D Wiki

[Yigal Chripun]

BCS wrote:
> Hello Yigal,
> 
>> BCS wrote:
>>
>>> One major *advantage* of wikies is that the UI is a browser. If I
>>> need to install anything (even a plugin, and lets pretend I don't
>>> have flash already) I'm not going to be contributing anything.
>>>
>> no. wikies are text based and have *NO* UI.
> 
> No, I understand how wikies work, you use a web browser to edit text 
> content that is then rendered as HTML. The UI is implemented via a web 
> server and a web browser. Saying it has no UI is nonsensical as clearly 
> the system interfaces with a user so it /must/ have a UI of some kind.

I meant a graphical UI, as in a rich text editor. :)
obviously a wiki must have some kind of a UI, as you said.

> 
>> the flash widget was, as you said, "if all else fails" and we do not
>> need to go to that extreme.
> 
> I hope your right there.
> 
>> why is a standards based rich text editor so hard to envision?
> 
> Envision? Easy. Implement? Hard. Heck, it's not that easy to do even 
> under something like winforms.

it's not impossible. and if there is one good enough open implementation 
it can be re-used.

> 
>> are we
>> considering supporting all browsers since explorer 1.0 and that's why
>> it's so hard?
> 
> I'm with you on that one.
> 
>> IMO, this is doable. I am able to compose rich text messages in gmail
>> without the need to learn some obscure wiki format. so maybe gmail
>> doesn't provide support for all possible combinations of html tags but
>> neither is the wiki format.
>>
>> all i'm trying to say is that it's more productive IMO to try to fix
>> the few problems that the current rich text editors have (according to
>> other people's replies) than to give up and just use the wrong design.
> 
> In general, you may be correct, but for programmers, the cost of using 
> non WYSIWYG is a lot smaller as we tend to be more practiced at reading 
> around markup of different kinds and the cost of WYSIWYG (loss of 
> flexibility) is much more noticeable because we tend to know and use 
> more of the things that get lost.
> 

we have a wiki at work (which I despise) and it always confuses me with 
it's weird syntax:
=text= vs. ==text==
i can never remember which one is the main title and which is the 
sub-title. I honestlly prefer html tags over this.

I also hate that you need to enter the text, than click preview, then 
fix the problems, then preview and so on. it feels like i'm debugging my 
content which is annoying and a waste of time compared to a work flow 
where you just see the end result in front of you in real time like in 
MS Word.

consider that this is why lyx (gui for latex) renders math in real-time. 
it's so much easier to write equations when you see what you entered 
instead of some obscure code to render it.

besides, I don't see why programmers must be punished by forcing them to 
use an inferior UI.