New email editor is garbage. Please post your feedback. :)

[Colby_Dix]

So, in what can only be considered classic Marketo form at this point they have "updated" the email editor with such a broken pile of garbage that a considerable amount of additional time is necessary to fix and author emails now. The WYSIWIG editor is anything but and forces all sorts of extranneous and unwanted HTML at every turn. This is HUGELY disappointing that they would see fit to put out a feature that is clearly nowhere near production ready. We spend a lot of money on this service and expect better.

Here's a few issues that are bugging me, please feel free and add yours to the comments below, or just tell me that I'm nuts and that it's a wonderful editor...

Accessing HTML is a secondary menu

Bulletted lists create a formatting nightmare that can only be fixed by manually entering the HTML code

A white background is forced on colored text that can only be manually removed in HTML as well.

Can no longer edit the style of links without manually coding in HTML, or by clunkily using the editore which adds span tags and extranneous code

Advanced Image & Table style/properties are gone, have to manually code in HTML

Side-by-side html vs. text editor was intuitive and useful. It's gone.

VERY frustrating. A few searches deep and I see that in the Admin section I can at least revert to the old editor, but even that wasn't made clear by MKTO. The only good support is here in the forums. (I admit I'm in a cranky mood towards MKTO today)

[Colby_Dix]

Go to the Admin section.
Click on the 'email' selection in the left menu.
under the 'email' tab in the main content window, click on 'edit email settings'
select 'legacy' and save, apply, run away, refresh and your instance will use the old editor.

[Josh_Perry1]

Sorry Colby, when I had hit post I did not see your comment. I was probably writing it the same time you were

[Colby_Dix]

Picture is a nice touch anyhow.

[Justin_Norris1]

Hey Colby Dix,

I agree with you that the new editor is imperfect. I also totally understand the frustration.

I think you will get more mileage if you collaborate with Product Management to help improve the issues.

As evidenced by this thread still being here and Cheryl Chavez​ posting in it, I think PM is listening and willing to communicate, and there is no censorship going on.

I have met the PM team and interacted with some doing beta testing etc. They are good folks who care about users and want to ship a great product.

Justin Cooperman​ is the PM responsible for emails and landing pages. I'm sure he is watching this thread and more sure he would read an email from you listing all the issues and your suggestions for improvements. You might even see a few quick fixes in an upcoming release (who knows). So I'd suggest reaching out to him.

Then more importantly, we can start feeding the team ideas to make the email editor really awesome and way better than it has ever been.

As Ed Masson​ noted, the voice of the people does have an influence here.

[Colby_Dix]

Thanks Justin, very well presented email with a lot of useful info/people. I appreciate it!

[Anonymous]

The bullets are the biggest issue to me. It is overly/incorrectly interpreting MS Word formatting and it is pulling the text into the bullet point. This isn't my only issue, but I could use this and be pretty happy with it if that issue were fixed.

[Edward_Masson]

The new Marketo email editor is a great start to building their own Email Editor that many others rely on what is commonly know as TinyMCE which is old, a third party application and has not changed over the years.

Does Marketo Email Editor need work? Yes, it does, no getting round that.  But in Marketo defense, they try new things, sometimes it works some times it doesn’t. But this is want we want from a company showing innovation.

The best part, Marketo listens to the community on ideas for change and improvements.

Colby, I suggest creating a new idea with your desired changes/improvements so we can get the rest of the community to vote for these changes/improvements.

Democracy does work here in the Community.

[Colby_Dix]

Thanks Ed,

While I was mostly posting out of initial frustration, I do know that they all want to be putting out a good product that works for a wide range of us. We all have crazy needs that they can't possibly meet perfectly. Thanks for chiming in!

[Anonymous]

Have you also noticed that when you press Enter in an email it creates a line break instead of starting a new paragraph? This is causing some formatting issues for my team.

My least favorite part of the new editor is having to click More and then the HTML button, when before it was one click.

