Textpattern CMS support forum
You are not logged in. Register | Login | Help
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
#1 2005-01-16 07:58:37
- davidm
- Member
- From: Paris, France
- Registered: 2004-04-27
- Posts: 719
A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
I know the subject of a WYSIWYG editor for TXP has recently come up on the forum (here), but this idea (has it been proposed before ? no search results…) seemed a little bit different so here is a new thread.
I agree with Turbo-G, clients not technically minded will rather use a WYSIWYG solution than learn to use Textile syntax. I also agree that HTML Area is not elegant (FCK Editor is better in this regard). So why not take another approach ?
Everybody has used these javascript button used as “shortcuts” for BBCode, why not do the same for textile ?
It’s a midway solution, not really a heavy and clumsy solution, not really full WYSIWYG but not requiring corporate-sometimes-not-so-young-and-or-technically-minded people to learn Textile.
Had I the knowledge to do so, I would try to come up with some code to do it… if anyone is willing or has time to do it, I suggest some of us interrested by the idea give him/her/them a little incentive via PayPal donations. I am up for it, what do you think ?
Last edited by davidm (2005-01-17 00:59:58)
.: Retired :.
Offline
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
I’m not so sure it’s a good idea, because Textile is really one of the huge selling points here. Consider the process of using a WYSIWYG editor, as carried out by most users:
- Type.
- Stop typing.
- Grab the mouse and move to the button/menu/dialog for the function you need.
- Negotiate whatever controls are necessary to complete the function.
- Resume typing.
- Repeat steps 2-5 ad nauseum.
And consider what Textile replaces this with:
- Type.
In other words, Textile returns writing to a simple, natural process, rather than one which must be constantly interrupted and mediated by a variety of controls and toggles. In that sense it is a technophobe’s dream. As to the hurdle of learning the syntax, I’d be willing to bet that 90% or more of all Textile use which will ever happen will involve the following three features:
- Bold and italic text.
- Links.
- Images.
The Textile syntax for these features, combined, takes approximately thirty seconds to learn and is — in the case of bold and italic text at least — simply an implementation of already-existing conventions. The syntax for lists, which I’d bet would be the fourth most-used feature (but an extremely distant fourth), is likewise based on existing conventions.
As a result, I see partial or full-on WYSIWYG interfaces as hampering one of Textpattern’s largest features, and I find it unlikely that someone who has been exposed to the ease and fluidity of writing with Textile would ever voluntarily “go back”. The only exception I can think of is the case of a user who is so autistically devoted to the interface of one particular application (often, but not always, MS Word) that he or she flat-out refuses to consider learning or using anything else. This sort of person would never be a potential Textpattern/Textile user in any case.
You cooin’ with my bird?
Offline
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
I’d have to disagree with ubernostrum – the advantages of Textile are essentially the same as the command-line in Linux, and, like the command-line, these benefits greatly increase the learning curve and make potential users shy away.
The general rule of these things is that computers should work for people – editors should be able to write the way they want, not just the way the techies think is best.
Although it would be nice to just use XUL, we would need some IE support. How about something using designMode, like blogger has done?
Offline
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
It would probably be best if there was a choice, i.e. if we had a WYSIWYG editor as an option (plugin or built in with a toggle in the preferences).
That way, the users could decide which way of writing suits them best.
Offline
#5 2005-01-16 17:01:12
- davidm
- Member
- From: Paris, France
- Registered: 2004-04-27
- Posts: 719
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
ubernostrum, I love Textile : I always end up using it on other CMS without even realizing it, so I could not agree more. My question was the actual reaction from corporate people, but I guess it depends on how you sell it (Thanks for the points you made there :-)
Yet I am curious as to how they will actually react… is it from actual corporate implementation or just plain reasoning ?
I tend to agree with tmacwrig about the commandline analogy, and I don’t think WYSIWYG should be imposed or even part of the TXP package, but a plugin would be nice :-)
Last edited by davidm (2005-01-16 17:03:53)
.: Retired :.
Offline
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
tmacwrig wrote:
> The general rule of these things is that computers should work for people
Which is exactly what Textile does. When people are forced to learn a GUI/WYSIWYG interface for something like writing text, they’re being forced to carry out the task in a way which is not natural to them; the natural way to write is to just write, but WYSIWYG controls tell us that the way to write is to type for a while, fiddle with some buttons and menus, type a little more, fiddle with more controls, etc.
Textile does away with this. Thus the way to sell Textile to users who are wary of learning syntax is not “Here’s a set of text-formatting commands you have to learn.” That will indeed conjure up analogies to the command line, and will scare people off. The way to sell Textile is “Here’s a system where you just type what what’s on your mind, and most of the formatting is taken care of automatically.”
Also, Textile’s learning curve is nothing like that of, say, the UNIX command line (and FWIW I don’t think they share the same advantages either). As I said above, I think that for 90% or more of all Textile applications users will only need to know three features, and those three features are of a sort that anyone can learn in about thirty seconds, maybe less with a well-written introduction.
You cooin’ with my bird?
Offline
#7 2005-01-16 20:29:14
- Boogenstein
- Member
- From: Wausau, Wisconsin, USA.
- Registered: 2004-03-28
- Posts: 56
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
I would like to use my Wife as an example of people learning Textile.
After being driven from MT and WP by comment spam, I set her up with TXP and left her to get on with it. It took her just a couple of posts tohave problems and she had no idea what Textile was. I quickly showed her the Textile help section and demonstrated a couple of different things and she took to it like a duck to water.
You have to teach clients not technically minded to use TXP anyway, and teaching Textile is just as easy as a WYSIWYG approach. The advantage is that in just a short time Textile becomes invisible. A WYSIWYG is always in your face.
Quite frankly, if a client is not capable of learning Textile, I don’t believe that they have any right to be using something as advanced as TXP. If the client is that lacking then you should find a different solution or encourage them not to publish on the web. Surely if they can be taught to drive a potentially lethal road vehicle, send and receive emails and put their shoes on the right feet, Textile should not be a problem unless it is the teacher that is deficient!
Last edited by Boogenstein (2005-01-16 20:30:30)
“Keep a straight face and you’ll be laughing!”
Offline
#8 2005-01-16 20:42:45
- Mary
- Sock Enthusiast
- Registered: 2004-06-27
- Posts: 6,236
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
? What different solution? You can have perfectly valid reasons to need to publish on the web and not be required to learn markup (“assisted”, or not).
“Everybody has used these javascript button used as “shortcuts
Offline
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
Textile is very natural in the sense that Ubernostrum has already explained, and I for one love it. However it is not as natural for some people who like to have the document they are typing look like the one will be produced.
Links in Textile can especially degrade this by cluttering the paragraph. Textile 2.0 allows you to use aliases and specify the link elsewhere. This helps the problem a bit. Markdown might be a better solution in this sense also. But the point is that it will never look as natural as what a wyiwyg editor can produce.
I would also say that for people like us who know what crudy html wysiwyg editors can produce (and who have had to clean up after them), textile is very appealing. But this can blind us to the fact that Textile requires a user to know something about html, especially if the user wants to do something like color text (I can hear someone saying “span what?”). Besides bold and italics almost all other Textile tags are built with the idea that you generally know what xhtml tags you are outputing. You could teach Textile without that knowledge, but Textile really becomes less intuitive when you do so.
I know you think it is minimal stuff that people should be fine learning, but realize that most people hire web designers and developers because they don’t want to have to deal with any of that stuff, or learn a lot of new web technology. Wysiwyg editors give them an environment they are familiar with.
I think that it is possible to have decent wysiwyg editors now a days for people who want them. Typepad has one that I consider to be very good. Blogger’s is more frustrating.
One other idea is to not build a new wysiwyg editor, but to have something where you can copy and paste text from Word, and then have a word html cleaner go to town on it. I know that in certain text areas, stuff copied from word will output the word-html form. Running a good cleaner script shouldn’t be too bad after that (I think SquareSpace even implimented something like this). The advantage here is that you don’t have to code much of a new interface, and clients can use the program that they really are most comfortable with, Word. Also if clients have content that already exists in a Word document they can translate that very easily too.
Last edited by bleveck (2005-01-16 21:48:50)
Offline
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
bleveck: there’s a difference between seeing a live preview of what the text will look like and having the sorts of editing controls this thread is about. Textpattern already generates a preview of the post, and I imagine that a plugin could be written (say, using XMLHttpRequest) to provide a “live” preview on the editing page for users who absolutely cannot live without it.
Besides bold and italics almost all other Textile tags are built with the idea that you generally know what xhtml tags you are outputing.
And yet I don’t think most Textile users are ever going to use anything beyond bold, italics, links and images. People who want five different text colors in their posts are never going to be Textpattern users no matter what controls TXP offers for text editing.
I know you think it is minimal stuff that people should be fine learning, but realize that most people hire web designers and developers because they don’t want to have to deal with any of that stuff, or learn a lot of new web technology. Wysiwyg editors give them an environment they are familiar with.
WYSIWYG gives them an environment they are familiar with, but it’s an extremely crufty and unnatural environment that (if they’re the technophobes we seem to be talking about) they probably had a lot of trouble learning in the first place. And for 90% of all use, Textile is minimal: users need to know maybe four commands, all of which make good intuitive sense when demonstrated and have nothing to do with their corresponding HTML. The remaining 10% or so who need the advanced features are going to have to know something about HTML at some point anyway.
You cooin’ with my bird?
Offline
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
We definitely need a debuged Textile and a real textile help (including localization) on TXP; but I don’t think we need a wysiwyg editor.
It might be nice for some people, but it’s really, really really not a priority.
If you really want to code a “textile-plugin”, I think a typographic corrector would be not as complicated and way much useful (something that insert correct quotation mark at the right place, correct half or full non-breaking spaces with ponctuation, and so on).
Last edited by Jeremie (2005-01-16 21:56:54)
Offline
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
I think a live preview might solve some of the problems I discussed. Once interface plugins happen, I think it would be great. I would be the first to use it. In a way, seeing a wysiwyg editor in Textpattern pains me because I feel it’s counter to the ethos Textpattern. TXP is largely a program for people with some savvy when it comes to web publishing, people who can appreciate some of it’s more innovative features.
However, I still don’t see the harm in making WYSIWYG an option. Yes, they are crufty, but I know a lot of people who prefer their crufty yet known solution to more innovative ones. Given that someone might have to involve them in the system, why not make it an option or a plugin?
I also think the built in Word cleaner is still maybe a good idea, as it has advantages outside just allowing people to use a familiar interface. In fact what would be really slick was a script that goes Word-html —> xhtml —> textile.
Offline