[OWW-SC] fyi: wysiwywiki...

[Julius B. Lucks]

Though not ideal, some of these issues can be solved 'socially'  
through proper documentation to the effect that we are providing this  
WYSIWYG editor, but some features need manual work arounds for now.   
It seems like it is a good solution for the very basic editing tasks,  
and thereby might enable a significant fraction of the community that  
at present does not edit because of a technology barrier.  More  
advanced editing might have to be done by those willing to learn wiki  
syntax, etc.  Obviously a stop-gap solution while we can work on  
fixes etc.

I still think it is a good idea for a few people to use it  
exclusively for a bit and see what happens.  Maybe they can formalize  
a bug reporting process that OWW users can use to provide feedback  
when it gets rolled out.

Cheers,

Julius


> 2) Formulas didn't seem to work.  See
> http://www.openwetware.org/fck/index.php/Sandbox
>
> 3) It seems to be incompatible with Biblio?
>
> So I'd be nervous about deploying this site-wide by default without
> having a handful of steering committee members test it first.  I think
> we'd also need to be prepared to invest significant development time
> into it to fix bugs.
>
> -Reshma
>
>
> On Nov 15, 2007 11:02 AM, Bill Flanagan <wjf42 at mit.edu> wrote:
>> There is a current FCKEditor 'autosave' plugin available. This plugin
>> sends the entire frame back to the server on a periodic basis. The
>> server application must take responsibility for then updating a
>> 'persistent cache' with the content.
>>
>> I'll track it down and load it to see how it works. It's not clear  
>> how
>> well it works with the MediaWiki support. I'll submit a request on  
>> the
>> development wiki site to see what they have to say about it.
>>
>> Talk about killing 2 birds with one stone...
>>
>> I'll let you know what I hear.
>>
>> B.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Nov 15, 2007 10:50 AM, Austin Che <austin at csail.mit.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>     I agree this is great. And there is a preference option under
>>>     editing to turn on/off the rich text editing and the rich editor
>>>     tab for using it in some namespaces. I see no reason not to turn
>>>     it on by default immediately and let whoever wants to disable it
>>>     manually do so. Only by making it the default will we be able to
>>>     find and iron out all the bugs with it.
>>>
>>>     Also, I think the one remaining absolutely critical feature  
>>> for an
>>>     editor is auto-save. This would probably be a separate extension
>>>     but I would like to see something like the following:
>>>     When the page is closed without saving (I think javascript can
>>>     detect page close as some websites pop up bunch of things on  
>>> page
>>>     close), the edited text should automatically be sent to the  
>>> server
>>>     via an ajax request and stored in a separate table. Upon the  
>>> next
>>>     time I try to edit the same page if an unsaved edit is there, it
>>>     should either ask me what I want to do or bring up a box with my
>>>     previous edits so I can choose whether I want to restore it.
>>>
>>>
>>>> You can switch back and forth between the two formats. Also, you  
>>>> can
>>>> tag pages or individual sections/namespaces to use this as the  
>>>> default
>>>> editor. Although not done yet, you could also allow it to be set  
>>>> as a
>>>> user preference.
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 14, 2007 6:30 PM, Jenny Nguyen <jennytnguyen at gmail.com>  
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> That so sooooo cooool!!! I love this! Although I do admit,  
>>>>> after typing in
>>>>> wiki-code for so long, converting to a completely wysiwyg  
>>>>> format is a little
>>>>> difficult. It does make the wikicode look strangely formatted  
>>>>> too, but I'm
>>>>> sure these type of bugs can be tweeked.
>>>>>
>>>>> Niiiice work Bill. That is really neat.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Nov 14, 2007 5:20 PM, Bill F <bill.altmail at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've installed a copy of OpenWetWare's data onto a preliminary  
>>>>>> version
>>>>>> of the FCKEdit OpenSource development team's HTML editor/Wikitext
>>>>>> editor.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This work is NOT a sanctioned activity by the MediaWiki team. The
>>>>>> project is run by the FCKEdit folks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Their original integration was not good. With little to no  
>>>>>> support
>>>>>> from the MediaWiki developers, they've already created a great  
>>>>>> set of
>>>>>> features.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Here's a pointer to OWW running with FCKEdit:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.openwetware.org/fck
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It looks pretty useful. But there are a slew of problems with  
>>>>>> it that
>>>>>> need to be fixed. Even with this caveat, this is as close to a  
>>>>>> bona
>>>>>> fide WYSIWYG editor for MediaWiki as anyone has done to date.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This site is a separate database. Any changes made to it will  
>>>>>> be held
>>>>>> in this and not the main database.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The HTML table editor built into it is very good. Images are a  
>>>>>> bit
>>>>>> complicated at this point.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Austin Che           <austin at csail.mit.edu>          (617)253-5899
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> sc at openwetware.org
>>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/oww-sc
>>>
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