I've been working on a Tumblr Roleplaying 101 guide, and in doing so wound up making a brand new Tumblr account for some screenshots. And this process made me realize how weirdly complicated Tumblr has made it for new accounts to get a chronological dash. So if you just want to see posts from people you follow, in the order that they made them, this what you have to do.
First, go to your settings, go under Dashboard, and scroll down to Preferences. Toggle off Best Stuff First. This switches your dash from an algorithm feed to a chronological one.
If you have an older blog, that's all you have to do. But if your blog was created more recently, you have an extra step.
The Tumblr dashboard has different tabs, which you can see across the top of your feed. Most older users have completed tuned these out, because we don't care about anything other than the basic feed. There is a Following tab, which shows posts from users you follow, and a For you tab, which shows recommend posts Tumblr thinks you'll like.
On blogs created before May 8, 2023, the Following tab is the default view. However, blogs created after this date have the For you tab as the default view. (This is an intentional change by Tumblr.)
This means if you are a newer blog and want to see posts from people you follow, you'll need to manually switch to the Following tab every time you open the dashboard.
If you do not like this change, consider contacting Tumblr staff. Submit a form under the Feedback category and explain that you'd like the option to make the Following tab the default for new blogs. And please, be polite! There is a person on the other side of the screen who likely had no say in this change, and even if they did, they don't deserve to be yelled at.
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This is just a spot to gather all my posts about the beta / legacy editors and cutting posts into one place, mostly so it's in one easily shareable link for people who ask. (Last updated February 21, 2023.)
WHAT'S EVEN GOING ON — This long post explains pretty much everything in great detail. It covers the different editors, the different extensions required for cutting posts and how they work, some glitches you may encounter, and reasons the two systems aren't compatible. I highly recommend reading this one before any of the others, as it provides the most context.
TRIM REBLOGS GUIDE — An overview to just Trim Reblogs.
USING TRIM REBLOGS WITH THE LEGACY EDITOR — If you aren't willing to commit to the beta editor yet, at least learning how to use trim reblogs will make a world of difference to your partners using it.
BETA EDITOR OVERVIEW — An overview to the beta editor, the differences it has from legacy as well as its new features.
TRANSFERRING THREADS TO BETA / TRIM REBLOGS — An overview of how to actually go about transferring threads cut with the old system (editable reblogs) to the new system (trim reblogs).
DOUBLE POSTING GLITCH 1 + HOW TO FIX — Goes over a glitch you may encounter when using trim reblogs on a post that was originally made with the legacy editor, causing your reply to duplicate upon posting.
DOUBLE POSTING GLITCH 2 + HOW TO FIX — Goes over a glitch you may encounter when using editable reblogs on a post that was originally made with the beta editor, causing your partner's reply to duplicate upon posting.
There are quite a few of these already, and I sort of have one buried inside my super long editors guide, but most I've seen are a bit outdated so I wanted to make my own separate guide to the extension.
Installation & Set-Up
You will need XKit Rewritten, a browser extension which you can install here.
Once XKit Rewritten is installed, you'll need to open up its options wherever the extensions are in your browser. For my Firefox, it's up in the top right. Find Trim Reblogs and turn it on. (You can go ahead and turn on anything else you like, too. There's some cool options in there.)
Trimming
Now that it's installed, let's go to a thread. I'm going to add a third response to this sample thread here.
I'm going to start by puting it in my drafts. (If you've never drafted a post before -- click to reblog as normal, then use the drop down arrow next to the reblog button and click Save as draft. You can access your drafts by clicking the user icon in the top right of Tumblr, then click Drafts under your username.)
Now that the post is in my drafts, it looks like this.
You'll see that there's a new icon along the bottom that looks like a pair of scissors. This is the Trim Reblogs button.
You can use Trim Reblogs either before or after you've written your reply. Here's what if looks like if you trim the post before adding your reply.
I'm going to click the trim button, which brings up this menu.
This lets you select which of the previous reblogs you would like to delete. You can see the username of each reblog as well the beginning of the post. Selecting the first item and leaving the second, as shown, is what you'll want to do most of the time.
