /
param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /
/object

As so many have pointed out above, the new editor simply does not work for many of the most vital parts of blogging.

Please -- at the very least -- make it OUR option whether to adopt this, since it's critical piece of our business.

[Mike Albo]

This may explain why the "new" editor doesn't work, since the garbage editor tool in several Wordpress group blogs we work with is one of the big reasons we've never seriously considered switching.

[CENTURY21 Bill Nye Realty, Inc.]

Considering the rude responses of Zalary, I am kind of glad she no longer does work for TypePad. When the whole system broke down a couple of weeks ago, another TypePad employee also took the rude route when responding to complaints. Sure soured me for a while. They seem to forget that thousands of hours of our time were wasted when you add them all up. We are, in fact, the paying customers. As long as the system functions I can be happy with either editor, but I cannot afford to be shutdown for an entire day or more. Brianna was very polite and obviously was trying to keep customers calm. But some of the others were not. Hope Zalary was not in customer relations. Even past employees' behavior reflects on the company.

[davidinnv]

One day, when everyone commenting in these threads says that all is finally perfect in TypePad Land, I will be able to migrate away from LiveWriter as my composer of choice and enjoy the ease of composition that I thought TypePad offered when I first subscribed more than four years ago. And one day, when the TypePad developers have finally developed a truly stable product, perhaps some of them will decide it is time to also enhance the Comments feature so that it can come into the modern era instead of being the perpetual stepchild. You know, like adding such "exotic" and revolutionary features such as spell-check for comments? Apparently that must be a massive project that will require thousands of developer hours to implement. (sarcasm intended)

[Kofla Olivieri]

Are you using Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox? I am unable to post a video with IE but it works fine using Firefox.

I personally prefer the old editor, why can't we have the option to decide which one to use?

[Account Deleted]

Darlin'''look who's bitching.....look at how you write here...it's obvious you're so mad.
All I ever said was I agree with Amy about you posting a comment as a customer.
Well....if you are not working with Typepad anymore, sorry for the confusion because everybody remembers you as an employee and you can never change that because you were and the mistake was founded on the fact that you were once an employee.

As per CENTURY 21 BILL NYE (look and read his comment below) , I really do think your response here is appallingly rude---well , in your words,. "bitchy."

Nobody's bitching about you here....we were just surprised you were posting a comment because we thought you were a Typepad employee.

Yes I could find that elsewhere....the only thing that stops me now is it's hard for most of us to move an established blog to another platform .

I should have listened to my co-bloggers before ---to use WP instead of Typepad.

Good luck to you and God bless you dear....remember "frowning and anger can cause wrinkles :-) "

[Datechguy.wordpress.com]

Trying to help a typepad user on a Mac import a missing list. There seems to be no Import button to import the list from an opml file. (I presume this is an update bug)

Is there a keyboard shortcut she can use instead to begin the import?

[JOHN LOBBAN]

Yes I've had the same video issue that you describe. It changes the YouTube embed code to its own, and yes editing again can make the video disappear.

Workaround: Re-Compose fresh. Make sure you keep an index of where the original video came from.

[JOHN LOBBAN]

I'm guessing you've used the new editor long enough that all the posts you work with are in the new editor.

Those of us with posts composed in the old editor are having a nightmare when it comes to making updates to those posts. Legacy editor customers are having the issues I believe.

[JOHN LOBBAN]

8:25am Monday. Still stuck with the new editor. PLEASE TypePad, could I be returned to the old editor, which some of my TypePad clients still have (thank God).

http://www.NCISfanatic.com

[JOHN LOBBAN]

Yes I've had the same video issue that you describe. It changes the YouTube embed code to its own, and yes editing again can make the video disappear.

Workaround: Re-Compose fresh. Make sure you keep an index of where the original video came from.

[Account Deleted]

Not sure if anyone will see this amongst all the comment madness above put new editor seems to be okay here. A minor but really irritating navigation thing is for Pages. When you are in a Page there is no link to click back to the list of Pages. You can only choose previous or next page. Which means to get to the list of Pages you have to click Posts then Pages again. Any chance of link?

Thanks for all your work, cheers.

[Anna Ikeda]

Hi Jessica,
I've been having the same problem for over a year, or whenever it was the Typepad released the previous editor. I opened multiple tickets regarding this issue, and was told that everything looked fine on their end, and that the problem was on MY end, because I'm using a Mac and Firefox. Oddly enough, when I posted on Flickr samples of other sites on other platforms that were viewed using Mac and Firefox (with no color loss), all I was offered was a discount to renewed my Typepad subscription. Which I so stupidly took and renewed.

