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WYSIHTML5: A better approach to rich text editing

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Re: WYSIHTML5: A better approach to rich text editing

#71

Post by bergie »

zv wrote: post #3

Whenever I see "new rich HTML editor", I notice that there is no table editing. What's the point of editor that is missing the most needed function? You could argue that it is not needed, however lack of this function leads to cases of copy-paste from word/excel with bad markup.

I've been thinking about this a lot with Hallo (http://hallojs.org/), and I'm starting to come to the conclusion that the traditional way of doing tables in WYSIWYG editors is simply wrong.

What is a table editor would essentially be a database query, with data coming from your CMS or some other system? Then instead of building a generic table by hand you could do things like Insert a table of attendees of this event, with columns displayName, company, and email.

I'll try to do some experiments with this in the summer.

Re: WYSIHTML5: A better approach to rich text editing

#72

Post by batista »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #66
batista wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about neither, and just try to comprehend that tables are a common use case that if we haven't perfected yet in HTML editors it's web programmers/standards' fault and not Word's?

And why is that the logic conclusion exactly?

Because tables are a basic, centuries old, typographic feature that is also needed -no ifs or buts- in HTML editors?

Re: WYSIHTML5: A better approach to rich text editing

#73

Post by batista »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #69
batista wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only I don't want my text to be "strong", I want it to be bold, and I don't want my italicized items to me "emphasized", I bloody want them in italics. I don't consider my bolds and italics to be mere style and much less I consider them mere suggestions. Bold and italic are typographic conventions of author _intent_ (that is: semantics) with centuries of use. I put them there in purpose, and I don't want them convert…

I understand that, but when I open your page in lynx I don't want to read text without any formatting because there are no direct equivalents to "bold" or "italics".

Well, then just ignore them --or show them with bold and _italics_, Markdown style.

Although, I think modern terminals can do bold fonts, e.g this gives you bold in bash:

echo -e "\033[1mtest\033[0m again"

Re: WYSIHTML5: A better approach to rich text editing

#74

Post by DanBC »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #69
batista wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only I don't want my text to be "strong", I want it to be bold, and I don't want my italicized items to me "emphasized", I bloody want them in italics. I don't consider my bolds and italics to be mere style and much less I consider them mere suggestions. Bold and italic are typographic conventions of author _intent_ (that is: semantics) with centuries of use. I put them there in purpose, and I don't want them convert…

I understand that, but when I open your page in lynx I don't want to read text without any formatting because there are no direct equivalents to "bold" or "italics".

People actively block Internet Explorer. They've probably never heard of lynx / links / elinks / w3m.

I'm happy when they don't use idiotic alt tags. If they manage to use good alt tags I'm really happy.

Accessible web design is seen as some freakish niche need, and is often relegated to something to do later, if ever.

Re: WYSIHTML5: A better approach to rich text editing

#76

Post by DeepDuh »

slikts wrote: post #31

Looking at the examples, I don't understand how this is "a better approach" to editing, because the HTML it outputs does not follow best practices. The HTML it outputs should look like a competent human had authored it, but currently it uses line-break hacks for paragraphs instead of semantic paragraph elements (two <br> elements aren't really a paragraph, it just looks like it), adds underline elements with Ctrl+…

Want good WYSIWYG html? Try out Apple Pages, export to E-Pub, extract and look at the xhtml files. After pretty printing it's almost like human authored. It seems that we still need the Apples and Adobes of this world.

Re: WYSIHTML5: A better approach to rich text editing

#77

Post by therandomguy »

jfhollingworth wrote: post #68
junto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear. I didn't write this! I just used it. The credit for writing this goes to James Hollingworth: https://github.com/jhollingworth

Thanks :) Glad you like it!

Thanks for this. I would most definitely use this on my website. The only thing missing is the ability to add youtube embed code. Any way to make that happen?

Re: WYSIHTML5: A better approach to rich text editing

#79

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

bergie wrote: post #71
zv wrote: post #3

Whenever I see "new rich HTML editor", I notice that there is no table editing. What's the point of editor that is missing the most needed function? You could argue that it is not needed, however lack of this function leads to cases of copy-paste from word/excel with bad markup.

I've been thinking about this a lot with Hallo ( http://hallojs.org/ ), and I'm starting to come to the conclusion that the traditional way of doing tables in WYSIWYG editors is simply wrong. What is a table editor would essentially be a database query, with data coming from your CMS or some other system? Then instead of building a generic table by hand you could do things like Insert a table of attendees of this eve…

If you've used Drupal, what you're describing is simply the correct usage of one of its most powerful pieces: Views. However, even with its somewhat decent "query" editing interface, it's still a complex task that requires some critical data-oriented thinking skills. It's important, I think, for people to be able to format an electronic table about as easily as they can do it with a pen and paper. It's a fundamental formatting operation, IMO, and there should always be a fast/intuitive way of making them.
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