The Problem With TypePad's New Compose Window Is That It Sucks*

Which type of blog post is this?

It's number one: Something is terribly wrong in the blog world, and if I write about it maybe the folks at TypePad who are ruining the blogging experience will do something about it. Or at least I'll get more pageviews.

A couple of weeks ago they rolled out a new Compose Window, as they like to call it. I beta-tested the new feature earlier in the year, and it was so buggy that after a couple of posts I demanded to be un-beta-ed. (And as I just discovered, when I try to access those posts now, I get this. Damn you TypePad to Hell!)

Then with no warning it reappeared, complete with all the same bugs. It's so sluggish in FireFox you could make popcorn in the time it takes for a line of text to show up after you've typed it. So I switched to Safari, and encountered a new bunch of problems. 

See those spaces between the paragraphs? They used to be slim, neat, aesthetically in keeping with most online text paragraph spaces. Now they're fat and ugly, despite my best efforts to HTML them into shape. 

Posting photos, which used to take a mere few clicks of the mouse, is now a laborious process which involves customizing each image insert. Default settings don't save, no matter how many times I click "save these default settings." 

And when I do manage to post a photo, suddenly I can't select a line of text and make it bold—that "B" button becomes unresponsive—thus, no bold captions unless I manually HTML it. (Long time readers will be aware that I don't understand HTML. At all.) And sometimes there's a line underneath my photo. Why? I have no need, as the British say, to "draw a line under it". I prefer bold captions.

This is just the minor stuff. Try cutting and pasting, from either Word or another webpage. Ouch! I've seen high school yearbooks that looked better. No more 13-point Ariel. But trying to select and edit lines of text is impossible. It's easier to retype. (Scratch that—I'm not gonna retype. I just won't post it, Damn you TypePad to Hell.)

There are other bugs: My categories reverted to all those generic categories TypePad provides you with: Games, Music, Sports (have you ever seen a sports-related post here? Not. Gonna. Happen.).

In a post I made for another blog I maintain, I tried cutting and pasting from Word, only using the HTML mode as they suggested when they answered my Help ticket. I ended up with a bunch of question mark symbols after every line. Yeah. My thoughts exactly. 

I'm not the only one who's angry.  And in the spirit of "Being Upset" you'll see that I've linked (which is now a three-step process) to other users who are upset too. 

But hey, at least I found a bunch of great new blogs to read. 

*Because I got so many new readers when I titled this post similarly. Consider this a place where you feel comfortable ranting. DYTPTH=Damn You TypePad To Hell.

Comments

[Meryl]

OMG, is that what the problem is? I've been having issues with my blog all week. About, say 4 out of 5 times that I try to open it, it completely crashes. I've opened a help ticket and keep adding to it, but all they're telling me is they're working on it. ARGH! It's so frustrating!

[KathyF]

Meryl, they've been rolling out the upgrade in stages, so you may have just gotten it in the last week. I think I was one of the first, and I've been begging to be taken off (which I don't think they can do) ever since.

[Dave]

Brothers in Arms. I appreciate the solidarity, so thanks for linking to my own expressing of displeasure with this train-wreck of an "upgrade."

I have found that this thing works a little better with Firefox than Safari. But not too much better. You'd think they Typepad folks would be a little more Mac-friendly.

[KathyR]

PC + Firefox here. I have had some trouble with it and I wish they'd go back to the old way.

I could not get it to space my bullet post the way I wanted it spaced. I could not get the colored text thing to work. The text I wanted to highlight and color WOULD NOT HIGHLIGHT. Or, rather, certain of the words would highlight, but the rest would not. For no reason that I could understand. Similar to your bolding problem, I think. That was annoying.

Oh, and I keep clicking the box on the photo thing to save a particular configuration as the default way to handle photos, but it won't.

And I'm not happy with the photo thing. For one thing, I used to sometimes have clever (snort) titles for my photos that you could read when you hovered your mouse over the photo, but now it is just a gazillion random letters and numbers. And the pop-up photo sucks. Too big if you do it one way and exactly the same size if you do it another.

I haven't tried to cut and paste yet. Now I'm afraid.

[KathyF]

Dave, welcome aboard the train wreck.

KathyR, I think we're having similar problems. I post a lot of photos and once I do, I lose the ability to bold anything. Haven't tried to change the color. Also haven't noticed the other problems you mentioned...yet. But if you really want to see chaos, try cutting and pasting. It used to simply revert to your saved settings. Now it's a mess. (I do a lot of c/p for the other blog, for a non-profit. People send me stuff.)

[Kirsty]

Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog - isn't it great when like-minded people can get together and RANT?!

So this thing *has* been beta tested - you surprise me.

Quite why they're persisting with the changes is beyond me - not one person I know who has the changes is happy with them. In fact, I now blog less than I did before - doesn't that defeat the object of a blogging platform?

Help tickets are useless too. I opened four or five in quick succession to have them labelled 'awaiting user response' when there was nothing I could do in response. So after waiting a fortnight I followed them all up - and it seemed to prod them back into action. Perhaps opening feedback help tickets is the way forward.

But I still have duplicate categories showing up on one of my my published blogs (despite them announcing that his bug was fixed), one of my pages has vanished, some hyperlinks stopped working and when I reinserted them and pressed 'save' that post lost all of its original formatting.

Why aren't TypePad listening to their users? We hate this, TypePad. At least give us the option to switch back to the old compose editor while you fix the 'improved' version.

[Portland Gentrification]

Hey, after two weeks they actually said in one of my Help tickets that the sluggishness seems to be related to Firefox!!! Followed, as usual, by referring me to their list of supported browsers and "known issues".

Of interest might be their terms of service - did you know that you agreed to no refund even if their service stops working or they delete your blog for no reason? nice.

[KathyF]

Portland Gentrification, see my latest post today--they've fixed most of the problems in FireFox, and offered me a free month of service.

[Kath]

Same here!

I usually compose my posts in Safari. Prior to entering beta mode all was wonderful. In beta mode?? Urgggggggggg.

--sigh--

I actually got busy with life and stopped posting for ahwile and it seems some of the bugs got worked out.

The spacing issue I found a way around....sounds wonky but it works for me.

Type a line. Double Space. Hit Preview. Go back into post and delete the 2nd space. Voila...that is what worked for me. Cumbesome I know.

And don't even get me started on trying to post pix. What used to be a breeze is so NOT a breeze anymore.

Like I said, life got in the way of blogging so while the bugs have been an issue, they haven't been a huge issue.

Hope TP gets everything worked out ok. Soon :-)

[KathyF]

Kath, I know what you mean about preview mode (or saving as draft) changing the spacing. I'd noticed it before, but didn't realize the trick you'd pointed out. Thanks!

[Sylvia]

Oh don't get me started on the new Typepad editor! I think I'm on support ticket #14. Typepad has some nifty features that work, but they are a disaster at the simple things. And they suck at customer service, or rather customer service for ordinary customers; I gather that their high profile clients get the royal treatment. We get the scraps. I think they are trained to first blame the user, then call the problem a "feature," and then thank the user for the suggestion. This is not the Typepad I joined in 2004. :(