And now, after finding out that I, as a blogger, have NO option to permanently delete an image (an image, btw, which is MINE and which I own) from the bowels of Typepad, and that this has to be done on the "backend" by the staff, I am beyond livid. I am fed up with Typepad and I am leaving.

A free platform like Blogger offers me the option to permanently remove my images, but a PAID service like Typepad doesn't?

[Anna Ikeda]

It didn't work for me in Firefox, it didn't work for me in Safari.
It DID work for me when I tried to add a video in the HTML version of the post, though. But not the embed function, but the "URL and we'll insert the player for you" option.
Sucks!!!

[Kevin Horne]

Lest you think all is well with the "old editor," today for the first time in over 300+ posts i was unable to insert an image. Posted on Get Sat and opened a job ticket...crickets. Everyone at TP must be too busy on the "new" editor :(

[Account Deleted]

Zalary, have you used Wordpress? Because the editor works flawlessly. I am a long-time Typepad user who has become increasingly frustrated and dissatisfied for all the reasons other users have outlined. I recently moved a web site (15 YEARS of pages, links, photos, data) from a company server to Wordpress -- from scratch, never having used it. Aside from the time it took to rewrite and refresh content, it took less than 30 hours and I had zero problems. When I wanted Wordpress to do something, all I had to do was look in support or forums or plugins, and there was a great solution.

I pay $149/year to be treated like an annoyance by Typepad. Dreamhost costs about $108/year, if you don't find a cheaper deal (I got 3 years of hosting for $55). Wordpress is free and a one-click install.

I'll be moving all my Typepad blogs to Wordpress after I finish another major work project. I would have done it sooner except Typepad has a crappy export function that requires you to manually download all your images -- a handy way to hold people hostage. If it were straightforward, I believe thousands of bloggers would have left Typepad long ago.

There are instructions on how to migrate from Typepad to Wordpress at Foliovision, who will also do it for you for $300. I have no connection with that company at all.

I don't care if I never have another problem with Typepad ever again. I've had enough.

[SportsRatings]

I just noticed, now on the new editor all we can choose from are the old antiquated HTML font sizes (1-7). So if you want to use anything other than 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, 24, or 36, dig into the sprawl of HTML and find that SPAN tag. Go back, see how it looks. Don't like it? Try again.

[Ivan]

I've been blogging at Typepad for over six years, but all my more recent blogs are on Wordpress.
I never see the Typepad editor because I use Scribefire. I suggest you all try it - it's utterly amazing for making posts afaik. You can now use it with Firefox, Safari and Chrome. Make and edit posts, add media, tag, categorise, upload. Bingo.
btw, I would move my blog from Typepad if I could export it with images.

[unclebob]

I must say I am appalled at some of the comments I have seen here. Are we all(no, not everyone who posted here...just some)adults that have migrated back to being junior high school "kids". Is there any redeeming quality for any of you that have to use such foul language toward each other? Not in my book, although I will admit to having had fits of anger myself in the past. But what does it accomplish? Some of the women's(I won't refer to them as ladies) comments remind me of watching two junior high girls get into a fight. All I can say is I am sure glad I'm not married to a couple of you "girls" who have posted here. Yes, we are all paying customers, and none of us like to pay for something and not have it work as we expect it to. Oh, by the way, have you all forgotten that there is no such thing as "perfect" on planet earth? If you have, then I suggest you take another look in the mirror. Find any IM-PERFECT-IONS? Yep, I'll bet you did. Me too!
I will say this on behalf of Typepad, though. When I was trying to learn how to use their software(a complete newbie at blogging then)and just couldn't get it together during my trial, Typepad gave me six months of free service. Why? Because I had been forced out of my job by a very unscrupulous employer who stole my commission checks, and I had to make it on my social security check alone, which isn't all that much. Needless to say, they treated me like a human being, and I am very grateful to them. I got into other things then, and forgot all about what I was doing with Typepad(chasing too many jackrabbits trying to get some income back in my pocket). After 6 months I got a charge for my next month, and I had to ask Typepad to refund that, which they did WITHOUT any hesitation. So maybe something isn't as perfect as you would like it to be. Did any of you offer any help, even if you couldn't? No? Well, could you have at least done that? Oh, and for Amy Flynn and her extremely rude comments, my personal opinion is that your Daddy should bend you over across his knees and give you a few whacks on your sweet(??) little buttocks. He probably should have done it LONG ago, me thinks.
So make your choices, as we all have them to make. But just try a little harder to be civil with your tongues. That's my take.

[Davis10runner]

strong networks. strong roots. this will not deteriorate with these roots. old style fresh perspectives. fresh flowers to pick. you sow what you reap. start planting the seeds into our nations. the rest will take care of itself