Ticket Text Editor

The ticket text editor is essential for editing tickets. Therefore it offers a variety of functions that help the supporters to edit and respond to tickets. The text editor has two modes: plain text and with formatting. The mode is preset depending on whether the ticket already contains formatted text. It can be changed by the supporter using the button in the editor toolbar. For new tickets, the default value from the configuration is used.

In the plain text mode, the toolbar of the editor mainly offers the function for adding Auto Texts. In the mode with formatting, various formatting aids are additionally available (see figure).

Note: The height of the text editor can be changed at below the editor.

Text formatting

Formatting of text is done with the usual tools:

  • Text type (paragraph, header etc) - in the figure currently paragraph.
  • Font - in the figure currently Dialog
  • Font size - in the figure currently 10pt
  • Text alignment
    • The alignments left-aligned, centered and right-aligned are supported.
    • Formatting is valid for the selected text paragraph.
  • Color and Style - in the figure, second line:
    • Bold (B)
    • Cursive (I)
    • Underlined (U)
    • Font color (A)
    • Font background (pen icon)
  • Quotations - in the figure, second line, quotation marks at the bottom.
    • Quotations always refers to the entire paragraph.
    • Quotations cannot be nested

Elements

The text editor supports the insertion of typical elements by means of a button in the toolbar:

  • There is one button each (see figure, second line) for sorted and unsorted lists.
  • For tables there is a menu item that allows insertion as well as complex editing.
  • Links are usually automatically recognized when an HTTP/s address is entered or copied into the editor and terminated with a space. The chain icon (see figure, second line) is also used to insert or edit a link.
    • In the editing window of a link the display name, the address as well as the target of the link (current/new window) is defined.
  • The insertion of images into the text is possible in different ways:
    • Via image icon button in the toolbar (see figure, second line).
    • Via Copy&Paste from the clipboard
    • Via Drag&Drop into the text editor
  • Emojis are inserted using a dialog. The dialog has a search and offers grouping by different emoji types.
    • Although known emojis (e.g. :-)) are not converted directly, the input from the editor when typing a colon and two other characters - suggests apt emojis for direct insertion - e.g. :slight → 🙂
    • The suggestions use the UTF-8 names of the characters - spaces are to be replaced with underscores.
    • The corresponding names are displayed in the emoji dialog as a tooltip.

Auto Texts

The text editor supports the use of Auto Texts (see figure, first line) if they have been set up in the desktop application. Details about this can be found in the help of the settings dialog.

The Auto-Text button opens a sidebar to the right of the text editor in which the existing texts are listed. Groupings of Auto Texts can be expanded for viewing. After selecting an Auto Text, a preview of the resulting text appears as well as a button for inserting it into the text editor. A double click also inserts the text into the text editor.

With the sidebar search, the group, the name as well as the content of the Auto Texts are searched and the results are listed.

To insert blocks particularly quickly in the text editor, each block can define an abbreviation - a short character combination - which is displayed in the sidebar right-aligned to the name of the Auto Text name. By entering the abbreviation, e.g. sig and pressing F3 this Auto Text will be inserted directly.

Note: In the user's profile, it is noted whether the sidebar of the text modules was last opened, so that it is also opened directly when editing other tickets.

Note: Text modules are always inserted at the cursor position. Individual pieces of text from an Auto Text can be inserted via selection and then Copy&Paste or Drag&Drop in the editor.

Note: The sidebar has the entire height of the text editor available. If this is not sufficient, the editor can be enlarged - as described above.

Other

Further functions to support editing in the text editor:

  • Removing Formatting for selected text, or the text block where the cursor is located, is done via a button - see figure, second line, last icon image.
  • Notes for switching between plain textwith formatting (see above).
    • When switching, the toolbar is rebuilt with the available entries.
    • When switching to plain text all formatting and images are lost. Line breaks are kept as best as possible. This action cannot be undone.
  • Undo and Redo work via button in the toolbar, as well as with the known key combinations Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y as in other programs.
    • On macOS it is CMD+Z / CMD+Y
  • Copy and Paste of plain text, HTML and images is possible with the key combination Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V (On macOS it is CMD+C / CMD+V)
    • When inserting text with images, e.g. from MS Outlook, it may occur that the images are not included. This is due the image itself not being available in the clipboard and the browser has no access to the location on the hard disk. To insert the image anyway, it can be copied in the source program with the right mouse button and then pasted in the editor.
    • Pasting previously formatted text as now un-formatted text is done with the key combination: CTRL+SHIFT+V as well as CMD+ALT+SHIFT+V on macOS.
  • Drag and Drop
    • Text and images can be dragged into the editor from external programs.
    • Other files can be added as attachments via Drag&Drop to the editing steps.
    • Attachments from the attachment extension can also be inserted at other places via Drag&Drop.