Can't set default input format

The first one on the Configuration -> Text Formats page is the default one.
By ordering the text formats you can select witch one will be default.
This is something I overlooked at first too but it's even in the help text on that configuration page :)

Nope; I've got them re-ordered as 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and Plain text (2) is still marked as the default.

Unable to reproduce. "Full HTML" (and I also tested "Filtered HTML") both show up first when they are at the top of the list. I also tested whether the filters had a proper role set or not ("No roles may use this format", etc.). Further information is needed: a) are you uid 1? b) what permissions does your role have? c) does the text format in question have roles enabled for it? Note that if you're uid 1, you will ALWAYS have access to the "Full HTML" role (regardless if "No roles may use this format" is displayed), but if you ARE NOT uid 1, then you need to, at the least, have the "Use the Full HTML text format" permission on admin/people/permissions.

Apparently the ui and API for removing the default (fallback) input filter had been removed in D7.

See The commit that changed it, and the comments in filter_default_format.

Closing this issue. I was confused about the difference between "default" and "fallback" formats.

If you want to set the default input type to html in drupal 7 here's a way to do it:

1. install any WYSIWYG editors you may want to use
2. go to configuration > text formats: config/content/formats
3. configure the filtered html input format as desired and then deselect all roles except anonymous users
4. configure the full html input format as desired and then make sure it is selected for authenticated users; optionally you can add any special roles you have created but if you have authenticated users selected here but not for filtered html it will default the filter to full html for all authenticated users on your site. If you prefer to restrict full html to only users who have a particular role, then deselect authenticated users and select only the roles you want to be able to enter full html.

I really wish this feature worked.
Changing the order (or weight) of the input file formats has no effect.
Changing "filtered html" to usable by no groups still leaves it as the default while I am an admin.

Now that the button bugs in CKEditor look to be fixed, I'd like to have it be the default with WYSIWYG.

"Placebo" buttons annoy me.

I am also a little confused about this.

The default text format for my site is Filtered HTML as I prefer to use that when editing basic pages, blocks, etc.

I have also created a WYSIWYG HTML format that has some changes from the default Filtered HTML format and uses CKEditor. I would like to use this as the default format for all articles as I have several other users creating articles.

I have tried to change this default by going to Content Types / Article / Manage Field / Body and change the text format of the default value to WYSIWYG HTML. The changes apply but when I refresh the page it shows the Filtered HTML again.

The only way I can get it to work is by putting some dummy text into the Default Value in addition to changing the text format.

Edit: Just found http://drupal.org/node/1278886 which is actually the problem I'm having.

After 20+ D7 sites, I had to work with one that was set up using the default install profile.

http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/modules!filter!filter.module/function/f...

There is no interface, but you can set the system variable 'filter_fallback_format' to do it.

Newbie help [PHP code that should only be run once]:

variable_set('filter_fallback_format', 'filtered_html');

To restore default

variable_set('filter_fallback_format', 'plain_text');

Like wtf? I hope that there is a bit of a usability study done in this section for D8.

i.e. My dream list
Configurable format per fields or at least an easy form_alter way for doing this.
Simple UI for default format [would need a confirmation step to avoid security issues]
Enable callback on disabled formats

This is a long-standing bug, but there is a working patch over at #1278886: Default text formats are not saved properly without accompanying values