[pmwiki-users] Another approach to section editing

[Amos Satterlee]

Randy:

I don't understand your use case:

"I'd like the following behavior: action=edit would, as usual, show
the user all the markup on the page in the edit form's text area.
However, while editing, the user would be able to click on a link to
another section to view and edit just that section."

If the entire page is open in the edit form, how can a link in the
page be active?

I am interested in your problem. I can give moral support, just not
any actionable programming advice.

Amos


On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 1:33 AM, Randy Brown <alongkiss at aprivatespot.com> wrote:
> I posted a question a while back, but only got one response. Let me try
> again with more detail.
> Could someone who knows PmWiki, PHP, and javascript please give me some
> guidance before I embark on what for me would be a several week project that
> might end in total failure?
> I want to make section editing easy and correct. By "section" I mean
> anchored section, title, or page text variable.
> I've looked at the Sectionedit and Fox recipes. Unfortunately Sectionedit
> requires links on the browsed page, while Fox doesn't yet handle
> simultaneous edits. Fox also changes unedited text slightly, which disrupts
> page revision comparisons. I think the simultaneous edit problems that Fox
> has might be avoided by taking a simpler approach.
> Basically, I want my edit form to allow the user to select a section of
> markup to view and edit. For example the form would show (below "Editing
> MyPage") the following line: "Section: All Title MyPTV MyAnchoredSection"
> etc. These section names would be links. I already have markup that shows me
> these section names - so that's not an issue.
> I'd like the following behavior: action=edit would, as usual, show the user
> all the markup on the page in the edit form's text area. However, while
> editing, the user would be able to click on a link to another section to
> view and edit just that section. The links on the edit form that offer
> section editing could also be placed on the browsed page (or any other page)
> - they just don't have to be.
> A server-based approach could have the edit form contain links that end like
> "action=edit&section=MyAnchoredSection". The server would read the URL's
> parameters and show the user only the section to be edited. (What comes
> before and after would be hidden on the form.)
> A client-based approach would be to have the edit form simply read the URL
> parameters to determine the initial section to display. Javascript would
> then allow the user to change to another section. The advantage of this
> approach is that each edited section doesn't have to be saved before another
> section can be edited. Save simply reassembles the parts (hidden-prefix,
> visible-text-to-edit, and hidden-suffix) before returning the whole to the
> server, reversing the splitting it did when the form was loaded. The server
> doesn't have to know the difference.
> I'm completely ignorant about Javascript, and naive enough about PHP and
> PmWiki that I'm afraid I'll spend weeks trying to learn Javascript etc. and
> then discover it can't be done, or that I've done everything the wrong way.
> But I know that javascript is successfully used for spell check and guiedit
> buttons - so it seems like it might be possible.
> Would anyone be willing to mentor me or work with me on this? Does anyone
> have any suggestions about which approach is more likely to work:
> server-based or client-based? Should I start studying Javascript, or is that
> the wrong direction?
> Randy
>
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