[pmwiki-users] WYSIWYG is Indispensable; Moment of Truth

Chris Cox ccox at endlessnow.com
Wed May 25 21:22:06 CDT 2011


On 05/24/2011 03:27 AM, Oliver Betz wrote:
> jdd-gmane wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
>>> There are over 70 wikis out there with WYSIWYG capability according
>>> to Wikimatrix.
>>
>> did you test them? the one I know are making more garbage than good 
>> work, often destructing the usefull markup.
> 
> several people I asked recently also said that every kind-of-WYSIWYG
> CMS they know sometimes creates wrong (and hard to repair) markup.

None of them are truly WYSIWYG.. they ALL have errors.. and none of them cover a
true wiki scenario.

> 
> Nevertheless there is one case where a WYSIWYG editor is extremly
> useful: Table editing!

I disagree.. somewhat.  Again, having used some of the "table editors" inside of
supposedly superior "wiki" alternatives (btw, most of the people whining are
probably NOT looking at a wiki)... I can tell you that the editor bites you
almost as much as it helps you.  And when it messes up, you can lose data and
eventually (at least my experience) you end up going back to the external
spreadsheet source and recopying to fix.

> 
> Ever tried to insert a column in HTML or Wiki markup? It's a PITA.
> Even entering or modifying data is extremly inconvenient in markup.

Interior column adds can be a pain.  I agree.

Sometimes you have to turn a problem on it's head though.  I find myself
presenting tables as simple table rows and columns from a pagelist template more
and more.  Then you just have to edit the template and the new column appears, etc.

That doesn't cover all cases of course, just something to consider.

Markup gives you control without the errors and security risks.... it makes
presentation uniform.  And simple markup beats the pants off HTML, which is what
MOST of the other "wiki" alternatives end up forcing you to do to get the job
done... again, just my opinion.

I've got an extension to PmWiki that turns all tables into streaming csv for a
page... and I submitted the PmDocConvert that allows you to embed and portray
spreadsheets handled by LibreOffice/OpenOffice inside of PmWiki.  So again,
while not perfect, these extensions handle most of my needs... (combined with
the pagelist template method mentioned earlier).

The table2csv thing is stuck inside my company's policies.... but I may push it
out and say "I'm sorry" later...





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