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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
> bleveck wrote:
> Oh And one more thing. How hard does someone think it would be to use Serv00 and then have another script convert the xhtml to textile? cause that would be bad ass… (if you can’t tell, I have become a bit fixated with this idea in the last 4 hours =) )
I have been for like 2 or 3 months… :-D
In theory, it should be simple. I guess there is a Textile->XHTML API somewhere (at least in TXP there is), so it might be reversed to do XHTML->Textile. It doesn’t need to be the fastest conversion ever, since you do that once on a while. It could be hand coded as well… it’s just about getting <code><em>plom</em> and transform it to _ em _ </code> and things like that.
Or you could take it the other way around, and try to implement Textile (instead of XHTML) in the servOO API.
I do think this would be a great feature… we could use OpenOffice for spellchecking, easy writing of long document, versioning, typographic checking, and so on.
Last edited by Jeremie (2005-01-17 01:55:08)
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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
search for “reverse textile” and there are a few scripts out there
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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
Jeremie:I do think this would be a great feature… we could use OpenOffice for spellchecking, easy writing of long document, versioning, typographic checking, and so on.
My thoughts exactly
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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
davidm: As I was reading your comment, I realized I’d posted to the wrong thread. I meant to take this into the WYSIWYG one but got too wrapped up in the argument to pay attention.
Responding to tmacwrig:
People aren’t “forced to learn” a WYSIWYG – it’s the way that 99% of people learn how to write text on a computer (cue MS Word).
WYSIWYG editing controls are not a natural way to write. They are an interface which was created and implemented because they solved the problem at the time, which does not mean that they are the best solution or even a very good one.
An analogous case is that of having to save your work when using a word-processing program; this was necessary, once, because of I/O limitations on early computers, but was never changed when computers improved. It would be easier and more natural for the document to be saved as you write, automatically, just as if you were typing or writing on a piece of paper, but we’ve never switched. Matthew Thomas uses this and other examples in his wonderful explanation of the ancient cruft in most modern interfaces, if you’re interested in reading more about the prehistoric conventions that most software still carries around.
Anyway, I believe that WYSIWYG editing controls are similarly crufty and unnatural; they bear no resemblance to a natural writing (or even typewriting) process and so they force users to become acquainted with a new and inefficient way of carrying out writing tasks. For the simple text formatting used in 90+% of all web writing, a WYSIWYG interface with standard controls is overkill; a simple formatting syntax like Textile, which mostly stays out of the way and only has a few, easy-to-learn commands, is the ideal1.
This is a forum for mostly developers and site admins, but Textpattern isn’t a tool just for the computer-savvy – people who manage content should only be faced with content, not html or code. Yes, Textile is a great way to input text, but it’s not the usual way, and people generally don’t like to learn things that they don’t see as directly related to the task at hand.
MSWord-style WYSIWYG is not the “usual” way we write, either. We’ve just become accustomed to it from years of having it forced down our throats. The natural way to write is simply to write, which is what Textile lets users do. It requires no “computer-savvy” knowledge, it requires no knowledge of HTML or code. As I’ve repeatedly said, I don’t believe that most end users will ever bother with much beyond bold, italics, links and images. Textile provides an incredibly simple way to do this without the need for the constant start-stop-click-start-stop-click of traditional WYSIWYG controls, and I think that when presented in this fashion it will win over even relatively technophobic users.
As such, I don’t think there is any need for non-Textile editing controls, even as an optional plugin.
1 On an unrelated note, I’m not a fan of WYSIWYG editors for more advanced tasks, either; when I need to do “real” text processing, I fire up LyX.
Last edited by ubernostrum (2005-01-17 04:38:27)
You cooin’ with my bird?
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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
Uber… I enjoy your critque of certain interfaces. Regardless, I just don’t know if it justifies enshrining Textile as the only possiblity. I don’t think anyone was ever arguing that WYSIWYG editors are the most natural way, but there are a ton of unatural interfaces that get used for other reasons. The QWERTY keyboard I’m using right now is an example. It is backwards and slows me down, but even someone like me, who is not a technophobe, doesn’t want to re-learn to type.
Not everyone wants to have to evangelize to another user about Textile. I think many of your arguments for Textile are good (obviously I’m a fan of the system), but that doesn’t mean they are going to convince everyone. Not everyone wants to be “enlightened” or rethink the way they have been making documents for the last 15 years. You might think that unconvinced people are being stubborn, shortsighted, or narrow minded, but if those people are your client it is hard to argue.
update: I also don’t fully get your argument about the need to have such a system. Obviously there are many ways to do any task, but some people prefer certain systems. What is the harm in making that available as long as it doesn’t rain on everyone else’s parade? I do think that Jeremie and I are so hip on the idea of converting Word to Textile for the reason that it satisfies those who want to use a comfortable interface, but also has seperate benefits (such as not having to reformat documents that you upload by hand). Such a project would help more people, but if someone wants to make a simple WYSIWYG work with TXP, I’m totally cool with that.
Also, after thinking about it I’m not sure why WYSIWYG has to be inherently crufty. If you are saying that users only use Bold and italics (etc…), then why is CTRL+B for bold CTRL+i for italics (etc…) with a few buttons at to the top as a back up (for those who forget the shorcut keys) crufty? WYSIWYG after all is just that, a system where what you type looks like the program’s final output. It doesn’t say anything about how many useless commands you put on.
Last edited by bleveck (2005-01-17 05:34:49)
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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
I’ve said I don’t have a problem with live preview, and I think it’s doable once we can hook plugins into the backend. I just don’t think we need an MSWord-style GUI interface to text formatting, because frankly it’s crufty and bad. Using keyboard shortcuts is a step in the right direction, but Textile is an even better step.
Most users are stuck in the rut of MSWord-style interfaces because they don’t know an alternative exists. Textpattern should not hide the alternative from them out of some misplaced shame at not having a WYSIWYG GUI. Think of browsers — most people know and use Internet Explorer, because it’s the only browser they’ve ever seen. But show them a viable alternative and they start switching to whatever best suits their needs. I think the same will happen with Textile, and I think Textile suits the needs of the average web author extremely well.
You cooin’ with my bird?
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#31 2005-01-18 14:43:14
- davidm
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- From: Paris, France
- Registered: 2004-04-27
- Posts: 719
Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
I don’t know why I didn’t connect this in my little brain, but there’s another alternative : XMLRPC :-)
I know there’s a plugin for TXP, so maybe it’s the alternative for some users…
How come I missed it ???
.: Retired :.
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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
Something else which just occurred to me (ironically, as I tried to use someone’s shortcuts for an in-browser WYSIWYG editor): the commonly-used keyboard shortcuts for text formatting in word processors are already in use.
For example, in Firefox, Ctrl+B opens the Bookmarks sidebar, Ctrl+I displays page info, and Ctrl+U is view source. So that’s bold, italics and underline out the window.
You cooin’ with my bird?
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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
That’s sort of true… but some how Blogger’s WYSIWYG editor overides those. So if you hit C+B it bolds the text and doesn’t open the bookmarks. How do they do it? I have no clue. I don’t actually like the rest of their editor. If you substantially edit something it produces a ton of empty tags.
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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
This is the one I was playing with. You might want to give it a try.
You cooin’ with my bird?
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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
yeah …. it doesn’t work with keyboard short cuts, though I do like how minimalist it is.
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Re: A textile "user-friendly" Editor ?
Here’s another simple WYSIWYG: http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/
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