Wikidpad's text editor.

[wiki...@gmail.com]

I believe Wikidpad could be a killer app. I've been using it for the
last few weeks and have incorporated it into my work and am quite
excited about its potential.

However, from my perspective as a writer managing sometimes dozens of
MS Word docs per project, Wikidpad's greatest value is as a centralized
document browser and linker. I feel its value is undercut if those docs
must exist as "wiki documents" (.wiki) and edited (or at best copied
and pasted into) Wikidpad's editor.

Reason: Wikidpad's editor is simply not feature-rich enough for
sustained writing, which limits its potential as an application. For
example, I use custom templates and macros in Word for formatting and
editing in general. Not having that functionality available in Wikidpad
sharply diminishes both its usefulness and usability, despite the fact
that it's core function -- a linked document browser -- is one of the
coolest and useful tools I've come across in a very long time! :)

I realize that Wikidpad is conceived of as a notepad-type app. But it
is, or could be, so much more if it was reconceived not as a notepad
with links, but as a document browser/manager.

Some questions and issues for the developers.

Would it be possible to in effect "wrap" Wikidpad around a real word
processor, e.g., MS Word, or even OpenOffice? That will let a user use
those apps instead of Wikidpad's native editor, and Wikidpad would
browse, display, and otherwise manage access to the files (.doc)
generated by Word; while still recognizing and managing Wikiwords and
other wikipad-specific attributes, globals, etc.; and while still
generating links between documents as is currently the case.

In other words, as a user, I would like to see Wikidpad develop such
that the "left side" of the app -- that is, its wikiword/page/document
browser -- and its attribute and global parameter system, became more
powerful and responsive. And that rather than reinventing the word
processing wheel, the nuts and bolts of Wikidpad's "right side" -- that
is, the text editing and formatting -- was handled by mature apps users
are already familiar with and invested in.

For me, Wikidpad is not merely a notepad with links, but a document
browser/manager that links and presents documents for editing with the
user's preferred word processing app (even if that app was merely
Notepad.)

I am very interested in feedback on these ideas from those actually
working on and managing Wikidpad's development, as well as from those
who are "merely" using it in real world situations.

Thank you for reading and for your consideration!

WikiGrrl

[wiki...@gmail.com]

[Also posted at Yahoo group]

Here's the analogy, from my point of view as a writer, researcher, and
power user.

I want an app that works in relationship to my MS Word docs, the way a
jukebox app works with my mp3 files. Let me catalog them and make them
sortable by category. Let me create keyword associations or links
(Wikiwords) between them. And most of all, let me open them and edit in
Word, because that's their parent app.

But any kind of built in text editing you give me beyond that is a nice
little utility, but nothing more than that. I'm already using and am
invested in a professional product that does that.

In fact, I'd give up Wikidpad's right panel completely if I could
navigate the left panel tree and have it open actual Word docs and
manage which one was "on top," the way it does currently with
self-generated text docs with a .wiki extension -- from an interface
point of view, that's really "all" that's happening in that right
panel: document switching, like a random Ctrl-F6 with a history.

Wikidpad's database will still keep track of which files "belong" to
the Wiki (i.e., the project's catalog), along with their cross links,
which will continue to be based on the File Name, that is, the
so-called wikiword, be it CamelCase or bracketed. (As an aside, file
name's should never be bracketed as a system requirement, though I can
see *optionally* providing for brackets or some other marker in the
file name, e.g., filename.wiki.doc, or filename.doc.wiki -- or some
other user defined sub-extension -- just for identification purposes.)

Basically, I want exactly what Wikidpad already is (plus with
improvements of course, esp in the interface), but with grown up Word
documents rather than little baby .wiki's.

This would be a very powerful application, comparable in may ways to
the HTML browser. Comparable also to Windows' Explorer.exe and the
corresponding utils from other OSs.

What could be cooler than that? I would pay for that kind of
functionality.

That's what I want.

WikiGrrl

[drumdance]

That sounds pretty cool, but it's not really important to my needs. I
use WikidPad primarily as a PIM, not a full-blown documentation tool,
which I don't really need.

I like the idea of the right side being "pluggable," but if you do that
it's probably hard to mantain the WikiWordLinksLikeThis because the
right side would be rendered by Word, no the the application that
actually understands those links.

-Derek

[Dev Null]

I am also interested in using this application as a document browser
and linker. It would be cool if you could add non-wiki documents to
the navigation panel, however you still can add a URL on a WikiWord
page that points to either a document on your local filesystem, such as
file:///D|/Documents/assignment_1.doc or to a web page.
http://somesite.com/cool_item_of_interest.html This is how you would
add hyperlinked references to a WikiPage. If the non-wiki resource was
important enough, it would be a simple enough thing to create a
WikiPage with only a brief explanation of the resource and a URL to it.

[jaysen]

Just having my say re wikigrrl's request:

I don’t think its a good idea to change the storage and display of pages to
anything other than plain text. My view is that the advantages don’t come
close to the cost of replacing the simplicity/flexibility of plain text.

That said, if someone familiar with the relevant APIs wrote a
plugin/extension to view edit word/openoffice docs, that wouldn’t detract
from wikidpad's power.

Much respect,
jaysen naidoo

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[Matt Wilkie]

A couple of years ago there was an MS-Word macro floating around that
turned word docs into a wiki-like application. I never played with it
myself, but read reports that it worked fairly well until you reached
hundreds of pages. In time that may have been fixed. {shrug}.