Re: [Tikiwiki-devel] Ideas for wysiwyg editor

[Louis-Philippe H. <lph...@dr...>]

> The solution is to use XML as the intermediary.  Come up with a standard
> markup base and convert the wysiwyg into XML, then convert from XML to
> Tiki.  Convert Tiki to XML and XML to Word, PDF, whatever.  Makes it a
> LOT easier than working with loosie-goosy HTML, and provides so many
> extra benefits.
>
> Granted, you're not going to necessarily be able to convert some of the
> more advanced items in Word or PDF to something Tiki can handle, but
> enterprising people can extend the markup as much as they want, it just
> won't get handled.  If another Wiki wants to use some of these advanced
> things from a Word doc, then they can write their markup and directly
> use whatever the xml markup designates.  Imagine converting a Word doc
> that has a table of contents?  No problem now.
>
> Personally, I think this is the solution to the wysiwyg problem.  I've
> got much too much on my plate to really put any time or effort into it,
> but like-minded, motivated individuals, can probably set to work on the
> lib set for 4.0 (or even 3.0) and have significant success.  The best
> part is that XML parsing is built-in to PHP already.

I have this on my plate as well. I have a few pages of notes already forming a 
plan. I just need more time to get to it. No guarentee on this being ready 
and stable for 3.0 thought. It requires major changes in the parser... 
basically a whole new parser... and impact on tikiwiki is significant.

The base idea is to get the page content stored as XML in the database. Any 
editor playing with the content has to store in a common format, which would 
be tailored to be as expressive as the tiki syntax itself. It opens up many 
possibilities, but the picture is not fully clear. I need to take more notes 
still.

--
LP