Click Trim and the selected reblog(s) will be removed. The post now looks like this in my drafts.
I can now click the pencil icon to edit the post and add my reply in the editable space.
Then save back to my drafts until it's ready to go, or just post it!
Now let's do the other way. Here's what it looks like if you trim the post after adding your reply.
I'm going to go back to the same post in my drafts.
I'm going to edit it as is and add my reply, so it now looks like this.
Now I'll click to trim and see the same menu as before, but now with three options since I've already added my response.
You'll notice that you don't have the option to select the most recent reblog -- that's because it's the one you just wrote. Again, you will almost always want to trim the first post while leaving the second.
After trimming, the post looks like this in my drafts.
And I'm free to post it.
(Previously, you could only use Trim Reblogs after your response had been added, so older guides may still tell you to do this. The extension has since been updated.)
Glitches & Troubleshooting
There are a few issues you run into while using trim reblogs. Most of these I go over in my long post, but I'll restate some of them here.
First, trim reblogs works best if everyone involved is on the beta editor. The legacy editor will cause some weirdness, especially if the very first post in a thread was made using it. The most common is a glitch where your response will weirdly duplicate after posting. I've gone over fixes for it in this post. TL;DR - the easiest way to avoid it is to always trim the post before adding your reply, but you can also correct it by using Tumblr's built in remove reblogs feature.
Second, if your partner uses editable reblogs, you will have a hard time cutting their posts using trim reblogs. This is because editable reblogs breaks Tumblr's formatting and causes two posts to be "combined" -- trim reblogs can no longer recognize the previous responses as two separate posts. That incompatibility is covered extensively in my long post. You can sort of get around it by copying your partner's reply, formatting it in a blockquote (or whatever separation you like), then adding your own underneath. It's unwieldy, but it works.
If you want to transfer a thread cut with editable reblogs to being cut with trim reblogs, you'll need at least one post that isn't cut correctly in order to facilitate that. I've gone over that in this post.
UPDATE: This post isn't entirely correct. Trim Reblogs only works on ask posts when viewed on the dash. Viewing the post on your blog's theme will show that the ask is still intact. See this post for more details.
Yet another post about the beta editor, I know, but -- did you know that trim reblogs works on asks?
This means you can carry on asks as threads without having to move them to a fresh post.
This post was originally made on January 7, 2023, and was last updated on January 14, 2023.
After seeing quite a few posts expressing confusion/frustration over the beta editor, trying to understand new features and find where old options have moved to, I thought I'd write up an overview of the new editor, showing the various changes it has from legacy.
My main goal is to show people that the new editor not nearly as bad as they may have heard. You'll have a few days of weirdness and confusion, and then you'll be used to it. The beta editor does have some bugs... but so does the legacy editor. We've all just gotten used to legacy and know how to work around its quirks. After a couple weeks with beta, you'll be familiar with it and know how to do the same.
FAQ
I'm putting this part above the read more to quickly answer the questions I see asked most often.
How do I cut posts with the new editor? — You need to get an extension called XKit Rewritten and use Trim Reblogs. Once you have that installed, save the post to your drafts and click the scissors icon along the bottom of the post. This will open a window that allows you to remove earlier reblogs. If you run into funky issues, see my ginormous post here.
Where is blockquote? — Blockquote is now called indented. There are two ways to reach it. Option 1: select your text, open the dropdown menu, and choose indented. Option 2: type / on an empty line, select indented, and type your text.
Where is small text? — Select your text and click the small S in brackets. I recommend doing this at the end of writing your post, as it can be finicky otherwise. The old keyboard shortcut for small text does not work anymore; the new shortcut is CTRL/CMD + COMMA.
Where are bullets? — Select your text, open the dropdown menu, and choose bulleted list. You can also type / on an empty line and select/type bulleted list. Additionally, you can type * and a space on an empty line to autoformat to bullets, or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + 8.
