# Working with commentary
A Qommentary Insights extension can be embedded in two (2) different ways: **Default** view and **Fullscreen** view.
**Default View**
1. Commentary message: Displays commentary text entered by the user
2. Commentary Status: Displays the current commentary status.
3. Commentary explorer: Displays a list of draft, awaiting approval and published messages for the current extension.
4. Discussions: Opens the Discussions panel to enable threaded comments amongst teams
5. Watch: Subscribes a user to a Qommentary Insights extension to receive updates when new commentary has been published.
6. Share: Launches a popup window and allows commentary to be shared to one or many user/s or group/s.
7. Export: Generates a PDF report of the current commentary including any associated visualizations.
8. Edit/Recall: Depending on the commentary status, a user is able to Edit a commentary on Draft status or Recall a commentary on Published status.
9. Fullscreen view: Expands the commentary full screen and switches to Fullscreen View.
10. Commentary details: Displays additional commentary-related information, such as created/published date/time and owner’s full name.
**Fullscreen View**
1. Commentary visualization: Loads any visualization which has been associated to the commentary during the development phase.
2. Visualization panel controls: Allows you to expand or collapse the visualization panel.
3. Comments panel: Allows you to expand or collapse the comments panel.
4. Close fullscreen: Closes the Fullscreen View and returns to Default View.
5. Refresh comments: Updates the current list with latest comments.
6. Send comment: Sends a new comment.
7. Link visualization: Associates the current visualization to the new comment.
8. Input comment field: Allows you to type a new comment in the text field box and mention users.
9. Action button: Depending on the commentary status, it displays various commentary-related action buttons.
### **Commentary display modes**
Qommentary Insights can be embedded in an application in two (2) different ways: **Full** and **Compact**.
**Full Mode**
Full mode displays a rich-text editor embedded on the sheet for added context and visibility.
**Compact Mode**
Compact mode displays an icon on the sheet, ideal for visualization-intensive applications where real estate is limited. This mode allows multiple Qommentary Insights extensions to be embedded in a single sheet without compromising dashboard design.
The Compact mode icon appearance can be customized in a variety of ways:
**Changing icon color**
1. Edit the sheet
2. Select your Qommentary Insights extension
3. In the Properties Panel, expand *Appearance > Presentation*
4. Under the **Icon color** property choose an color
**Changing icon background color**
1. Edit the sheet
2. Select your Qommentary Insights extension
3. In the Properties Panel, expand *Appearance > Presentation*
4. Under the **Icon background color** property choose a color
**Changing icon shape**
1. Edit the sheet
2. Select your Qommentary Insights extension
3. In the Properties Panel, expand *Appearance > Presentation*
4. Under the **Icon background shape** property choose a shape
### **Commentary Status**
A commentary can progress through five (5) different statuses along its lifecycle:
1. Draft: Commentary is in draft mode and not visible to the application users
2. Awaiting Approval: Commentary has been submitted for approval and it’s waiting for approval workflow to be completed before publishing.
3. Recalled: User wishes to edit a commentary which has been published, or edit a rejected commentary.
4. Approved/Rejected: Commentary has been approved and is ready to be published or has been rejected and must be recalled before re-submitting for approval.
5. Published: Commentary has been published and is not visible to all application users.
### **Rich text formatting**
Qommentary Insights allows commentary to be formatted just like your favourite text editor. There are two (2) types of text formats available: **plain text** and **rich text**.
To select a text format option, please follow these steps:
1\. Edit the sheet and select your Qommentary Insights extension
2\. Expand *Commentary > Text editor* section in the properties panel
3\. Choose a **text format** option
{% hint style="warning" %}
If switch from **rich text** to **plain text** and edit a commentary which was previously saved with rich-text formatting, the commentary will be converted to plain text when you save.
{% endhint %}
When **rich text** is selected, you can control which formatting tools are displayed in the editor's toolbar:
| Tool | Description |
| --------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Text formatting | Allows text to be formatted with bold, italic or underline |
| Text color | Allows text background and font colors to be customized |
| List | Allows creation of bullet or number lists |
| Text alignment | Allows text to be horizontally aligned to left, center, right or justified |
| Link | Allows text to link to other sheets, applications or external pages. |
Check or uncheck each option in the properties to enable or disable formatting tools as desired.
To apply rich text formatting to a commentary, please follow these steps:
1. Write a commentary or edit an existing one
2\. Format your commentary using the rich-text toolbar
3\. Click on the **Save** button
4\. Your commentary has been successfully formatted
Enabling
### Creating a commentary
You may begin writing commentary given you have the following roles or permissions:
To write a commentary, follow these steps:
1. Click on Write a commentary button (Full Mode) or click on the icon 
(Compact Mode)
2\. Type some text into the rich-text editor
3\. Click on Save button
4\. **Congrats!** You have saved your first commentary as a draft.
### **Editing a commentary**
Once commentary has been created for a given set of selections, you can edit the commentary given you have the following roles or permissions:
To edit an existing commentary, follow these steps:
1. Click on the commentary screen or click on the 
icon
2\. Update your existing commentary
3\. Click on **Save** button
4\. Your commentary has been successfully updated
### **Submitting for approval**
If the stream, application or sheet where the commentary resides is being managed by an approval workflow, you may submit a commentary for approval given you have the following roles or permissions:
To submit a commentary for approval, follow these steps:
1. **Write** a commentary or **edit** an existing one
2\. Click on **Save** button
3\. Click on **Submit for approval** button
4\. The commentary has been successfully submitted for approval
### **Publishing a commentary**
A commentary can be shared with all other application users, if the commentary status is set to Draft (without an approval workflow) or Approved (with an approval workflow).
Once a commentary is ready to be shared, you may publish the commentary given you have the following roles or permissions:
To publish a commentary, follow these steps:
1. Click on **Publish** button
2\. The commentary has been successfully published
### **Recalling a commentary**
If a commentary which has been published needs to be updated, you will need to recall the commentary given you have the following roles or permissions:
To recall a published commentary, follow these steps:
1. Click on the 
icon
2\. The commentary has been recalled successfully and the status will be reset to Draft
3\. You may now edit the commentary.
**Comparing a draft commentary to the published version**
During the commentary authoring phase, it might be useful to compare a commentary against the published version.
To compare a commentary against the published version, follow these steps:
1. Click on the 
icon to edit a commentary
2\. Click on the 
icon to access full screen view
3\. Click on the 
icon to display the currently published commentary version
4\. The published commentary is now displayed side-by-side with your draft commentary.
### **Viewing commentary info**
1. Hover on top of the 
icon
2\. The commentary info will display the full name and date/time of the last updated commentary
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