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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

#91

Post by priyadarshy »

JasonSage wrote: post #35
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,…

We used ProseMirror in the past few months to build a rich text collaborative editor. We were able to get started and get a collaborative editor up and running in ~1 hour. This was a big deal for us, we'd tried to implement a good collab editing experience multiple times and each time we felt like the editor was the sticking point in creating a good experience. ProseMirror treats collab editing as a first class use case and makes it really easy.

We then spent 2-3 weeks getting all of the formatting, tooltips and key mappings to handle some basic formatting (bold, italics, underline, bullet lists, numbers). Eventually, once there are more examples on the web of more complex formatting for the community I think it will become much easier to use.

It's the first editor I've used that felt like it made sense at a conceptual level but implementing "simple features" can feel very hard at times. I don't think that's a knock on the library though. There's a lot to learn and understand and it just took us a lot of time to get it all.

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

#92

Post by ramphastidae »

albertsun wrote: post #50
AJRF wrote: post #36

I'd love to work for this engineering team. Their tech blog and github is full of interesting projects.

We're hiring! You should apply! https://nytimes.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Tech/job/New-York-NY/S...

Any openings that need Python folks?

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

#93

Post by zawerf »

philcockfield wrote: post #86
zawerf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be helpful to update your list with some feature comparisons. For example: Quill vs (CKEditor and TinyMCE, Draft, ProseMirror, Trix): https://quilljs.com/guides/comparison-with-other-rich-text-e... Slate vs (Draft, ProseMirror, Quill): https://github.com/ianstormtaylor/slate#why I personally went with Slate because I needed first-class React support but not as low level as Draft.

I really like Slate....but the ability to do collaborative editing is relatively new. Have you done anything with collaborative editing with Slate? If so, how are you finding it?

Collaboration isn't a requirement for me. I would definitely go with quill instead if it were. They put a lot of thought into making the delta format natural for operational transforms: https://quilljs.com/docs/delta/

Your document state is always represented by a list of deltas. Two people trying to change the same document would just have their individual list of ops "rebased" together using OT before being concatenated into the existing list of ops, forming a new document that is still just a list of ops.

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

#94

Post by lsh »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #79
njsubedi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just realized this too. No wonder many of the NyTimes journalists are here today.

I just downvoted you, and I don't write for the Times. Unfortunately... The reason this specific thread is being downvoted is that it started with nitpicking over useless semantics, and then actually managed to get worse by complaining about downvotes. Then, it got worse yet again by offering a conspiracy theory for those downvotes, instead of assuming the obvious: nobody cares .

And then it got even worse with some guy who couldn't leave well enough alone and felt compelled to point out nitpicking by nitpicking and then making a wrong assumption! Quick! Somebody on the internet is wrong!

And true to form, I'm going to be 'that guy' who says: I care. I too felt weird about the author using the term 'text editor', I too needed a sense of nitpicking comradery that I found with others pulling apart the semantics.

It's not that off-topic and we're safely in our own little thread here, so instead of being a jerk and downvoting, just collapse the thread.

But whatever. Downvoted ;)

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

#95

Post by parthdesai »

zawerf wrote: post #93
philcockfield wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like Slate....but the ability to do collaborative editing is relatively new. Have you done anything with collaborative editing with Slate? If so, how are you finding it?

Collaboration isn't a requirement for me. I would definitely go with quill instead if it were. They put a lot of thought into making the delta format natural for operational transforms: https://quilljs.com/docs/delta/ Your document state is always represented by a list of deltas. Two people trying to change the same document would just have their individual list of ops "rebased" together using OT before being concate…

I second using quill. It's really modular and the code itself is so clean.

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

#97

Post by richardcrossley »

SwellJoe wrote: post #78
jjeaff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's desperation. The traditional business model of newspapers has been upended, and the ad driven model isn't really working out that well either. So instead of doubling down and riding it to the ground, some outlets are actually innovating and making cool stuff and throwing it against the wall to see what happens.

While I agree, I wouldn't think BBC would be dealing with those same pressures, being primarily (I think?) state-funded.

The BBC is state funded, through the TV Licence, for use within the United Kingdom, elsewhere it is funded on a commercial basis. The web site differs between domestic (no adverts) and international (adverts).

BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the BBC for licencing and distributing media outside of the United Kingdom.

https://www.bbcstudios.com/about/about-us/

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

#98

Post by kostadin »

priyadarshy wrote: post #91
JasonSage wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

We used ProseMirror in the past few months to build a rich text collaborative editor. We were able to get started and get a collaborative editor up and running in ~1 hour. This was a big deal for us, we'd tried to implement a good collab editing experience multiple times and each time we felt like the editor was the sticking point in creating a good experience. ProseMirror treats collab editing as a first class use c…

This was my experience as well, quick to pick up but harder to master with more complex specs and commands even if seemingly simple. Understanding the concepts and the design patterns used in the examples goes a long way, it is a powerful framework.

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

#99

Post by salatschussel »

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…

> 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.

Sounds like Latex which has been around much longer.

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

#100

Post by gh02t »

zem wrote: post #40
AJRF wrote: post #36

I'd love to work for this engineering team. Their tech blog and github is full of interesting projects.

the BBC sounds like it has a really good tech team too. wonder what it is about newspapers that leads to this sort of tech culture.

A desire to stay relevant. Print publishers often get criticized for being behind the curve, but a few like NYT and BBC have invested heavily in the technology of their business. Not sure how much it's paid off, but my impression is they aren't struggling as much as some.

I hope they manage to find the right combination to stay around, I loathe the dystopian future where Buzzfeed and Breitbart are the only news outlets.

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