Snippets and blocks from your publication in an article

The article editor can hold more than text. Besides paragraphs, images and embeds, you can place in an article the same pieces your pages are made of: your snippets (a text, a gallery, a file, a link list, an announcement), your call-to-action buttons, and pieces of your publication such as another article, the most read ones or the current book of your book club. Each of them is a block in the text, and it follows the snippet or the content it shows.

This is available in the editor of articles, book reviews and poems.

Place one with the "/" menu

Type / on an empty line. The menu that opens has a row of categories (the editor's own blocks, then Calls to action, Snippets and From your publication) and, under it, a tile for each block, with a small preview for the ones from your publication. Keep typing to filter the tiles.

• Recent comes first, before you type anything: the blocks you placed last on this device.
• On a computer, the up and down arrows move through the categories, the right arrow goes into the tiles of the one shown, the left arrow goes back, and Enter places the tile that is highlighted. On a phone the categories sit on a row at the top and the arrows turn a quarter.
• A tile with a small arrow has choices of its own. Click it and the menu shows them in its place, with a back arrow to return: an article to pick, a snippet you already made, or Start blank to make a new one.

Once placed, the block sits in a dashed frame, as a block of the page builder does. Its name is in a pill above the frame, at its left, with a "Snippet" badge when it is a snippet. On the frame's top right, a bar of round buttons (hover one to read its name) holds the block's controls, in this order:

• Edit opens the snippet in the same window as the Snippets tab. It changes the snippet everywhere it is used.
• Keep it as it is now, a snowflake, pressed while the block is kept. It becomes Follow the snippet then (see below).
• Change content (the pointer icon) picks another snippet, or another article, zine, coverage, series or rubric for a block showing one. It is the same control as in the page editor.
• Who reads it opens the block's access (below).
• Duplicate this block adds a copy right after it. For a snippet, it is the same snippet twice, not two copies of it.
• Remove this block takes it out of the article. The snippet stays in your library.
• Settings, for the blocks that have some. They open in a panel anchored to the button, not in a window, so the block stays in view while you change them.

Clicking the body of a snippet also opens its editor.

The text formatting toolbar doesn't appear over a block selected alone, since there is no text in it to format.

Replace a block with a similar one

Some blocks have a ⇄ button in their name pill. It opens Replace with and a list of the blocks that show the same content, and the block becomes the one you pick, keeping what it can of its content. It is offered only where a similar block exists:

• Image or video, Card (full picture) and Card (picture beside) can replace one another;
• Link card and Card (picture beside);
• Most popular and Top members-only exclusives.

The other blocks (Html, Announcement, calls to action, file, gallery, links, and the rest) have no similar block, so they show no ⇄ button.

Using one you already made

Pick a snippet you already have, from a tile or from Change content, and a window named "Reuse this" followed by the block's name asks how. Use the same one is the main button: the block is linked to that snippet, and a change to the snippet shows everywhere it is used. Make a copy is the other: the copy is yours to change in this article, and the original stays as it is. Cancel closes the window. The same window appears when you reuse a snippet in a page.

If you have none yet

When you don't have a snippet of a kind yet, you aren't left with an empty list. For calls to action, the menu shows each button as it would look in your publication's colors: pick one and it is created and placed. For the other kinds, Start blank makes a new snippet and places it.

What readers see

A snippet in an article shows the version that is published now. Change the snippet in your Snippets tab and publish it, and the article shows the change on the web without being edited. Removing a snippet leaves nothing in its place for readers, and a line telling you so in the editor.

Keep it as it is now

Keep it as it is now freezes the block. When you publish the article, it keeps its own copy of the snippet as it was, on the web and in the email, and later changes to the snippet don't reach it. The block then says "Kept as it was". Follow the snippet undoes it.

In the email

The email is built when the newsletter is sent (or, for a scheduled one, when it goes out), so a snippet in the email is its version at that moment. Changing the snippet afterwards doesn't change an email already sent, but the page on your site keeps following it unless you froze it.

What a block shows in the email:

• Snippets: each kind has an email version. Videos are a link to the page, since an email can't play them. An audio snippet shows its cover, its title and its line, with a Listen button that opens the page. An audio with no title, a narration, is a link to the page.
• Calls to action: depends on the button. See Calls to action.
• Blocks from your publication: web only to start with. Open the block's Access (below) to show it in the email too. A picked article, zine or coverage then shows as its card, and a series' parts as their list. The other blocks, such as the most read or the book club's books, still show nothing in the email.

A block meant for paid readers only makes a separate edition of the email for them, as for any other block you reserve.

Choose who sees a block

A block's drag handle, on its left, opens a menu with Access; the Who reads it button (the lock) in the block's bar opens the same window. It sets who reads the block (everyone or paid members) and where it shows: on the web, in the email, or both. See Access and paywalls.

A block that isn't for everyone, or that shows in one place only, has a wavy line down its left margin in the editor, with a small note above it: for example "Web only" or "Email only".

Turn a passage into a snippet

If you wrote something worth reusing, make it a snippet without leaving the article. Select one or more blocks and choose Make it a snippet, either in the drag handle menu or in the toolbar that appears above a selection. What you get depends on what you selected:

• one image becomes an image snippet, one video a video snippet, one file a file snippet (Make it an image snippet, Make it a video snippet, Make it a file snippet);
• a paragraph that is only a link becomes a link snippet (Make it a link snippet);
• anything else becomes a text snippet (Make it a text snippet).

The snippet is named after the first line of what you selected and goes to your library. A message, "Made a snippet", confirms it, and the selected blocks are replaced in the article by the snippet. One undo (Cmd+Z or Ctrl+Z) brings your text back, and the snippet stays in your library. If the blocks you selected were set for paid readers or for one place only, the new block keeps the strictest of those settings.

The choice is greyed out, with the reason in its tooltip, for a paywall or any wall, and for a block that already holds one of your publication's blocks.

If the snippet was never published, it is published at the same time as the article, so readers can see it.

Where a snippet is used

An article keeps track of the snippets and pieces of your publication it holds. In the Snippets tab, the card of a snippet says "Used in" followed by the articles, pages and zines that show it, and you are warned before changing or removing a snippet that is in use. A snippet made inside an article says "Live in" and the name of the article once it is published. See Snippets.

Not available yet

• Quotes as snippets in articles.
• Gift subscriptions and "Refer a friend" buttons.
• In the email, the most read, the latest ones and the book club's books.
• These blocks in the editors of zines and coverages.