A really simple WYSIWYG concept: feasible in the FCK/CKeditor framework?

[Yakov]

Introduction

The main reason for me to discuss WYSIWYG, the main aim at using it is
making drafts for scientific texts and/or writing up lectures. That's
why I would love to have WYSIWYG which can handle formulae. Let me
notice that formulae require extra formatter(s) which can be brought
with some plugins, like Plugin: jsMath [1].

Recently, I've run into the ASciencePad [2] (which works under
FireFox). Neither it's wysiwyg nor formulae-creating capabilities
haven't stunned me, but their interaction is quite remarkable: in the
wysiwyg mode one can see the representation of a formula, but when the
cursor goes from the text "into" a formula, the formula-containing box
changes it's content to the *code* formatted into the formula, and the
cursor actually gets in, allowing to edit it.

The idea

Now, consider this: wysiwyg, of'course, doesn't allow to work with the
wiki markup; on the other hand, the approach above lets combine them:
just add another button in a wysiwyg editor, a button which would
create "wiki boxes" where one can put wiki markup, and when you're out
of the box, you can even see results of work of macros, and of other
formatting as well.

The approach?

There's HTMLFormattingPlugin [3] which is even referenced in the
FCKeditorPlugin [4], but I don't understand if they can be somehow put
together; anyway, HTMLFormattingPlugin is some sort of formatter (not
exactly, as I understand), so it seems to have nothing to do with the
FCKeditor's edit field itself.

But FCKeditor and CKeditor are somehow "extensible", so it may be
possibly to add a button which will add "wiki-boxes" working the way I
mentioned above. This is the first question.

I haven't figured yet what is the status of the CKeditor embedding
into TW which is mentioned at the end of [5], which is somewhat issue
because for further development it's rather necessary to understand
whether anybody mantains it and if it's an "update" or "fork" of the
FCKeditorPlugin.

So,

what do both users and developers think about this? Perhaps anybody is
familiar to the CKeditor API or can comment the difficulties which
would rise on the way of implementing the "move cursor and jump in the
box" thing? As for users, the question is how much needed is such a
thing? Is there any implementation that I've overlooked?

Regards,
Yakov.

[1] http://bob.mcelrath.org/tiddlyjsmath.html
[2] http://math.chapman.edu/~jipsen/asciencepad/asciencepad.html
[3] http://www.tiddlytools.com/#HTMLFormattingPlugin
[4] http://visualtw.ouvaton.org/VisualTW.html#FCKeditorPlugin
[5] http://tiddlywiki.com/#Examples

[PMario]

http://math-template.tiddlyspace.com may be of interest.
As far as I can see, it requires, to stay online, since mathJax +
LaTeX macros are loaded from the web.

link [1] doesn't work for me. [2]&[4] seem to be outdated.
-m

[PMario]

As I started with TW I was also searching for wysiwyg editors. But I
wanted to have one, that creates TW markup instead of saving html
stuff into tiddlers. I didn't find any combination, that worked for
me. So I still stick with TW plain text and lately with TW highlighted
text.

I'm thinking about a possibility, to automatically render portions of
TW markup into an area above/below or side by side.

* I'd use the codemirror library to mark the start-line end end-line,
that should be rendered. I'd store this information with the tiddler,
to make it persistent. (I'm not sure if this would make sense)

* If content is modified, after some time (500ms) it will be
automatically rendered.

* It should be possible to have several auto rendered sections. This
would make it possible, to mark an interesting area and keep it
visible, even if the editor scrolls out of view.

* At the moment I'd prefer to use mathJax as an equation rendering
engine, since there is working stuff allready.

* With codemirror it would be even possible, to create a LaTeX
highlighter, to increase plain text readability. (Just dreaming :) In
combination with the automatic rendering I think this could be handy.

* There are many more ideas ... but I just want to know, what you and
others think about a hybrid version like this?

-m

[Eric Shulman]

> As I started with TW I was also searching for wysiwyg editors. But I
> wanted to have one, that creates TW markup instead of saving html
> stuff into tiddlers. I didn't find any combination, that worked for
> me. So I still stick with TW plain text and lately with TW highlighted
> text.
>
> I'm thinking about a possibility, to automatically render portions of
> TW markup into an area above/below or side by side.
>

http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#PreviewPlugin

will render TW syntax, LIVE, as you enter it!

enjoy,
-e
Eric Shulman
TiddlyTools / ELS Design Studios

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[PMario]

On Feb 1, 4:40 pm, Eric Shulman <elsdes...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#PreviewPlugin
>
> will render TW syntax, LIVE, as you enter it!

I know this plugin. It's a powerfull one. Especially the DOM debugging
function is usefull for me.

But if I create a side by side view (which I prever), the rendered
area easily is much higher than the editor height and the physical
screen size. So I need to scroll back and forth, to really see the
rendered preview area. Same if you use transclusion. That's why I'm
thinking about a start-line end-line marker to reduce stuff, that
needs to be rendered at once.

-m

[Yakov]

> http://math-template.tiddlyspace.commay be of interest.

Hmm.. I'll probably look closer, but I can't see real difference
between it and the MathJaxPlugin.. actually you reminded me to upload
the MathJaxPlugin repository which I copied some time ago. I haven't
managed to contact the author, so I'll publish it unless the author
demands otherwise (the repository doesn't contain any licenses). But
because of the "image-fonts" it uploads quite slowly (about 24 hours
already and about quarter is left) I'll post the link later (if
there's no other problem).

> [2]&[4] seem to be outdated

as for [2], oldwiki sais: "an adaptation I believe, i.e. it's not a
standard TW core"; as for [4], it works with the latest FCKeditor, but
FCKeditor itself is outdated (CKeditor is the up-to-date replacement,
and some assemblies with it are mentioned above, see [5]).

> I wanted to have one, that creates TW markup instead of saving html stuff into tiddlers

I'm not sure it's a good idea because of the following:
* it should be a dedicated editor for TiddlyWiki only (perhaps not
only after some time), so it should be maintained by someone while
CKeditor (and some others) are maintained by whole communities
* wysiwyg are most useful for some special tasks, like editing tables,
and for tables, default markup has various limitations (or, for
instance, TinyMCE allows to make different markers in lists while TW
markup is not able to generate this, only wrapping the whole list can
make *all* the markers change)

> * At the moment I'd prefer to use mathJax as an equation rendering
> engine, since there is working stuff allready

Not sure about what you mean. jsMath also works.

> * With codemirror it would be even possible, to create a LaTeX
> highlighter, to increase plain text readability

Yeah, that would be very useful.