
What you see is what you want – thoughts on rich text editors for the web - makenosound
http://icelab.com.au/articles/what-you-see-is-what-you-want/
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dredmorbius
I think the author's right on one point, and very wrong on the other.

For the majority of the population, a Markdown editor, much as _I_ would like
it (if only because I'd not get frustrated by Reddit's _italic_ vs. HN's
__stars __) would be confusing. WYSIWYG or WSYWYM editors with _structural_
elements (headers, italics, quotes) would be better.

But I also don't think this has any place in the _web client_. Which has,
frankly, come to do too much, poorly, and with vast gaping deficiencies in
privacy and security.

I'd far rather, say, that Pocket were my browser. A tool I could use, organise
various modes of Web use, _strip away almost all site formatting_ , and, in
something that it doesn't now have, present me with an editor.

Which would be a simple GUI WYSIWYM tool by default, but could be swapped out
for _the user 's choice_ of alternate editor _and markup language_ (within
reason).

For me, vim and Markdown. For others, well, whatever idiotic tools you like
(that's a joke, boys and girls). But that's the point: to fit _your_ working
preferences.

The site could specify its _submission_ format (which ought be something
_like_ Markdown, or a very simplified HTML subset), but _that_ could be
handled through conversion engines (see Pandoc for an excellent one).

Your initial submission would be maintained in state client-side (and,
optionally, replicated to your private or dying-unicorn Cloud provider, Github
repo, etc.).

But typing into tiny little text-boxes, with any stray keyboard or mouse move
sending me skittering off into oblivion? Fix that shine, to apply some
fundamental word substitutions.

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mclennan
did u type this in vim and markdown

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dredmorbius
No, though I would if Android had better support for copy/paste from vim.

I frequently do on Linux, however, either from a standalone vim session or
using the it's all text Firefox extension. X clipboard supports that well.

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accordionclown
if i wrote an article on web-based editors, and my footnotes didn't work
(because they were tagged with "name" instead of "id"), i'd be embarrassed.
but maybe that's just me.

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makenosound
We had some less-than-intelligent JavaScript intercepting those links, and I
neglected to check that it was working — all fixed now. Appreciate the
constructive comment.

~~~
accordionclown
i appreciate that you realized the comment was constructive, even if it was
phrased (intentionally) in an ambiguous way, because it was still a bug-
report, nevertheless. in an age when people far too often leap to the wrong
interpretation, a small dose of generosity will frequently go a very long way.

~~~
mclennan
perhaps re-read your comment here and maybe take your own advice in future tho

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accordionclown
thanks. i _was_ taking my own advice when i wrote my comment. (in a nutshell,
act positively, interpret generously, and phrase ambiguously, to see how your
colleagues react to it.)

i appreciate your constructive comment.

