Nora Brown Design

Using the preview pane

Sitting unobtrusively to the right of the article body on the Write page in Textpattern are three tabs: Text, HTML, and Preview. I didn’t really take advantage of these till recently, but they can be very handy. You can use them to make sure your article is properly formatted, before you make it public.

Below is an explanation of each:

Text

This one is the default view—the normal form fields, with the text you’ve entered into them.

HTML

This one is only useful if you are familiar with html. But even if you only know a little bit, you can still take a look at the code to see if your Textile is being interpreted as you intended.

Preview

This tab is the one most useful for those who don’t know html. Here you can easily see a formatted preview of your article. It will have default styles, rather than the specific styles of your public site, but it’s easy to see goof-ups, such as missing blank lines or accidental leading spaces, which cause Textile to turn off.

You can save your article as a draft, and then use either the HTML or Preview tabs to check your work. When you are satisfied, you can change the status to Live, and publish your article on your site.

Handy screencast

Here is a screencast demonstrating the use of the HTML and Preview tabs: