Go to main content

Textpattern CMS support forum

You are not logged in. Register | Login | Help

#13 2015-10-16 07:37:10

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

philwareham wrote #295836:

How have I missed kuopassa’s plugins?

My reply, for risk of thread deviation, is here.

Offline

#14 2015-10-16 08:15:47

sacripant
Plugin Author
From: Rhône — France
Registered: 2008-06-01
Posts: 479
Website

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

My point of vue.

Please, don’t make the mistake of imposing a solution in the core.
Each project and each user can have his preferences (markup langage, WYSIWIG, live preview etc).
Each option can be activated or desactivated.
Plugins are made for that.

For me it’s better to improve the core for :

  • Use the markup of choice for all fields and custom fields (and not only body and excerpt) in article panel but for fields in images too.
  • Add the possibility to add new “markup system” and other system (yes wyswyg too) of your choice in “markup select”.

If Textpattern is a CMS, it must be adaptable and not impose anything.
If you impose a solution, Textpattern become a specialised solution, as in his begining : a blogging system.
I would even advocate to out Textile of Txp corp and make an “official “ plugin.

Yes, I want have the possibility to choose Textile for except, a wysiwig for Body, markdown for a custom field, etc.

@Phil, and I thinks it’s possible to have a plugin maintained over time which improve the write panel as you want, if you have other interested users which want pay for that.

Offline

#15 2015-10-16 08:22:35

philwareham
Core designer
From: Haslemere, Surrey, UK
Registered: 2009-06-11
Posts: 3,564
Website GitHub Mastodon

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

Thanks Bert.

@robert

My opinion on this is…

Ship a “human markup generator” user interface with core (e.g. mark-up)

We just need a tool to help users format text without necessarily having prior knowledge of the Markdown/Textile syntax – this has the additional benefit of gradually teaching the syntax as the user will see that syntax added to text when they click the UI. We can also turn it off for users that don’t need/want the feature.

From my experience with full HTML generators (such as CKEditor), they produce some pretty nasty HTML sometimes (such as empty divs and spans and inline styling). I would not be keen on that kind of editor at all. Rachel Andrew over at Perch has done several talks on the topic of CMS WYSIWYGs and they also favour the markup interface approach (although they have opted for Redactor, which is a closed route for us).

The author of SimpleMDE hasn’t the time to produce a Textile version as he feels it’s too niche for him, but he would happy to see someone else take his code and proceed a version for Textile (it’s MIT licensed anyway). Not sure if that is an option or if MarkItUp is better. MarkItUp also has BBcode and Wiki Syntax support if in the future someone created Textpattern textfilters for those (which isn’t likely, but is probably possible).

Would we ship alternate “human markup generators” with core to add another checkpoint to our marketing blurb (e.g. Markdown)

I would ship the Markdown option in core, yes, but have Textile as the default setting (changeable in the prefs or at an article level if possible? Don’t know how that would be interchangeable with any current content). Markdown won – it’s time to accept that (although I prefer the Textile syntax personally).

Offline

#16 2015-10-16 08:44:35

Algaris
Member
From: England
Registered: 2006-01-27
Posts: 551

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

Bloke wrote #295827:

I don’t think I’ve found one that writes decent HTML yet and allows hassle-free editing after the fact (though maybe I’ve not looked hard enough). Baffles me how TinyMCE is so popular.

philwareham wrote #295843:

From my experience with full HTML generators (such as CKEditor), they produce some pretty nasty HTML sometimes (such as empty divs and spans and inline styling). I would not be keen on that kind of editor at all.

I completely agree with both of you. Every HTML editor I’ve used produces a spaghetti mess when you switch to HTML view. I’m using the Atto text editor for my works Moodle. It’s far better than TinyMCE but even copy and pasting text within the editor results in a mass of spans and inline styles.

Whichever editor you chosen I’d prefer one that produces clean code/markup without adding to or changing my formatting.

Last edited by Algaris (2015-10-16 09:03:10)

Offline

#17 2015-10-16 09:30:51

sacripant
Plugin Author
From: Rhône — France
Registered: 2008-06-01
Posts: 479
Website

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

Markdown won

in the web, there is no victory. Just phenomenon and trend.

Offline

#18 2015-10-16 09:39:52

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

sacripant wrote #295845:

in the web, there is no victory. Just phenomenon and trend.

Well said sir, well said.

Offline

#19 2015-10-16 09:42:53

sacripant
Plugin Author
From: Rhône — France
Registered: 2008-06-01
Posts: 479
Website

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

A link to a older discussion with same question and some good reflections: Improvements to editor

Offline

#20 2015-10-20 00:37:24

jstubbs
Member
From: Hong Kong
Registered: 2004-12-13
Posts: 2,395
Website

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

Just released from Basecamp – Trix looks interesting.

Offline

#21 2015-10-20 01:36:15

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

jstubbs wrote #296043:

Just released from Basecamp – Trix looks interesting.

Then you end up at CoffeeScript, if only cloning were possible.

Trix is pretty cool, it’s a different breed of web editor, very powerful.

Went through the example, did a quick index.html with trix in it. Fired it up and starting entering text, then I kept going down the Readme and it says drag and drop, so I dragged an image file from my file manager on top of the editor, voila, there it is.

Definitely should be checked out further.

Offline

#22 2015-10-20 07:01:40

philwareham
Core designer
From: Haslemere, Surrey, UK
Registered: 2009-06-11
Posts: 3,564
Website GitHub Mastodon

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

Offline

#23 2015-10-20 22:56:16

tye
Member
From: Pottsville, NSW
Registered: 2005-07-06
Posts: 859
Website

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

Is it possible to ship with 3 and give the admin a choice of which to use: markdown / textile / wysiwyg – or would you call this Bloatware?

It seems there are 3 schools of thought on the subject – why not please all?

95% of my clients/customers want wysiwyg – because they are small business and do not want to learn a new skill – they want word unfortunately so they can update there website and feel all warm and cosy doing it :) You have to remember they might only update once a week / month.

I have 5% of clients using rah_textile_bar… they aren’t too comfy with textile… but use it – but then when it comes to inserting an image… it all goes pear shaped.

Which ever we choose there has to be an integration with the image library… hak_tinymce was great at this.

IMO – the lack of a decent core WYSIWYG editor in txp, regardless of code output, is one of the reasons that other CMS systems are ahead of txp in popularity.

Offline

#24 2015-10-21 10:00:43

NicolasGraph
Plugin Author
From: France
Registered: 2008-07-24
Posts: 860
Website

Re: Improved Text Editor Capability

tye wrote #296063:

IMO – the lack of a decent core WYSIWYG editor in txp, regardless of code output, is one of the reasons that other CMS systems are ahead of txp in popularity.

That’s not wrong. In fact, for Textile, we already have rah_textile_bar which can be in the core. This plugin is very clean and easy to use. I customized it easily to make a markdown bar you can try (I just changed formating inserts for now). We could probably improve that with a pref switching between Textile and Markdown in the same plugin. We could also add highlighting things off course but it probably won’t take Txp to a very larger audience. If we want more users, I’m afraid that Tye is true: a WYSIWYG editor is required.

Edit: The WYSIWYG editor could be a plugin but it must exist.

Last edited by NicolasGraph (2015-10-21 10:03:37)


Nicolas
Follow me on Twitter and GitHub!
Multiple edits are usually to correct my frenglish…

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB