Parallel projects for EditorMagic

[Mat]

To not diverge the thread where Saq and I work on the "EditorMagic core" I'm starting this parallel thread for "other" EditorMagic matters.

TonyM wrote:

[...] I am just wondering if I can support the effort by commencing a parallel project that produces the content you need to feed into it later whist supporting a broader application.

Appreciated. If you're OK with the answer "I can't guarantee that it will be used in the end" then, sure, here are a couple of needs ranging from semi advanced to "I have no clue" stuff. As you note, they mainly concern the EditorMagic popup content so chances are big that it can be used because the idea is that anyone should be able to create popup content... so it is "kind of" safe that it will not be wasted efforts:

OK; there's need for "engines" to extract

• macro titles and their parameters. From a practical point, I guess this would be limited to user defined macros. Should it be only macros from macro tiddlers or also locally defined macros - I'm not sure.
• widget titles and their parameters
• documentation from tw.com. Currently things are just showing in an iframe but if things could e.g be scraped then things could be presented in superior way. Way beyond me how to do this. Or push for a different standardization of the docs on tw.com so things could be more specifically extracted. That is probably an even harder task ;-) Possibly there could be a docs plugin from which the popup tools could fetch structured data... that might be the best solution actually and a pretty cool task and sounds like it jives with your frustration over tw.com's current doc format.

Some other popup tool ideas, some perhaps over the top:

• site specific search engines, e.g wikipedia, caniuse etc. This one is not very difficult. The approach would be to make it general so that people can add their own specific site.
• google or duckduckgo image search. I made a plugin for this (don't think I published it) but testing it now it seems not to work.
• accessing the forum
• accessing github... for posting issue or pr. To name one use case, 

 

Another angle is to see how/if the current editor toolbar can be made superfluous. This would be along the lines of Saq's floating editor toolbar. Like him, I don't like the UX with the current editor tools - tools should be where I'm at right now i.e by the caret! 

You ask specifically about the dictionary tiddler that has "widget skeletons": 

I can see in the dictionary you have the name of the widget: widgetname and parameters including the widget close, I presume there is no multi-line widget layouts? 

So I wonder if I build a tiddler for each widget and one or more parameter variations, perhaps one with a multi-line layout and a field containing a single line layout then you could pick and choose what content you want to load into EditorMagic? Ideally you could just tap into a library of widgets that can be shared with other solutions and systematically improved by the community.

Sure, maybe that's a good idea, I haven't put much thought into it. I propose you also test to build the popup tool that will use it. If you want to I'll describe how. It is not difficult.

<:-)

[TonyM]

Mat,

Thanks for grasping the concept I was promoting.

Caveat accepted "I can't guarantee that it will be used in the end"

I will look at a mashup approach. Thanks for your nice summary for me to build on.

In the popup tool ideas accommodating Mohammad's Searchwikis plugin, in fact played carefully this may be an effective way to obtain the content we are after, content from any wiki anytime.

Another angle is to see how/if the current editor toolbar can be made superfluous. This would be along the lines of Saq's floating editor toolbar. Like him, I don't like the UX with the current editor tools - tools should be where I'm at right now i.e by the caret! 

 

I already use a "floating" editor toolbar, which does this somewhat.

You ask specifically about the dictionary tiddler that has "widget skeletons": 

I can see in the dictionary you have the name of the widget: widgetname and parameters including the widget close, I presume there is no multi-line widget layouts? 

So I wonder if I build a tiddler for each widget and one or more parameter variations, perhaps one with a multi-line layout and a field containing a single line layout then you could pick and choose what content you want to load into EditorMagic? Ideally you could just tap into a library of widgets that can be shared with other solutions and systematically improved by the community.

Sure, maybe that's a good idea, I haven't put much thought into it. I propose you also test to build the popup tool that will use it. If you want to I'll describe how. It is not difficult.

I am working on this now and already getting results, I will share ASAP.

 

<:-)