WYSIWYG editor

WYSIWYG editor

michal frackowiak 05 Oct 2006 19:01

Hi,

just wanted to ask you: do you think Wikidot should have a WYSIWYG editor e.g. like TinyMCE?

current solution:

• no WYSIWYG editing is used but there are several buttons and wizards that helps you insert appropriate code
• to use some structures you must read the wiki spec

pros:

• easier to use?
• more intuitive?
• the "wiki syntax" might scare people. WYSIWYG editing more obvious for newbies.

cons:

• easier to use?
• more intuitive?
• very difficult to create one that actually works well (wiki <—> html translation, html code handling in the "design mode", different browsers)
• raw wiki syntax = better control over the document

some resources:

• PBWiki discussion on WYSIWYG editors
• MediaWiki discussion

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Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: WYSIWYG editor

shiraz 05 Oct 2006 23:19

Give the users the option to use either. It's up to the users to choose which is easier.

Re: WYSIWYG editor

michal frackowiak 06 Oct 2006 08:35

I did not mention it but if we make a WYSIGYW editor you could switch between wiki syntax and WYSIWYG editing.

michal

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Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: WYSIWYG editor

Milhaus 11 Oct 2006 15:43

Wykiwyg looks very promising for the future. I am not sure for now…

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Others are others and me is me.

Re: WYSIWYG editor

michal frackowiak 11 Oct 2006 18:36

Indeed the idea is nice and it makes editing quite easy. The sample configurations however lack support for MANY wiki tags and offers the simplified interface. I do not know if it can be extended (I hope so) but at the same time it is not that difficult to write such an editor for wikidot. The problems are:

1. Wiki <—> HTML transformations (in both directions) — this is engine-dependent. And our engine can be easily extended to provide 2-way transformations.
2. Decisions to make about the way we edit. And this is important. More below.
3. Implement the javascript wysiwyg editing — I have been playing with the TinyMCE editor and I find it producing the high-quality HTML code. The way I see it is that we could make a fork of it or base our editor on TinyMCE.

Ok, now more on

How to edit

Currently the "edit" form always opens below the edited content and the preview always replaces the content leaving the form below. Other solution (like in http://www.wikisandbox.com/page/editor-test and the WikiWyg) open edit form that replaces the content. I personally do not like it this way but pehaps it would not be that bad. So you could switch between source/wysiwyg/preview.

I think I will create a wiki section related to development of the editor… anyone would like to help? The most important now is to decide how things should work and which solutions to use…

thanks — michal

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Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: WYSIWYG editor

Goon 19 Oct 2006 10:00

I have thought about it and i didn't come to a satisfying conclusion.

Problems

• I for one tend to prefer the wiki syntax but i understand the argument: "I have this content to publish, why should i bother with cryptic symbols for that?"

• I had written a stylesheet for my site before there was any content. Now, as I write the first pages, i start to use local styles on DIVs or SPANs. This is somehow counterproductive.

I think the best would be to strike a balance between style based WYSIWYG and content|semantic based wiki syntax. I don't know how, though.

A vague idea: One could split the editor into a linear or tree-like sequence of blocks, which follows the logical order of the content (if there is any of course) much like the cells of a mathematica notebook. The user should be allowed to apply predefined or custom style classes to these cells. The cells in the editor, however, should be displayed in a non-styled plain form but without (or optional) inline wiki syntax.

I don't know whether this is helpful at all to make the indeed important decision about the way we edit.

I found, the most important point on the MediaWiki discussion is:

An editor should support the user in getting a headline right instead of using a big font, marking a citation instead of italicizing text, and so on. Imho most wysiwyg-editors lures people away from thinking about the meaning, and this is wrong. — ∂ 01:47, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

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PS: I could vote more than once on these Quimble polls (?!)

Re: WYSIWYG editor

michal frackowiak 19 Oct 2006 12:05

I have been thinking a lot about the WYSIWYG too. The tree structure sounds great and would be really cool - it would allow you to controll the content and layout/structure much easier.

I will just point some of my thoughts which are related to your ideas but not only:

• I would preserve the final layout of divs in the editor, but each div or similar (configurable) block element would have either a (right-click) content menu to edit properties or a small tab/label "edit" which would allow to change CSS class/styles and other options such as left/right/center for images etc.
  structured view (tree) would be great here
• the toolbar would be context-aware. the options would change depending on in what element you are currently in or what is highlighted
• I do not think cells in the editor are good. I myself have found Mathematica notebooks quite counterintuitive. But anyway - I think that styled layout with borders (+labels) around certain block elements would be fine.

