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Survey Results: The Future of Kanka’s Text Editor

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Jay

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Over the past few weeks we asked the Kanka community what you thought of our text editor, the bit of Kanka where most of the writing magic happens. The current editor has been with us for years, but we know it’s a bit clunky and at times downright annoying.

More than 130 of you took the time to share your thoughts, from our Discord regulars to folks who spotted the banner in the app. Thank you ever so much, your feedback is priceless and helps us decide where to put our energy.

What we learned

1. Writing is frequent and important

  • Many of you write weekly or more often in Kanka. That’s a lot of writing.
  • This confirms that the text editor is central to your experience. It’s the core tool.

2. Desktop rules, but mobile matters

  • The majority of responses came from desktop users, but mobile editing was also mentioned often enough to remind us that we can’t ignore it.
  • A smoother mobile experience was one of the most requested improvements.

3. Confidence is mixed

  • Most users rated their confidence in formatting and inserting content somewhere between 3-4 out of 5.
  • Only a small group felt “very confident”, while some admitted to struggling.
  • Translation: the editor works, but it’s not intuitive enough.

4. Lost work is a real pain

  • A significant portion of users reported losing content or formatting unexpectedly.
  • This is a critical issue. Nothing kills creativity faster than losing your writing.

5. What you use today

Outside of Kanka, users enjoy writing in:

  • Google Docs
  • Obsidian
  • Microsoft Word
  • Notion
  • OneNote

6. What you want

The most requested features for a new editor:

  • Better mobile experience
  • Better mentions/autocomplete for entities (@character, @location, etc.)
  • Drag-and-drop images and files
  • Easier table editing
  • Slash commands (/table, /quote, etc.)
  • Cleaner, distraction-free writing

7. You want to help

  • A majority of respondents said “Yes” to testing early versions of the new text editor.
  • This means we’ll be running an opt-in alpha program for it.

What’s next

We’ve got our marching orders: the community wants a text editor that feels modern, works smoothly on mobile, and makes everyday worldbuilding enjoyable. Mentions, images, tables, those are all high up the list.

The plan now is to start sketching out the new editor on top of a flexible framework like Tiptap/ProseMirror. We’ll begin small, share some early peeks, get some alpha testers from those who want to help, and then slowly build up the features you care about most.

It won’t be a quick win. Editors are fiddly beasts, and making sure it behaves nicely across different browsers and devices is no small feat. But step by step, with your feedback, we’ll shape an editor that’s not just a replacement for the old one, but a real upgrade for how you write and organise your worlds.

Thank you

So there you have it, loads of useful feedback and a clear signal that the editor needs a proper refresh. We’re genuinely excited to get stuck in and make it happen.

That said, we’ve got to be honest with you: Kanka’s run by a very small team, and rebuilding the editor is a massive job. It won’t be quick, and there’ll be plenty of hurdles along the way. But we’re absolutely committed to making the wait worth it, and with your help testing and chipping in ideas, we’ll end up with something that makes writing in Kanka smoother, easier, and more enjoyable than ever.

Stay tuned because we’ll be sharing sneak peeks of the new editor soon, and we can’t wait to show you what’s cooking.

Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash

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