Redesign of text editor

[hans]

The user testing in Budapest indicated that we have to redesign the text editor (#122). We need to do the following changes:

• textarea for body text should be taller: 10 rows
• it should be possible to show/hide formatting guidelines
• it should be possible to create subheaders inside the body text, because now we use this editor also for longer texts
• teachers with basic computer skills need buttons for formatting text. These buttons should help writing structured markup, we are not talking about WYSIWYG here.
• it should be possible to add images to the text between block level elements

These changes mean merging of:

• #122 and #123
• text only template and text with images template

[hans]

Open questions about headings:

• Title is h1. How many levels of subheadings we need to have? I would put h2 and h3 to formatting guidelines, but as a "hidden feature" we could have also subheadings h4, h5 and h6 (just like in HTML)
• What formatting should we use for headings? Writeboard is using "h1. Second level heading" and "h2. Second level heading", but makes sense only for people who know English or HTML. I would use mediawiki formatting "==Second level heading==" and "===Third level heading==="

[hans]

Open questions about buttons:

• Do we need to duplicate with buttons all the features that are possible with the structured markup? I think that for teachers with basic computer skills we need to provide only some buttons.
• What are the buttons that we really should put there? What will exactly happen when a user clicks on the button?

Open questions about structured markup:

• Should we create a separate wikipage about LeMill structured markup?

[hans]

Open question about images:

• Where can we add images? I think that i should be possible to add images only between block level elements (headings, paragraphs, lists), not inside text paragraphs.
• What is the syntax for adding an image? I would prefer the most simple possible syntax: the URL of the image (just like in Mediawiki)
• What should be the height and width of the image? I think that the longer side of the image should not be more than 500 pixels. If the image is bigger, then we need to resize it (not with HTML/CSS but PIL). If the image is smaller, then we will display it in actual size.
• What do we do, if the image is outside LeMill?

[tarmo]

When linking to images in LeMill, we already can retrieve several sizes from the image. I'd say that linking to something outside of LeMill is just considered a link - we can't really differentiate between a link and an image if they're both represented as just plain URLs.

The LeMillStructuredMarkup? page is a good idea for discussing the details of the markup.

[hans]

Comment about buttons: trac is using 6 buttons. Two last buttons (code and horizontal rule) are not critical for learning resources. Should we also use the first four buttons?

• Bold
• Italic
• Heading (h2)
• Link

[tarmo]

I'd add "Image" as the fifth button...

[hans]

I agree with Image button.

What is the relationship between this ticket and #215. Should we stop the work with #215?

[tarmo]

Stories can't have milestones...

[hans]

New editor follows these requirements. Closing the ticket.