Now some examples I like but nothing that I like 100%:

• TinyMCE (http://www.tinymce.com) is great for producing high quality HTML code. It is very fool-proof and stable. we could use the core of tinymce for the editor. and later process the code back to the wiki syntax.
• Mozile (http://mozile.mozdev.org/, http://mozile.mozdev.org/0.8/demos/mediawiki.html) - nice idea but just an idea.
• Wikiwyg (http://demo.wikiwyg.net/wikiwyg/demo/clientserver/) - I like the inline editing and syntax/wysiwyg/preview switching
• WetPaint (http://www.wikisandbox.com/page/editor-test) - the implementation sucks but inspires. The toolbar disturbs editing a lot since it hovers the edit area.
• Google Docs (former Writely) (http://docs.google.com/) — the toolbar layout is great with edit/insert tabs
• PBwiki upcoming editor (http://www.flickr.com/photos/blake4tx/247774969/in/photostream/) - look how the elements are marked in the editing mode. Apparently they are using the FCKeditor (http://www.fckeditor.net/demo).

I think all these ideas could be combined ;-) somehow ;-)

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Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: WYSIWYG editor

dankirkpatrick 08 Jan 2007 18:10

Have you checked out JSPWiki? IIRC, it has a pluggable renderer. That is, within markup, you can change the renderer. It's been a while since I've looked at it, but IIRC it supports one of the standard wiki markup languages, and the plugin provides WYSIWYG editing.

This was a while ago (2.4 beta, I think).

Re: WYSIWYG editor

michal frackowiak 08 Jan 2007 22:07

Thanx for the info about JSPWiki. In fact the WYSIWYG editor is almost ready and quite unique — but needs internal testing.

michal

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Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: WYSIWYG editor

bienv 27 Jun 2008 18:37

Please give us the option whether or not to use the WYSIWYG editor on a personal basis, or at least on a site-by-site basis. I don't need the WYSIWYG editor. I know the wiki syntax and I'm comfortable in it. The editor slows me down. It has bugs; the cursor seems to jump at random, slowing me down significantly. I have a lot of data that I'm moving from a private wiki into my new public wiki, and my site doesn't really need it until I have the bulk of that content moved.

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Jay Bienvenu | Personal wiki | Hilinqwo: A constructed language | Real-Time Topics

Re: WYSIWYG editor

stacita 07 Sep 2009 13:55

Whenever I try to get tech people to recommend Wikidot as the best wiki platform, I am asked, "But does it have a WYSIWYG editor?" This is very aggravating, but I see the point. Many people are freaked out by wiki code and just won't bother. :(

Re: WYSIWYG editor

RobElliott 07 Sep 2009 14:04

Yes, your experience is very similar to mine on this. However much I say "but editing pages is really no harder than using Microsoft Word" I get the "does it have a WYSIWYG editor?" question, as though WYSIWYG is the holy grail. Whilst I would probably use a such an editor only occasionally the provision of one would help to "sell" wikidot.

Rob

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Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.
Strathview ~ Wikidot-based wikis, websites & intranets and online database development. For community groups, villages, charities, business and government.

Last edited on 07 Sep 2009 14:28 by RobElliott + Show more

Re: WYSIWYG editor

maki 07 Sep 2009 21:27

It'd be great if we were able to say "Wikidot does not have WYSIWYG but it is very close to it and easy enough". => http://community.wikidot.com/wishlist:49

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http://feedback.wikidot.com/wish:382

Re: WYSIWYG editor

arch1k 11 Dec 2007 02:59

Is there any way to use an external WYSIWYG editor somehow? It is really a dealBreaker for me as i'm trying to use my wiki for thesis reaserch, where i collaborate with people that are software handycapped.

Re: WYSIWYG editor

najas 28 Jun 2008 22:53

Have a look at the editor of wikispaces.com. Im not saying it couldn't improve anymore, but some things are indespensable, like auto saving drafts. Also the fact that the only thing that changes when you click edit is a floating bar at the top appears, and you can edit straight into the page which looks excactly like before. Im not good at describing. this is their sandbox. try it!

http://sandbox.wikispaces.com/

Have a look at the tables. see the menu you can use to add and remove stuff. I think if that is what you mean by wysiwyg, thumbs up. That is definitely more userfriendly than having tons of [[table]][[row]][[cell]]……………. If you have made and maintained a long table here at wikidot, you know what i mean.

