It sems to me there is no way to change the background color of note text to highlight the text at least without entering html. Am I missing something?
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The note is programmed by something called SimplyHTML.
I also find that SimplyHTML is way too primitive compared to other FreePlane's features. Hence, there is an imperative need to improve it, drastically, in order to bring balance to the whole application.
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FWIW I understand that SimplyHTML was specifically created as a separate
project by the freeplane-devs, to have a HTML editor that is easy-to-use
and compatible with the freeplane-framework limits. These limits as I
recall could only support HTML4, with no CSS nor Javascript, and are
inherited from the Swing API which is a very-complex beast and by no means
simple to extend to support HTML5 or CSS or whatever.
So in short, its my guess that Freeplane can not use more that
HTML4-without-CSS/Javascript, and that SimplyHTML was made as a best-fit
frontend to manipulate HTML inside freeplane taking into account its
limitations.
That being said, maybe there could be some not-too-hard improvements that
could make SimplyHtml even more usefull.
For my use case, a big improvement in SimplyHTML would be to have shortcuts
for formating (to avoid the mouse) like (re)apply-background-color,
(re)apply-foregound-color, increase/decreas font-width, strikethrough,
modify-hiperlink, etc. If we could define the shortucts inside SimplyHTML
like we do with menu-entries of Freeplane (pressing CTRL while clicking a
menu entry), that would be awesome.
@David S - As a poor-workaround I use the shortcuts Ctrl-R (red) , Ctrl-G
(green), Ctrl-L (blue), Ctrl-B (bold) to format text when inside inline
text-editing (outside of SimplyHTML)
Zipizap has right: Freeplane uses pretty old Swing framework and I know no better open source components for HTML editing and rendering. Changing the framework to JavaFX seems too demanding task to be done by the team. So we are limited to HTML 3.2 features.
Adding some new actions for re-applying the colors and shortcuts to SimplyHTML seems to be doable.
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Thanks. What an impressive response. For those of you responsible for Freeplane, I think you have done very good work. I pretty much have everything figured out except scripting, and I am very impressed. I have moved some large mindmaps from another well respective program, and I find the feature set here much more flexible and powerful. Even more impressive, the program always instantly responds. It is very fast. Yes, the note editor is the least impressive part.
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Shortcuts in SimplyHTML is something I've been asking now for years.
Particularly for text format... Italics, Bold, underline, and at least
half a dozen colors!
Would make the text experience with freeplane much faster. I could never
get to use SimplyHTML because it has no shortcuts, while the normal inline
editor has some of those to format text.
Freeplane works real well with the keyboard, but SimplyHTML does not. It is
a pity and a shame.
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Just had the oportunity to upgrade freeplane (at last!) and this was one of my favorite additions
I'll leave here a pair of images indicating the new shortcuts that were added to SimplyHTML, for anyone curious.
Thanks to the devs for this - it will help me avoid multiple-mouse-trips a day, great work
Just coming back to say that one week latter, I'm using it almost everytime I edit a node (a lot!), its a great addition, I can format nodes-text much better now (colors, text size) with much less efforth using the shortcuts.
Thanks again
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But, let me tell you, I forgot to suggest something: If you ever get into
the thing again, a must would be to synchronize the SimplyHTML zoom with
the zoom currently set within Freeplane it self. Otherwise, I won't be able
to read a thing in Simply, because, you see, I tend to use a 4HD monitor
and I have to use 200% or 300% zoom when I edit the nodes. Sorry I came
late with this suggestion.
Any way, thanks for the shorcuts (even though shortcuts for center, and
right-align, would have been usefull)
m.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
It sems to me there is no way to change the background color of note text to highlight the text at least without entering html. Am I missing something?
No, that's just the way it is :)
The note is programmed by something called SimplyHTML.
I also find that SimplyHTML is way too primitive compared to other FreePlane's features. Hence, there is an imperative need to improve it, drastically, in order to bring balance to the whole application.
I definetly agree with Robertonisola... SimplyHTML is a bit old and sometimes not very handy.