How do I disable reblogs on a post? — Click the settings icon in the top right, click the dropdown next to "Who can reblog?" and select "no one." (Please note that while it says those mentioned in a post can always reblog, I've found this to be broken. At the moment you should only disable reblogs if you don't want anyone reblogging it.)
Why does adding a gif to a post include the URL? — Inserting an image via link will automatically include that URL underneath the image in the final post (though it won't display in the editor). You can remove this by hovering over the image and clicking the chain link icon in the bottom left. Select the URL in the field there, delete it, and click Done.
How do I add alt text to an image? — Add your image, hover over it, click the three dots in the bottom right corner, and click "update image description."
Adding Elements
When you click on an empty line, options for things to add to your post will appear on the right, similar to legacy.
In order, these are:
Image
Gif search
Link
Audio
Video
Read more
All of these work almost exactly as they have previously, except for adding an image. Clicking that will give you this, which resembles a standalone photo post of the old format.
You can then upload directly from your computer, or paste a URL, as before. If you insert an image via URL, that link will be visible just below the image in your final post, though it won't show up like that in the editor. It'll look like this.
If you don't want this, make sure to click the link icon at the bottom left of the image and delete the URL there.
Back to the image you added in the text editor! Hovering over the image will give these options.
The squares icon in the top left lets you click and drag the image, and you can drag images next to each other to stack them horizontally. The X in the top right will remove the image from your post. The link icon in the bottom left shows the image URL, and will only appear if you inserted the image via link. And the dots in the bottom right allow you to add alt text to your image -- click the dots, then click Update image description.
Formatting Text
Now! If you type up some text and then select it, formatting options will pop up. This is similar to legacy, but now there's a dropdown menu.
Here's what's in the dropdown.
Here's what they all look like in a post.
Regular is plain text. Bigger is the equivalent of the headline option on the legacy editor. Biggest is the equivalent of the main title, but you can have more than one in a single post now.
Quote turns text into a serif font and increases the font size. If you type up a long quote, the font size will shrink.
Chat switches to a more computer-looking font.
Lucille increases the font size and is a cursive font.
Indented is blockquote. It looks a tiny bit different on the dash now, with some more spacing on the top and bottom, but it's functionally the same.
Bulleted and numbered lists are self-explanatory. You can also start a bulleted list by starting an empty line of regular text with * and a space, and a numbered line by starting an empty line with 1 and a space. Additionally, the keyboard shortcuts CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + 7 for numbered list and CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + 8 for bulleted list still work.
You can also access these same options (and some others) by typing a slash onto the start of an empty line. A menu will pop up, allowing you to either click the one you want or simply type the one you want and hit enter.
If you want to quickly add a title, an indented blockquote, or anything like that, this is the fastest way to do it.
Hopping back to the rest of these options now!
To the right of the drop down, these options are:
Strikethrough
Bold
Italics
Small
Link
Color
Most of these are self-explanatory. Keyboard shortcuts for bold and italics work as before. The old keyboard shortcut for small text no longer works, but CTRL/CMD + COMMA does.
Link works the same as it always has, and the keyboard shortcut of CTRL/CMD + K works as well. Additionally, if you have text selected and just paste in a URL, it will insert as a hyperlink from that selected text.
Color lets you change the color of your text to a few presets. Just click the paint bucket, and pick the color you want.
Post Settings
Back out to the main editor now, here's what under the settings icon in the top right.
Custom URL lets you set a custom URL for your post, if you want it to be something other than a string of numbers.
Content source is the source link and works similarly to how it did in legacy.
Post date is not the scheduler! That's under the post button dropdown and is fairly straightforward. But this option lets you backdate a post, setting the date to sometime earlier than you actually made. Gonna be completely honest, I haven't used this at all and don't entirely see the point, but if you want to play around with it, there it is.
Who can reblog? Is one of my favorite features. Opening that dropdown lets you disable reblogs on your post. The reblog button will be grayed out on the dash. (After you've made the post, you can edit to turn reblogs back on if you need to.)
While this does say that anyone mentioned can always reblog, I've found this to be broken in my testing -- I have submitted a ticket to staff, so hopefully they're working on it. It would be a godsend for roleplayers, since it would restrict reblogs to only the partner that you @-mentioned in your starter and keep randos from reblogging your threads.
