[pmwiki-users] wysiwyg editor for wiki

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 08:57:44PM -0400, Henrik Bechmann wrote:
> Thanks Patrick,
> 
> If I may offer the following:
> 
> In the broad sweep of web 2.0 evolution, I think that Wysiwig is 
> inevitable, therefore for PmWiki, eventually it will be essential 
> (version 3?).

I'm not sure I agree that WYSIWYG is inevitable, nor that it will
be essential.  I've been around the computing industry long enough
to know that GUI doesn't always trump text.  :-)

But even if I agree that WYSIWYG is inevitable/essential, I just
don't think it'll happen within the current generation of browsers.
I think we'll need another enabling technology (perhaps an extension
or replacement of JavaScript) before we get there.  And I don't think
AJAX is it.

So, until there's some sort of fundamental shift in the browser
paradigm, I'm not sure it's worth the effort to build WYSIWYG into
PmWiki.  (But yes, if/when I do that, it will likely be PmWiki 3.)

> ------------------------
> 
> In terms of approaches to the problem, I see from your references that 
> you have mentioned two:
>    a) based on the editor generating wiki code, background translation 
> of wiki code fragments into HTML (through background xmlhttprequest aka 
> AJAX processing
>    b) based on the editor generating HTML code, translating the HTML 
> into wikicode on save edits.
> 
> Obviously both have issues. In terms of the former, identifying minimal 
> scope for translation (I personally think the performance issue is 
> manageable)

I think that network latency issues will tend to interfere with
editing too much.  It could also quickly overwhelm a server --
especially a shared server environment (such as is available via
web hosting providers).

> ; in terms of the latter, identifying ways of uniquely 
> matching not only the semantic HTML elements to the wiki elements, but 
> also the constituent parts (including for customizations). Also it seems 
> to me that reverse generation would require recursion.
> 
> In terms of the HTML-to-wiki approach, it seems to me that in principle 
> adding a couple of columns to the Markup structure for deterministic 
> "reverse" markup holds some promise.

Except I'm not sure it's deterministic.  At any rate, I think that
the only way to make the HTML-to-wiki approach work well would be
to co-develop the WYSIWYG editor along with the wiki markup (i.e.,
existing editors such as FCKEditor aren't going to be structured
in a way to facilitate customization).

> IAC, of this I am quite sure: you Patrick are an unparalleled master of 
> regex conversions. If anyone could solve this problem, you could. 

Thanks for the complement, and I think I could do it as well.
I just haven't convinced myself that it's worth the amount of
energy/time/frustration that would be involved, especially since
WYSIWYG doesn't solve any problems *I'm* currently facing.  :-)

Pm