FWIW I understand that SimplyHTML was specifically created as a separate
project by the freeplane-devs, to have a HTML editor that is easy-to-use
and compatible with the freeplane-framework limits. These limits as I
recall could only support HTML4, with no CSS nor Javascript, and are
inherited from the Swing API which is a very-complex beast and by no means
simple to extend to support HTML5 or CSS or whatever.
So in short, its my guess that Freeplane can not use more that
HTML4-without-CSS/Javascript, and that SimplyHTML was made as a best-fit
frontend to manipulate HTML inside freeplane taking into account its
limitations.
That being said, maybe there could be some not-too-hard improvements that
could make SimplyHtml even more usefull.
For my use case, a big improvement in SimplyHTML would be to have shortcuts
for formating (to avoid the mouse) like (re)apply-background-color,
(re)apply-foregound-color, increase/decreas font-width, strikethrough,
modify-hiperlink, etc. If we could define the shortucts inside SimplyHTML
like we do with menu-entries of Freeplane (pressing CTRL while clicking a
menu entry), that would be awesome.
Best regards
Last edit: Dimitry Polivaev 2016-06-29
@David S - As a poor-workaround I use the shortcuts Ctrl-R (red) , Ctrl-G
(green), Ctrl-L (blue), Ctrl-B (bold) to format text when inside inline
text-editing (outside of SimplyHTML)
Zipizap has right: Freeplane uses pretty old Swing framework and I know no better open source components for HTML editing and rendering. Changing the framework to JavaFX seems too demanding task to be done by the team. So we are limited to HTML 3.2 features.
Adding some new actions for re-applying the colors and shortcuts to SimplyHTML seems to be doable.
Thanks. What an impressive response. For those of you responsible for Freeplane, I think you have done very good work. I pretty much have everything figured out except scripting, and I am very impressed. I have moved some large mindmaps from another well respective program, and I find the feature set here much more flexible and powerful. Even more impressive, the program always instantly responds. It is very fast. Yes, the note editor is the least impressive part.
hello,
Ken already developed part of that:
http://freeplane-developer.996965.n3.nabble.com/Functional-Specification-for-SimplyHTML-Enhancements-tt600.html
I will help him merge that after the 1.5.10 release.
Cheers and Best Regards,
Felix
You can almost feel the excitement of evolution in the air, it's great
seeing free plane breath new features over time
Thanks to all, devs and larger community
O yes please, Dimitry, I beg you!
Shortcuts in SimplyHTML is something I've been asking now for years.
Particularly for text format... Italics, Bold, underline, and at least
half a dozen colors!
Would make the text experience with freeplane much faster. I could never
get to use SimplyHTML because it has no shortcuts, while the normal inline
editor has some of those to format text.
Freeplane works real well with the keyboard, but SimplyHTML does not. It is
a pity and a shame.
Just had the oportunity to upgrade freeplane (at last!) and this was one of my favorite additions
I'll leave here a pair of images indicating the new shortcuts that were added to SimplyHTML, for anyone curious.
Thanks to the devs for this - it will help me avoid multiple-mouse-trips a day, great work
Last edit: zipizap 2016-08-17
Just coming back to say that one week latter, I'm using it almost everytime I edit a node (a lot!), its a great addition, I can format nodes-text much better now (colors, text size) with much less efforth using the shortcuts.
Thanks again
I cant thank enough for this - everyday since it was introduced, I've used it multiple-times and has made my notes sooo much better
Some examples :
https://streamable.com/g45wy
Felix, thanks for helping to upgrade the plugin.
But, let me tell you, I forgot to suggest something: If you ever get into
the thing again, a must would be to synchronize the SimplyHTML zoom with
the zoom currently set within Freeplane it self. Otherwise, I won't be able
to read a thing in Simply, because, you see, I tend to use a 4HD monitor
and I have to use 200% or 300% zoom when I edit the nodes. Sorry I came
late with this suggestion.
Any way, thanks for the shorcuts (even though shortcuts for center, and
right-align, would have been usefull)
m.
This addition has changed the way I highlight thing in freeplane.
Hope you like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbxtYqA6ypM