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Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

open.nytimes.com

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

#31

Post by snowwrestler »

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.

Organizations use Medium instead of their own platforms to try to create a sort of social signalling--like, "this is not the usual old-school BS you'd expect from us--this is cool design or tech content."

Whether that actually works is up for debate...

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

#32

Post by gbrown_ »

Phrodo_00 wrote: post #19

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.

Agreed.

I carry the personal view that when someone says "text editor" they are implicitly implying plain text. As such the leading paragraph of the article makes me twinge a little when "text editor" is used rather than "word processor".

The article then continues on to describe the editor which sounds very much like a WYSIWYG editor. Indeed ProseMirror[1] homepage says the following.

    ProseMirror tries to bridge the gap between Markdown text editing and
    classical WYSIWYG editors.
    
    It does this by implementing a WYSIWYG-style editing interface for
    documents more constrained and structured than plain HTML
So whilst I've made a point of it reading oddly (and I would have thought this would also be the view of most others on HN) I am not trying to disparage the authors use of the term "text editor". But rather I am curious as to why such nomenclature happened to be used here as I seldom see it outside of descriptions of things such as Vim and Emacs.

[1] http://prosemirror.net/

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

#33

Post by mozumder »

ax0ar wrote: post #27
jstewartmobile wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalism is in the toilet, so journalists end up being one-man bands. Local Gannett paper had everyone using CRTs--in 2014!!!

Not true. Presenting is part of writing. It's not separate.

A lot of tech people don't get this. You see this in web design, where they think HTML and CSS are separate domains. They think CSS is just pretty effects.

Style can convey as much information as text.

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

#34

Post by jstewartmobile »

ax0ar wrote: post #27
jstewartmobile wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalism is in the toilet, so journalists end up being one-man bands. Local Gannett paper had everyone using CRTs--in 2014!!!

Not true. Presenting is part of writing. It's not separate.

Not true that journalism is in the toilet?

My wife was, and all of her friends still are, journalists. They constantly worry and complain about all of the tasks that were once the domain of trained professionals--photographers, editors, designers--being put on the journalist due to budgetary constraints.

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

#35

Post by JasonSage »

atonse wrote: post #13

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.

Just my experience: I had a rough time with ProseMirror trying to use it before it was released. It didn't use modern JS modules for a long time, the source code was a mess as far as I could tell, and JavaScript variable errors would surface with every version.

Maybe the author has overcome these issues, but I'd be inclined to go with a different editor. Also, ProseMirror's architecture is extremely close to DraftJS, which I've had much fewer issues with.

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

#37

Post by kzrdude »

snowwrestler wrote: post #31
slig wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Organizations use Medium instead of their own platforms to try to create a sort of social signalling--like, "this is not the usual old-school BS you'd expect from us--this is cool design or tech content." Whether that actually works is up for debate...

Medium has already turned around to just be uncool and pushing stupid bars and buttons in front of the text. So they are late to the party.

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

#39

Post by amelius »

smacktoward wrote: post #38

> this new story editor needs to combine the advanced features of Google Docs with the intuitive design focus of Medium This part made me sad. Imagine how much more powerful our tools could be if we didn't insist on jamming them all into web browsers!

But at least they run everywhere.
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