Lastly, the text editor lets you switch to HTML or Markdown for your post, if you prefer one of those. They are similar to how they worked in legacy.
Community Labels
Along the bottom of the editor, you'll see the close button, the post button with the same dropdown as in legacy, and another dropdown that reads Everyone by default. Here's what that one looks like.
This is where you can manage your community labels, which is a fairly new feature from Tumblr. By default, your post will be marked as being for everyone. However, if your post contains any of the content listed, you should click to toggle that one on. This will hide your post from anyone who has that label switched off in their settings.
To check what you have on or off in your settings, look for this underneath your filtered tags:
Tags
Tags work the same as before. The only notable difference is that you can now edit inside tags without having to completely delete them. Just click on the text where you want your cursor to be.
You can rearrange tags with click and drag as before. Just be sure to click on the blue space around the text, rather than on the text itself.
Autosaving
The beta editor will automatically save your posts! It's autosaving whenever you see this pop up at the bottom of your screen, every minute or so.
If the editor gets closed unexpectedly, the last autosave of your post will go into your drafts. As someone who's lost many replies to unexpected tab closures, this is a godsend.
Just know that this only works if something external closes the editor. If you click the close button yourself, the post will disappear.
Miscellaneous Differences
You can now have more than one main title (Biggest) in your post.
You can no longer have multiple levels of bullet points.
You can no longer have paragraph breaks within your blockquote/indented text (though it's been that way for a while). To get a similar look in your blockquote, hold down shift and press enter twice (or use <br><br> in your HTML).
Previewing a post on your blog is still possible, but in a different location. Go to a post in your drafts, click the three dots in the top right, and click preview.
The editor will still remember your tags, but capitalization will be removed, which might be an aesthetic annoyance.
The editor will only suggest tags that start with your search. For example, if your ask memes tag is send me stuff ( ask memes ) — typing "send me stuff" in the tags box will suggest this tag for you, while typing "ask memes" will not.
When making or reblogging a post, your most recently used sideblog will be up by default; this is different from the legacy editor, which would always open your primary blog. Be mindful of things going onto the correct blogs!
More items may be added here as I spot them. Feel free to send any observations of your own if you have them.
Known Glitches
Because the beta editor is still known to be buggy, I thought I'd document the glitches I am aware of. I have reported these to staff using their feedback option and highly recommend that you politely do the same if these annoy you.
I've heard from several people that using CTRL/CMD + Z to undo caused their entire post to be erased. This has not personally happened to me, but I've heard it enough times that I feel I should share it here.
Using CTRL/CMD + A to select your entire post can be finicky. Clicking and dragging across the entire post is more reliable.
Typing with small text can be finicky and won't always apply correctly. I highly recommend applying the small text after everything is written, just to save some headache.
Generally, text formatting and paragraph blocks can behave oddly, especially when trying to select more than one. This is also a problem I've had with the legacy editor, but my experiences are not universal, so it may be a hindrance to you.
Customizing Beta/NPF Elements on your Theme
This is only for those of you who want to know how to change the way certain new beta elements look on their blog theme. If that's not you, you can stop reading here!
These are the elements and classes you want to customize in your CSS:
BIGGER - h2
BIGGEST - h1
QUOTE - .npf_quote
CHAT - .npf_chat
LUCILLE - .npf_quirky
RED TEXT - .npf_color_joey
ORANGE TEXT - .npf_color_monica
PURPLE TEXT - .npf_color_chandler
YELLOW TEXT - .npf_color_phoebe
BLUE TEXT - .npf_color_ross
PINK TEXT - .npf_color_niles
Colored text that isn't one of the default colors from Tumblr will just use <span> to assign a custom hex code, and can usually be targeted that way. You may need to use the !important property to override some of these default styles.
