Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom • Hacker News Board

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#11

Post by lambda » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 7:44 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #5

Cool, but it's yet another case of re-engineering the same thing. (edit: its not entirely new). Splitting editors into an abstracted structure for finer control over data and presentation is something that's been done for a decade now in various text editors. Medium and Basecamp started similar projects and there's Mobiledoc which is trying to standardize the format. It'd be nice if all this effort focused on a singl…

This is discussing one that you already had on your list; ProseMirror. In fact, you've had it on the list since 2015: https://gist.github.com/manigandham/65543a0bc2bf7006a487/429...

This is talking about using ProseMirror to build some more features into their CMS, but it sounds like more of just a use of ProseMirror rather than a new editor entirely.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#12

Post by lambda » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 7:45 PM UTC

zellyn wrote: post #7

Anyone know if Oak is (or will be) released as Open Source?

ProseMirror, the underlying editor they are using, is: https://prosemirror.net/

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#13

Post by atonse » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 7:48 PM UTC

I've invested in Mobiledoc (mostly because it was for two ember apps) and it's mostly been fine, but is there any reason why I shouldn't be moving to ProseMirror? Seems to be a lot more powerful and have things like collaborative editing and track changes as well.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#14

Post by twothamendment » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

venning wrote: post #4

Data Warning: 100 MB. Viewing the header illustration for more than a few seconds crashes my iPad Safari tab. Scrolling until it is off the viewport prevents this. EDIT: Dev Tools reports 74.8 MB transferred with an ad blocker. The illustration is a single 69.2 MB gif. EDIT: 101 MB in total when you scroll to the bottom. Three more gifs: 18.1 MB, 7.1 MB, 4.7 MB.

69 MB gif - isn't that called a video? I thought we had different formats for that.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#15

Post by jmbwell » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 7:53 PM UTC

jbob2000 wrote: post #9

Whew, what a gross way to over-engineer a text editor. If the NYTimes structured themselves like a dev team, they could use common sense tools to get much better results. Why is the journalist responsible for how it's presented? Wouldn't it make more sense to have some kind of product manager or designer handle this? And why is the journalist responsible for programming the look and feel of the their article? Why not…

Business choices, perhaps, aimed at reducing costs by reducing editors and moving more responsibility to reporters. See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/business/media/new-york-t...

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#16

Post by optimuspaul » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 7:56 PM UTC

venning wrote: post #3

sshine wrote: post #2

> If you’re like most people in America, you use a text editor nearly every day. Filter bubble detected.

The author does not say "work in a text editor", only "use". Considering she's including text editors on mobile devices, which the majority of America will utilize today, that's not a particularly bold statement.

I suppose when I send a text I am using a text editor of sorts

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#17

Post by slig » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 7:58 PM UTC

lambda wrote: post #8

venning wrote: post #4

Data Warning: 100 MB. Viewing the header illustration for more than a few seconds crashes my iPad Safari tab. Scrolling until it is off the viewport prevents this. EDIT: Dev Tools reports 74.8 MB transferred with an ad blocker. The illustration is a single 69.2 MB gif. EDIT: 101 MB in total when you scroll to the bottom. Three more gifs: 18.1 MB, 7.1 MB, 4.7 MB.

Why are they gifs instead of mp4s? Yikes. Also, since they are screenshots without a lot of movement, they really should compress better than that even as gifs.

Maybe because they're using Medium, and Medium doesn't have that option.

Why the biggest newspaper in America can't run their own hosted blog is a bigger question.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#18

Post by zellyn » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

lambda wrote: post #12

zellyn wrote: post #7

Anyone know if Oak is (or will be) released as Open Source?

ProseMirror, the underlying editor they are using, is: https://prosemirror.net/

Yep. That was clear from the article.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#19

Post by Phrodo_00 » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 8:03 PM UTC

This isn't even a test editor. It's closer to a web publishing tool. The article also didn't talk about the normal text editor challenges like the way the text is stored in memory and modified.

Re: Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

#20

Post by Analemma_ » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 8:04 PM UTC

slig wrote: post #17

lambda wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they gifs instead of mp4s? Yikes. Also, since they are screenshots without a lot of movement, they really should compress better than that even as gifs.

Maybe because they're using Medium, and Medium doesn't have that option. Why the biggest newspaper in America can't run their own hosted blog is a bigger question.

I'm sure they could run a hosted blog, it's probably a deliberate decision by their tech team to seem cool and hip by posting on Medium, because that's the in thing right now for developer blogs.

(Note: I'm not dissing them, I know a very talented developer who works there and says he has a great team)