Blog Post Editor - Pitfalls and suggestions for improvement of the native Shopify editor

[Blackbird]

I am using the native Shopify blog editor for my blog at this point.  I don't need a fancy editor, but I do need a few basic functions.  Below are the problems I am having and some (hopefully relatively easy) solutions that I hope Shopify can implement to solve them.

Pitfalls:

1. There is no option for "Caption" or "Figure" fonts.
2. When I click on or highlight text in my blog the native Shopify editor does not identify which text I'm using (Paragraph, H1, H2, etc).  This makes it impossible to tell how it will look until I click "Preview" and render the html on my previewed or published page
3. The realtime preview in the editor does not apply the CSS from my theme to the text in the editor.  So when I type in the editor, it shows me a different font than what will appear in the published post.

Solutions

1. Add Caption and Figure fonts to the list of options...That shouldn't be too hard.  My current solution is to enter <small> html tags, which is a huge pain and doesn't look great.
2. Use the editor from this forum instead of the editor that's in the blog currently.  This editor has more features and functionality than the native blog editor.  We don't need the world, just the basics!
3. Use the CSS from the theme in the blog editor to that font styles show up in real time.

Please like/upvote this post if you're having similar problems or add more suggestions as well!

[Hilary]

Hi, @Blackbird! 

Thanks sharing your feedback. I appreciate you taking the time to write such a detailed post explaining your pain points with our current blog editor. I appreciate how these issues are affecting your ability to make blog posts in the way you'd like at this time, and that a few changes would make a big difference for you. Thanks for also sharing one of your current workarounds for other users. 

Just so you know, I've gone ahead submitted this detailed feedback on your behalf to our developers. While we can't make any guarantee for changes, the more feedback we receive the better. The best place to hear about changes is in our Changelog.

If others join this thread, I'd be more than happy to add their feedback as well! 

[Blackbird]

Hi Hilary,

Thank you for the response. I understand that you can't guarantee to make the changes I requested, but this would be a huge win for everyone that uses the Shopify Blog editor. The small modifications to the blog editor would make it much easier and faster to create blogs in Shopify and keep people from searching for alternatives to the native Shopify blog editor.  Thank you on behalf of everyone that uses Shopify to create and manage their blogs for their stores!