On 8/16/06, Alex Powell alexp700@gmail.com wrote:
Ideas:
- A quick button to create a correctly formatted table. Asking for
number of cols and rows. I find this a total pain, and it has rendered tables worthless to me, as a small change breaks the table. It could work as a DIV dialog or popup like fckedit.
Just FYI, there are Word macro scripts that successfully translate to/from Word/MediaWiki tables.
- Namespace/interwiki suggestion when entering names (though obviously
what we have just been talking about is a step beyond!)
- Should also work with template insertion. Ultimately should scan the
template via XMLHttpRequest and give a list of template parameters back to the user.
Nice, would be fantastic if we had a formalised way of documenting parameters. Then it could, for example, scan the <NOINCLUDE> part of the template page for some special code and provide that too. Otherwise, most templates could only tell you how many parameters to provide, by scanning for {{{1}}}, {{{2}}} etc.
- Hot keys to make bold, italic, links etc (these may be there, but I
haven't noticed them).
May be impossible in JavaScript? Not sure what hotkeys are permitted.
I notice that the wikiwyg stuff doesn't actually work that well - the indent in particular is lost, and if it is reduced to bold, italics and bullets it seems a little pointless - certainly a lot of effort.
It's a work in progress. I see that straight indents aren't currently implemented. Obvioussly they'll convert to stacked :::'s. Indent works on lists.
Most of the articles people complain about editing in Wikitext are filled to the gunnels with templates and extensions (like ref). An editor that handles those well is a tricky beast to design, let alone write. HTML editors - which are much more mature - tend to quickly revert to the source, since it often is the best way to handle such things.
That may continue to be the case. Tools for beginners and experts alike should be encouraged.
However HTML editors work best when they suggest, and prod you along.
Like good code IDE's. These days you can code in a language you don't know at all just by relying on the online "prodding".
I'd say any Wiki editor needs to look more down those lines - things like an auto preview of a template in a popup div would be far more useful that the traditional word ribbon.
Nice. Suggest it. :)
Steve