Structured text editor

[hans]

Based on user story #98

Structured text editor enables simple formatting of text. The formating rules are mostly based on Writeboard rules:

*bold*
_italic_
# numbered list
* bulleted list

Hyperlinks are created in a similar way as in MediaWiki:

[http://www.google.com Google]

Buttons:

• Save - document is saved and user redirected to metadata page
• Save and continue - document is saved and user is redirected to the same page to continue editing (it's a good idea to save your work sometimes, because internet explorer might crash)

Cancel is not a button but a hyperlink. This way users will not confuse it with Save.

Paper prototype:

https://goedel.uiah.fi/projects/calibrate/attachment/ticket/122/structured_text_editor.png?format=raw

[tarmo]

Why use structured text? Plone comes with Kupu, which is a wysiwyg editor for creating structured content. It produces XHTML compliant content, and also has a reference browser for creating links between content items.

[hans]

I think it is an important design decision to allow users to use WYSIWYG editor. So far I have not seen any web-based WYSIWYG editor, that (1) runs on all modern browsers and (2) produces meaningful standards compliant XHTML.

Wikipedia does not have WYSIWYG editor, because WYSIWYG encourages people to ruin their content with bad typography and colors. I think that we should make the same decision. It is extremely difficult to separate content and presentation with WYSIWYG editor. At least for assets/pieces/items we should not have WYSIWYG editor. An alternative is WYSIWYM editor (#123), that is used in WordPress.

Kupu works only on Internet Explorer (5.5+), Mozilla and Netscape. Kupu does not work on Camino (which is Mozilla based) and Safari (1.3.1). I have also seen Kupu making Mozilla crash. I have understand, that the code produced by Kupu is close to standards, but not always 100% valid.

[hans]

Plone supports Structured Text and reStructuredText. In my view both are too complicated for teachers.

I really like Writeboard, which has very limited and simple syntax:

http://goedel.uiah.fi/projects/calibrate/attachment/ticket/122/writeboard_formatting_guide.png?format=raw

In Writeboard links are done as in Structured Text. I think that MediaWiki has an easier way to create links.

I think that for assets/pieces/items we do not need headings and images, so I suggest not to implement these Writeboard features.

[tarmo]

Here's an old issue for Kupu that has some discussion about why the editor (or no editor at all) works in Safari: http://codespeak.net/issues/kupu/issue55

So I'm thinking do we really need to build our own editor just because Konqueror/Safari don't handle this properly...

My suggestion is that we use Kupu, with some modifications (remove formatting that we don't need - although Kupu doesn't contain stupid stuff like font colors), and as an alternative provide a normal textarea field, that at first supports the two structured text formats that Plone already works with, and we can add Writeboard style support.

My opinion is that having a visual editor is something teachers will want - learning a special syntax, however simple, is always a learning task, and since they already know how to use formatting buttons like in Word, let's give them those.

[teemu]

We should go with Hans’ design. If it can be implement it with Kupu, even better. However, it must work with all modern browsers (including Konqueror/Safari).

The fact that "having a visual editor is something teachers will want" is not a valid argument in this project :-) Much better argument is: "Plone supports Structured Text and reStructuredText. In my view both are too complicated for teachers."

The first argument talks about users wishes whereas the second focuses on the users’ activities. Our design should support users activities, not to fulfill their wishes. The users will also see the value of this - later. Peace.

[hans]

[11:46] hanspoldoja: problem with #122 ? [12:00] tarmot: Yep, the two attachments are contradictory. [12:00] tarmot: Can you clarify what the final spec is? [12:01] hanspoldoja: yes... the screenshot is an example of Writeboard [12:01] hanspoldoja: the final spec is in the text and paper prototype