Potentially confusing description in text area widget settings

We discussed this issue at #3327611: Drupal Usability Meeting 2022-12-30. That issue will have a link to a recording of the meeting.

For the record, the attendees at the usability meeting were @benjifisher, @rkoller, and @shaal. We do not have any strong recommendations, just some ideas that might point us in the right direction.

A simple change would be to change "Text editors" to "WYSIWYG editors" or "WYSIWYG text editors".

It is difficult to define something by what it does not do. It usually helps to be clear about what it does. This draft text is probably too long, but it tries to be more explicit:

This setting applies to simple HTML text areas. If a text editor is assigned at /admin/config/content/formats, then that editor will control the size.

We do not want to say all of this in the help text, but while we consider that text we should keep in mind all of the things that go into the decision of whether to use an HTML textarea or a JS-enabled field:

• If the selected format is configured to use a WYSIWYG editor.
• If the current user has a choice, which format is selected.
• The formats available to the current user.
• As of 10.1.0, #784672 is fixed, so allowed formats can be specified for each field. See also the change record Text fields can enforce a specific text format

I am adding #784672: Allow text field to enforce a specific text format as a related issue.

With #784672: Allow text field to enforce a specific text format landing that does that alter the text suggestion?

Couldn't think of a good replacement so asked Gemini what about "Rich text editors may override this setting." ?

We discussed this issue at #3330159: Potentially confusing wording in text area widget. That issue will have a link to a recording of the meeting.

The attendees at the usability meeting were benjifisher, rkoller, simohell, and the_g_bomb. I am giving them credit on this issue.

We suggest using the phrase "WYSIWYG editor" (as in Comment #3) as less ambiguous than "text editor".

There are three ideas we would like to convey in the help text:

1. What the setting does when it applies
2. A WYSIWYG editor may control the form, depending on the text format.
3. If a WYSIWYG editor applies, then it may ignore the setting.

We could not find a way to express all that in a reasonably short message, so we suggest the following help text:

Default number of rows for the text area. A WYSIWYG editor may override this setting.

There is room for improvement, but we all agreed that this suggestion is an improvement compared to the current text.

If you want more feedback from the usability team, a good way to reach out is in the #ux channel in Slack.

Thanks! Easy fix.

Also add shaal to the contribution for the first review.

edit:

Blunter:

Row total for the text area. A WYSIWYG editor can change it.

or:

Total rows for the text area. WYSIWYG's can change.

or:

Text area total rows. WYSIWYG's can override.

The proposed new text looks good to me. It is succinct, but clear in its meaning.

I grepped Core to make certain there aren't other similar instances of text like the old description, but I didn't find any.

Because this is a user-facing change I added screenshots to the issue summary. I also edited the first paragraph of the summary to make it clear which element has this problem. Although it mentioned the text area widget, it didn't say that this is a problem with the settings form or which element in the settings form has the problem. Someone either had to know already or infer it from context clues.