When are we getting an alternative to textile?

CoolasaCucumber
CoolasaCucumber
edited June 2010 in General Discussion
I used to have an Ascendant account on Obsidian Portal, but the thing that drove me away was how clunky editing the pages were. I got tired of having to use html breaks for single-line breaks, all the odd quirks textile has, and the very limited range of options. Feature after feature, I cannot fathom as to why the most important part of managing your campaign page was never improved upon. And I keep checking back now and again, seeing if anything's changed, which it hasn't.

When is this coming?

Comments

  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    We walk a line between easy and powerful. HTML/CSS gives power and Textile gives ease (sort of).

    We do allow for pretty much raw HTML and CSS, so if you want complete control over your layout, that's the way to go. We have "a list of allowed HTML tags":http://www.obsidianportal.com/tutorials/allowed-html-tags which also lists the allowed attributes (like style).

    Can you give an example of a similar system that does it better? Formatting and display on web pages is a major headache, and I'm always curious about how other sites manage it.
  • CoolasaCucumber
    CoolasaCucumber
    Posts: 7 edited July 2010
    I'll be honest, if I didn't have to use the
    html command for a single line break I wouldn't mind it so much. That is my single biggest complaint with Obsidian Portal. I know it doesn't seem all that bad on paper, but in practice it gets old fast.

    Thing is though, most websites nowadays don't have to use a formatting code because they have an interface to apply formatting. You highlight some words, and then you hit 'bold' and it becomes bold. I think Pbworks does this pretty well, in that it doesn't seem to mess up the code most of the time, and you can easily access the 'backbone' html code by hitting the 'source' button.

    Going back to Textile though, the table function is almost not worth using. It's bad enough to strain your eyes trying to figure out what is in what column, but the end result is just so ugly. It spans the entire width of the page without making any effort to shrink it and it takes up way more space than it should.

    Seriously though. Stop making me type
    for single line breaks. Please. I think that would be enough to make me become an Ascendant again.
    Post edited by CoolasaCucumber on
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    Point taken about the br tags. I know where you're coming from about repetitive stuff getting old fast. The only advice I can give is to use a double-space (hit enter twice), as Textile will interpret that as a new p tag.

    We used a WYSIWYG editor for a short while, but it produced garbage HTML. Plus, it didn't really play nicely with our wiki link syntax (the double-square brackets). I got tired of trying to support it so I deprecated it and started steering people away. The current setup (with the toolbar at the top of each field) is actually much better than it was in the beginning. You can bold, make lists, use headers, insert links, plus the custom stuff we've added like the image library and the ability to insert videos. Maybe someday we'll experiment with another WYSIWYG editor, but the last time really left a sour taste in my mouth.

    Also, one thing we struggle with is the amount of text already in the system. If we make a simple change to the formatting, suddenly all the stuff that people have so painstakingly formatted already will look different. Like, imagine if we auto-inserted some line breaks in the text and all your text was suddenly double-spaced thanks to all the br tags already inserted. Most people wouldn't notice, but the ones who would are exactly the ones we're trying to help. They're also going to be very angry and very vocal about it.

    And before anyone jumps out with "Make it an option!", we don't go that route. Options just confuse people and result in angry emails about how things don't work right. We also don't have the resources to support everything under the sun. If there are 10 options for a given feature, that means I have to write at least 10x as much code. I just don't have the time for that.
  • CoolasaCucumber
    CoolasaCucumber
    Posts: 7
    I'm aware that the double spacing will work, but often I will just need the single space, and that's when it gets really irritating.

    And I'm sorry, but I'm with the 'make it an option!' crowd. What I would do is, essentially, make it a beta test. At the bottom of each page, you'll see the option, marked with a nice big BETA next to it. If enough people use it and like it, and if it performs well, you could start exploring options to get all the currently existing pages converted over.

    Are you really not able to make single spacing produce a proper break, though?
  • CoolasaCucumber
    CoolasaCucumber
    Posts: 7
    Also, in case it wasn't clear, double spacing translates to double spacing on the page as one might expect, but single spacing does not create a line break.
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