[Mediawiki-l] Status of wysiwyg editors for mw1.9?

[Frederik Dohr]

As for the original question of WYSIWYG for MW, I'm afraid I can't 
provide any more substantial info - except maybe suggesting wikEd* as a 
possible semi-solution.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cacycle/wikEd

The issue will apparently be discussed at this week's meeting on the 
future of MediaWiki (see yesterday's mail from Erik, "Your thoughts on 
MediaWiki 2.0 / 'phase IV'").

In this regard, here's some food for thought that might be of interest: 
http://wikieducator.org/Talk:Tectonic_shift_think_tank#WikiGUI

>> "Just type."
> 
>> Put blank lines between your paragraphs and click Save.  That's it.
> 
> That`s exactly my current approach :) 
> Keep it simple, don`t try to overformat things

Actually, I should add this line to our wiki. It was obvious to me, so I 
took it for granted - but it most likely isn't for the majority of 
first-time wiki users...

>> And if you WANT to do formatting, here's a cheatsheet.  But don't let
>> that stand in the way of documenting what you know.
> 
> And we also have that one :)

So do we, but ours could certainly be improved.
However, pulling the help pages from public wikis proved complicated 
because of various dependency issues. Also, those help pages are often 
quite extensive and might thus be somewhat overwhelming, so I went for a 
less comprehensive and more concise approach.

Would you guys mind sharing your cheat sheets? Maybe we could combine 
efforts at http://scratchpad.wikia.com, possibly cerating a (very basic) 
help-section template for new MW admins?

>> Then we have a few motivated people who scurry around improving the
>> formatting on other people's pages as they run across them.
> 
> ok, there we currently have only just ONE, but we`re working on it :)

Same here; I'm the only "wiki coach", and reception hasn't really been 
overwhelming so far...

>> It worked out well, even with the WYSIWYG die-hards.
> 
> It works here - but only with the pure technical staff (and even some of those guys are quite hard to change).

Again, same here; most users with a non-technical background are scared 
off by the plain-text editing right away, so they don't even get to 
realize how easy it actually is...


-- F.