[bndfc-web-tech] wysiwyg text component

[Chris Croome]

Hi

On Wed 15-Dec-2004 at 03:50:23PM +0000, Jamie Marriott wrote:
> 
> From brief conversations with Adam and Chris (and vague memmories
> of much earlier chats), I understand it's possible to make the
> Text Component more "user friendly"(!) by incorporating word
> processor type buttons for applying bold and itallics. 

Actually it's the HTMl component that this is for... we could make
buttoms though for the Text component also, wiki's like MediaWiki
have this, and since it's GPL'ed we could just copy their
Javascript...

> I gather the latest version of MKDoc has this anyway, but
> that it could  easily be added to our version.

Well I don't know how easy it would be to back-port it from 1.8 to
1.6 but I expect that it's possible...

> Adam indicated that it had already been done before, but only
> worked in MS IE.

I'm not aware of this. The WYSIWYG editor for the HTML Component in
1.8 works in Mozilla on Linux, not only IE... 

> If this is the case, then is it possible to:
> 
> a) Have a text component that supports both wysiwyg buttons and
> 'special mark-up' at the same time - maybe with a toggle between
> the two, or even a way of recognising which browser is used and
> making the decision for you (although I suspect the very thing
> that makes only work in IE would prevent this being possible).

Yes, kind of, we could do it so that the buttons vanish when
Javascript is turned off, for an example of a text component with
buttons see a MediaWiki site, like this one:

  http://wiki.slugbug.org.uk/

> b) Have TWO text components - a wysiwyg one and a special mark-up
> one for those using different browsers or even, who knows,
> _prefer_ special mark-up.

Well this is kind of two already... the HTML component and the Text
component...

> I'm not sure how any of this affects the accesibilty rating, but
> it is only for the editor interface, and I suspect most (if not
> all) of New Deal use IE anyway.
> 
> Of course, I have no real grasp on how 'easy' any of this might
> be, but just the basic wysiwyg editor would do if they're all pie
> in the sky ideas.
> 
> Jamie
> 
> PS Are buttons for ordered and unordered lists be part of this
> component?

Um, yes, I think so.

Chris

-- 
Chris Croome                               <chris at webarchitects.co.uk>
web design                             http://www.webarchitects.co.uk/ 
web content management                               http://mkdoc.com/