He, i even have a bookmarklet that allows you to edit a site inplace ;) ok, it won't save the results on wikidot…

https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/misc.html#edit_page

Last edited on 28 Jun 2008 23:20 by najas + Show more

Re: WYSIWYG editor

leiger 23 Jul 2009 09:14

That bookmarklet thing is pretty sweet :)

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Okay, any more recent news on this topic? Personally, I don't mind the current syntax-based editor, but can understand that some others don't see it the same way I do.

Personally, I think the only thing the current editor is lacking is the ability to hide some of the code, e.g. minimise a div block into just one line to hide it when you're not using it, and maximise again when you want to work on it. That'd tidy a large page up a great deal and make editing so much easier.

edit: Damn. Just realised how old this post was that I've bumped :o

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Shane Smith ★ Website: Wikidot Development & Programming.
STE Wikidot Editor: Windows & Mac OS X. ★ Try it for free!.
I'm also on Twitter, follow me there! ;-)

Last edited on 23 Jul 2009 09:16 by leiger + Show more

Re: WYSIWYG editor

jroeterd 30 Jul 2009 17:48

I would like a wysywyg editor myself. I have been using wiki's for 8 years now (started with openwiki, now deceased). The wiki tags are no problem for me but I make mistakes because wikidot has a different syntax than mediawiki (we use at work).

I like the edit-function on wikispaces.com very much and it is my opinion that a wiki without wysiwyg-editing is simply not current anymore.

I started a wikidot wiki as I wanted to create a site for our group of friend to plan a ski-holiday early 2010. I know that at least 7 of them will not edit the site when they see the syntax you have to type. Me and 1 of my friends will use it. So it is destined to fail it purpose …

I have set the site up on wikispaces.com although wikidot has more features (forum, ect.) and no google ads but in my opinion WYSIWYG is a must …

Jeroen

Last edited on 30 Jul 2009 17:51 by jroeterd + Show more

Re: WYSIWYG editor

Naomi Wiflath 02 Aug 2009 07:30

I hope that if a WYSIWYG editor is implemented, that its optional. I currently prefer how things are done now, and would hate to be forced into using a WYSIWYG editor.

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Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.

2805 Continuity Guide

Re: WYSIWYG editor

HobStarCS 18 Aug 2010 09:58

Over a year now and still no word on this. :(

I did see that someone had made an 'off-line edditor' that used a WYSIWYG interface, but now I can't find the links. Anybody know of this? Links plz.

I still would like to see this implemented.

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Re: WYSIWYG editor

RobElliott 18 Aug 2010 10:03

The offline editor you are talking about is STE (Shane's Text Editor) at http://editor.wikidot.com/

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Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.
Strathview ~ Wikidot-based wikis, websites & intranets and online database development. For community groups, villages, charities, business and government.

Re: WYSIWYG editor

HobStarCS 18 Aug 2010 14:34

Thanks Rob,

This will be very handy for my laptop, which currently does not have internet. :(

~ Paul

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Re: WYSIWYG editor

leiger 18 Aug 2010 22:18

However, my STE text editor isn't WYSIWYG either…

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Shane Smith ★ Website: Wikidot Development & Programming.
STE Wikidot Editor: Windows & Mac OS X. ★ Try it for free!.
I'm also on Twitter, follow me there! ;-)

Any news?

Dunkel85 20 Jun 2011 21:35

I also would love to use TinyMCE in Wikidot - it's the only thing I miss here. So please @ wikidot: Include TinyMCE in that way that a site's admin can enable/disable it, and maybe also that a user can decide between WYSIWYG/Wiki-Syntax.
I know a lot of people who would like to have their own wiki, but it's still to hard to learn the wiki-syntax good enough to make a good-looking site.

Pleeease :)

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http://vpn.varianten.de | http://hma-vpn.wikidot.com

Re: Any news?

RobElliott 20 Jun 2011 22:07

There are only a couple of wysywyg wishes on the http://feedback.wikidot.com site which is the site for bugs and feature requests. You might want to post a wish for TinyMCE there.

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Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.
Strathview ~ Wikidot-based wikis, websites & intranets and online database development. For community groups, villages, charities, business and government.