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EpicEditor – An embeddable JavaScript Markdown editor

epiceditor.com

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Re: EpicEditor – An embeddable JavaScript Markdown editor

#13

Post by sdesol »

"Because, WYSIWYGs suck"

I think this is a bit short sighted. I like Markdown and I'll eventually integrate it into my product, but to discredit the usefulness of WYSIWYG would be foolish. Maybe there is a lack of good implementations for it to show any value. I'm currently evaluating redactor (http://imperavi.com/redactor/) as my WYSIWYG editor and I've been happy with it so far.

For example this is how I render the html that is generated by redactor:

http://screenshots.gitsense.com/wysiwyg-1.html

If you click the edit button on the bottom right hand corner, it'll bring up the WYSIWYG editor:

http://screenshots.gitsense.com/wysiwyg-2.html

And if I need to do a complex layout like the one in the screen shot, redactor lets you edit in raw html, as shown below:

http://screenshots.gitsense.com/wysiwyg-3.html

If you are working on a product and believe Markdown is the only way to go, you'll probably do yourself and your customers a disservice.

Re: EpicEditor – An embeddable JavaScript Markdown editor

#16

Post by bowerbird »

sdesol wrote: post #13

"Because, WYSIWYGs suck" I think this is a bit short sighted. I like Markdown and I'll eventually integrate it into my product, but to discredit the usefulness of WYSIWYG would be foolish. Maybe there is a lack of good implementations for it to show any value. I'm currently evaluating redactor ( http://imperavi.com/redactor/ ) as my WYSIWYG editor and I've been happy with it so far. For example this is how I render t…

> and I've been happy with it so far.

famous last words.

i haven't seen an html-based editor i couldn't sabotage, just fooling around with it. and you know what they say about how the world keeps on inventing better fools, eh?

it's true.

now, if everyone who edits your content is experienced with .html, and knows how to avoid the pitfalls, great!

but if you want the general public to touch your stuff, you're gonna find yourself doing some heavy clean-up...

at least if my experience is any guide.

you'll have stuff that might _look_ "right", as long as it stays in the exact environment where it was last edited, but as soon as you move it, it will blow up in your face. because the markup underlying it was not done correctly.

_that's_ why wysiwyg sucks; it "looks" right, but it's not.

and it's not a "short-sighted" view. it's _experience_. painful, hard-fought, bang-head-against-wall experience.

now, perhaps redactor is ahead of everyone else on this, and it knows how to handle these headaches in advance, and if that's the case, i'd love to hear it. meanwhile...

-bowerbird

Re: EpicEditor – An embeddable JavaScript Markdown editor

#17

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

sdesol wrote: post #13

"Because, WYSIWYGs suck" I think this is a bit short sighted. I like Markdown and I'll eventually integrate it into my product, but to discredit the usefulness of WYSIWYG would be foolish. Maybe there is a lack of good implementations for it to show any value. I'm currently evaluating redactor ( http://imperavi.com/redactor/ ) as my WYSIWYG editor and I've been happy with it so far. For example this is how I render t…

wysiwyg is fundamentally flawed because the web is not wysiwyg. And HTML is a semantic description of content, not its formatting. We fought long and hard for that to be recognised, only for people to come along and try to derail that effort with wysiwyg editors.

Case in point: the markup in your final link is terrible: tables for layout, inline styles, DIVs containing nothing by BRs, etc. I could never sanction the use of an editor that produces that kind of garbage.

Don't get me wrong, Markdown is not the solution either. For the novice, it shares the same sort of cognitive barrier as HTML - confusing symbols that take time and effort to understand, the whole notion of plaintext being rendered as formatted text - without the huge benefit of flexibility - many things just can't be done in Markdown.

I don't really know what the solution is, but - in my experience - reducing the problem set from a general purpose editor to do 50% of what HTML does, to context-specific 'wysiwyg-like' editors is a step in the right direction.

Re: EpicEditor – An embeddable JavaScript Markdown editor

#19

Post by kremlin »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #17
sdesol wrote: post #13

"Because, WYSIWYGs suck" I think this is a bit short sighted. I like Markdown and I'll eventually integrate it into my product, but to discredit the usefulness of WYSIWYG would be foolish. Maybe there is a lack of good implementations for it to show any value. I'm currently evaluating redactor ( http://imperavi.com/redactor/ ) as my WYSIWYG editor and I've been happy with it so far. For example this is how I render t…

wysiwyg is fundamentally flawed because the web is not wysiwyg. And HTML is a semantic description of content, not its formatting. We fought long and hard for that to be recognised, only for people to come along and try to derail that effort with wysiwyg editors. Case in point: the markup in your final link is terrible: tables for layout, inline styles, DIVs containing nothing by BRs, etc. I could never sanction the…

To be completely fair to Redactor, I don't think that it produced the 'Divs containing nothing but BRs'. I just made a few paragraphs in redactor in it marked them appropriately as

. I think that, given that that site was used as an example of allowing someone to let the html by hand, the errors you point out may very well likely be errors introduced by the person writing the html by hand.

Re: EpicEditor – An embeddable JavaScript Markdown editor

#20

Post by kremlin »

the1 wrote: post #18
markuman wrote: post #4

Very lame! This is much better, splitscreen, full screen, markdown, html code, or preview view. http://markdown.pioul.fr/

you should let HTML and Preview tab to be editable, too. Currently, you can only edit Markdown panel.

HTML is editable for me, but not Preview

-edit HTML is editable, but it doesn't update the Markdown side nor does it update the Preview, so the edits that you do in HTML are apparently just thrown away

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