The folks at ZOPE have come up with a pretty damn good idea to support
external editors in all browsers. (Right now we have to use the
<textarea> or copy&paste, the latter of which is horribly broken in
Linux-Mozilla.) It's at
http://www.zope.org/Members/jimbag/ZopeEDIT
What they basically do is generate a x-zope-edit MIME type file, which
contains the data and some metadata. This MIME type has to be associated
with the provided "helper application" by the user. The helper app
(written in Python) launches the editor and, if the file has changed
after the editor is closed, uploads it to the server.
We might implement the same. I suggest the following strategy:
* Should be a user preference with prominent link to help page
explaining setup.
* Use existing "Edit this page" link to call external editor
immediately, so that there's no added overhead
* have some header in the generated file like
<header>
wpMinorEdit=0
wpWatchthis=0
wpSummary=""
</header>
so that we don't miss any other information in the form. Alternatively,
let the helper app provide some user interface to do this.
* Once the file is closed, submit it directly and transparently to the
server. The user just has to reload the page and should see his changes
immediately.
* Biggest problem: In case of edit conflicts, we need to send the helper
app a smart file, preferably with CVS-style syntax. Alternatively,
instead of submitting the file directly to the server, we could launch a
browser window with the contents in preview mode. This is somewhat less
user friendly though, especially if we cannot control how the window is
opened.
In any case, this is an absolute killer feature, especially for power
users. Any volunteers for implementation? Otherwise I'll put it in my
(already long) to do list. (Right now I'm working on talk pages for
anons.)
Regards,
Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de
external editors in all browsers. (Right now we have to use the
<textarea> or copy&paste, the latter of which is horribly broken in
Linux-Mozilla.) It's at
http://www.zope.org/Members/jimbag/ZopeEDIT
What they basically do is generate a x-zope-edit MIME type file, which
contains the data and some metadata. This MIME type has to be associated
with the provided "helper application" by the user. The helper app
(written in Python) launches the editor and, if the file has changed
after the editor is closed, uploads it to the server.
We might implement the same. I suggest the following strategy:
* Should be a user preference with prominent link to help page
explaining setup.
* Use existing "Edit this page" link to call external editor
immediately, so that there's no added overhead
* have some header in the generated file like
<header>
wpMinorEdit=0
wpWatchthis=0
wpSummary=""
</header>
so that we don't miss any other information in the form. Alternatively,
let the helper app provide some user interface to do this.
* Once the file is closed, submit it directly and transparently to the
server. The user just has to reload the page and should see his changes
immediately.
* Biggest problem: In case of edit conflicts, we need to send the helper
app a smart file, preferably with CVS-style syntax. Alternatively,
instead of submitting the file directly to the server, we could launch a
browser window with the contents in preview mode. This is somewhat less
user friendly though, especially if we cannot control how the window is
opened.
In any case, this is an absolute killer feature, especially for power
users. Any volunteers for implementation? Otherwise I'll put it in my
(already long) to do list. (Right now I'm working on talk pages for
anons.)
Regards,
Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de