Really don't like the text editor in the Knowledge base.

[billmilhoan]

I'm really having a lot of fun learning ServiceNow. It's a great way to refresh my practice as an instructional technologist. Having said that, I'm also pretty frustrated at the moment. I've used many different types of information delivery systems but I feel either I'm missing something essential or the text editor for the Knowledge base really is a limited tool.

We're using the eureka flavor of the product and just beginning to test the Fuji version in Dev. I'm trying hard to understand why the text editor in the Knowledge base is so limited. I've seen a few posts on here that talk about it and assumed it would be different in Fuji but was disappointed to find it basically the same. Especially since I'm writing this post in a much more friendly environment.

What do I miss the most? HTML headings and multi-level lists (indent). I'd also like to figure out where the CSS for the KB templates is stored. I've looked several times on this site but can't find anything definite. That's mostly my fault because I'm so new to this product - I just don't know how to find what I'm looking for. For instance, should I move the KB over to the CMS so I can create a more inviting experience for our users and make it easier for people to author KB articles?

So, to recap:

1. How can I get more functionality added to the Text editor in the KB?
2. How can I access and modify the CSS file(s) for the KB articles?
3. Do I have to have the CMS turned on?

Again, let me say I'm loving this product. I'm just a little frustrated in how to make it work for my needs.

Bill Milhoan

Cleveland, OH

[StephLindorff]

Yeah - the TinyMCE editor can give unexpected results.   We use HTML for article type specifically so that we can "get under the hood" and manually correct the HTML.

FYI, in my experience, the behavior you described doesn't happen every time.   You're more likely to get whacky results when you edit content that was originally created by copying in the contents of a Word doc, email etc.   I always choose the Paste as Text option to reduce the "code clutter" behind the scenes.

[kriss]

I have found that it happens regardless of whether the content was created within the editor or copy/pasted. And for me, it happens every single time. We always do article type of HTML   It would be nice to have a WYSIWYG that truly performs and does not require HTML expertise. Not everyone in our organization knows HTML...

Thanks for the tip on pasting as plain text. I will pass that along!!

[hanaphouse]

The Text Editor uses TinyMCE.   I am not sure of the version (4?), but the next version is 4.1.   ServiceNow will upgrade this eventually.   You can see in the new TinyMCE, it has indents.

• I don't think Service-Now has upgraded the TinyMCE text editor version. JIRA / Atlassian is already using an upgraded version. It's been a 1.5 years already.

[Mike Malcangio]

UI15 and UI16 use version 4: TinyMCE HTML editor

I'm no longer on the product side, so I'm not sure about our plans regarding upgrades.

[Ben LaChance]

I believe the CSS for the kb_view UI Page, which I believe displays the articles, can be found under Content Management>Design>Style Sheets, with the name Knowledge Common Styles.   I would assume you do need to turn on CMS to access this, although I'm not sure as I don't have access to an instance that doesn't have CMS turned on.   The name of the table it's stored in is content_css, so you may just try listing that and seeing if it works.