[Anonymous]

Seconding this. Please create a new P tag instead of a break.

[Dan_Stevens_]

I believe the switch to double <br /> tags to represent a new paragraph was to be more compatible with modern email clients - specifically newer versions of Outlook.  In the prior editor, SHIFT-ENTER was used to enter a single, soft return (<b />); Hitting ENTER created a new paragraph (<p>).  SInce the focus is on using <br /> tags for line/paragraph breaks, the keyboard functionality is now reversed: SHIFT-ENTER now produces a new paragraph using legacy <p> tags; Hitting ENTER creates a single/soft return using <b />.  A new paragraph using <br /> tags will now require ENTER-ENTER.

Where this becomes problemsome is for those of us that have designed custom email templates with stylized <p> tags.  This is fixed for the most part - as long as we include a single/initial <p> for the entire content area.  And using <br /><br /> within that block renders just as it did before.  So if I'm not mistaken, this part of the enhanced email editor was focused on stronger compatability across email clients.

[Josh_Perry1]

I feel like there are some great things about the new email editor. It is slicker/nicer looking. They are trying to simplify it. That being said, there are obviously some issues. I know for sure Marketo is aware of this. They try to test things out and find issues, but sometimes things get through. I think they recognize this and even pointed that out a little in the last release note. July 2015: Release Notes  There you can find the email address of the person over this area. It is jcooperman@marketo.com. I would email him directly about it.

I like that we can switch to the old version.  I think that fixes most of the issues people are finding immediately, and as more updates happen, we will be notified. I appreciate that.

[Colby_Dix]

Hey Ajay,

Yeah. Just to agree further. My support ticket did tell me where to revert to the old, but offered no mention whatesoever regarding my questions about the new editor. No response from Cheryl or account rep on my end either, but I did get a quick response from a forum mod asking me if I would change the title of this post.

So it's been made clear that they don't want us to complain, but also that they aren't willing to help or communicate regarding improvements. In all liklihood, they'll just delete any post that mentions how bad the editor is (including this one) which amounts to some lame form of censorship and devalues the forum in terms of openness and productivity. I don't want to sound consistently negative, I'm just terribly frustrated with Marketo's concern over what things look like vs. how well they actually work. (that is meant to represent the actual issue and the forum issue simultaneously)

[Anonymous]

Hi Colby,

We value your feedback and are looking at how we improve the new editor. 

Unfortunately, i have not received an email from you regarding this update or your frustration with the new editor.   Feel free to email me at cheryl@marketo.com. 

We are not trying to discourage you from discussing your displeasure with the new functionality.  All we are asking is that you do so in a more constructive manner.  We have no intention of taking your post down or doing any sort of censorship. 

Thanks,

Cheryl

[Anonymous]

I fully agree with you, Colby, and I sent a similar email to Cheryl Chavez and my Marketo Account Rep.

No response from either yet.

1 more thing that's really annoying in the new email editor is that you can use Shift + Return for a soft return, you now have to click twice to get to the HTML editor view and then physically type in a <br> for a soft return.

So glad I was able to search the forums here and learn that I can revert back to the old email editor through the Admin section.

[Anonymous]

You can use CTRL+Return for the soft return now.

[Anonymous]

Ajay,

I did not receive your email, so please send it again.    My address is cheryl@marketo.com.  As a product team we are monitoring this post and taking the feedback seriously.  I will have the Product Manager responsible post a response on our plans to improve and bring back some of the features being asked for.

[Anonymous]

The lack of advanced image properties is killing me.

But more annoying is the extra click to get to the HTML button. 

Reverting back...

[Kim_Allen]

I like the new editor.

For me it's taking some time to get used to navigating the icons (the tokens etc), but overall I think it's an improvement.

But you do have the ability to toggle back to the old one in the admin section (I believe it does it for your entire instance though, so other users as well). It looks like you were able to find that option though.