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I've been meaning to put together one of these for a while, but seeing roleplayers begin to migrate over from Twitter gave me the little push to finish. Roleplay 101 is my guide to getting started with indie roleplaying here on Tumblr, and covers pretty much everything -- Tumblr interface basics, blog setup and customization, finding partners, writing threads, cutting posts, standard etiquette, and more. It's split into multiple parts for ease of reading, and for easy updating as things on this site inevitably change.
If something in the guide isn't clear, or you think something should be added, feel free to send me an ask.
FIXES FOR THE TRIM REBLOGS "ORIGINAL POST MADE IN LEGACY EDITOR" GLITCH
If you are using the beta editor to cut a post that was originally made in the legacy editor, you will get a warning telling you that trim reblogs may not work correctly. Using trim reblogs on the post will appear to work as intended, but refreshing your drafts or posting the thread will show that your latest reply has been bizarrely duplicated.
Before, I thought the only reliable method of fixing this was to move the thread to a fresh post. But through experimentation, I've since learned that there are not one but two easy fixes for this!
Option 1 — use trim reblogs in your drafts before writing any of your reply
Option 2 — use trim reblogs in your drafts, refresh your drafts, and remove the duplicate using Tumblr's built-in delete reblogs feature
I personally think it's best to just get into the habit of using trim reblogs before writing anything, but both options are pretty easy to manage. I will go over both under the cut.
Disclaimer! Both of these fixes worked for me in my testing, but since this a fairly new problem, I may not be aware of every situation. Please let me know if these don't work for you so I can look into it and update this post accordingly.
Option 1
The first option (which I find much easier) is to simply trim before writing your reply. Save the post to your drafts without adding anything to it.
Use trim reblogs as intended. You'll still get the warning -- continue past it and select only the first trail item (the oldest reply) to remove.
You'll be left with just your partner's previous reply, like this.
Now you can edit the post to add your reply.
Refreshing the page or posting the draft will not bring back the duplicated reply.
Option 2
The second option, which requires a little more work, is to use trim reblogs, then use Tumblr's built in feature to remove additional reblogs. This was actually suggested to me by an anon a while back, but I didn't get around to testing it until now -- I can confirm it works!
This option is for when your reply has already been written and the post is saved in your drafts.
Use trim reblogs as usual -- again, you'll get the warning. Just continue past it and remove the oldest reblog trail.
The post will look normal in your drafts.
But if you refresh your drafts, or post the reply, you'll see that your reply has been duplicated.
At this point, click to edit the post. Hovering over the first of your duplicated replies will bring up a red X -- this is Tumblr's built-in feature to remove reblogs from a post.
Click that red X to get rid of the first duplicated reply. You'll know it worked if it says "put reblogs back."
And save your draft again.
The duplicated reply will be gone, and posting shouldn't cause any problems.
I just made a realization. Everyone (myself included!) has been talking about the beta editor and trim reblogs as though they come as a pair -- as though trim reblogs can only be used on the beta editor, and is completely inaccessible otherwise. But that's not true. You can use trim reblogs with the legacy editor. You just need to download the XKit Rewritten extension and turn on the feature.
This means that if you're not willing to commit to the beta editor for whatever reason, you can still mostly accommodate your partners who are. Most of the incompatibility with cutting posts comes from how editable reblogs breaks Tumblr's formatting, not from the legacy editor itself. There may still be a double posting issue when threads were originally made in legacy, which is really annoying, but it's much easier to deal with. (See my post of fixes for it.)
So this my new request to roleplayers -- please learn how to use both methods of cutting posts. Learn to spot which method your partner is using (or just ask them), and then match them for their threads.
If your partner's replies look like this:
They're using editable reblogs. You can do the same.
But if their replies look like this:
They're using trim reblogs, and you should be too.
Trim reblogs works by saving the post to your drafts, clicking the scissors icon, and selecting which old replies you want to remove. You can add your reply before or after doing this, but adding it after trimming reduces the possibility of glitches. Again, you can do this on the legacy editor. It is not difficult to learn and will make a world of difference to your writing partner.
(To be clear, I still think everyone should begin switching to beta, since legacy may still cause some issues for your partners. But if you're just not ready to commit to a whole new text editor yet, consider this your intermediate step.)
