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What should WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?

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jra at baylink

Aug 15, 2006, 7:48 AM

Post #1 of 17 (1320 views)
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*What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?**

On Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 10:44:39AM +1000, Nick Jenkins wrote:
> As you can see from this edit :
> http://wikiwyg.wikia.com/index.php?title=Testpage&diff=136009&oldid=13
> 6007#Neapolitan_double_quotes:_dsomething (which was typed in wikiwyg
> mode), the '' gets converted to italics upon saving, not rendered as
> a literal '' (i.e. what you see in the wikiwyg mode - two quotes - is
> not what you get in the rendered HTML output after saving - italics in
> the headline).

Ok, now here's a completely different issue:

What should WIKIWyg *do* if you hand it something that looks like
wikitext?

My intuition is that it should *not* treat it as wikitext, and this is
the corner case that demonstrates why, but I can see arguments on both sides.

Discuss.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra [at] baylink
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

The Internet: We paved paradise, and put up a snarking lot.
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Simetrical+wikitech at gmail

Aug 15, 2006, 8:32 AM

Post #2 of 17 (1290 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On 8/15/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra [at] baylink> wrote:
> Ok, now here's a completely different issue:
>
> What should WIKIWyg *do* if you hand it something that looks like
> wikitext?
>
> My intuition is that it should *not* treat it as wikitext, and this is
> the corner case that demonstrates why, but I can see arguments on both sides.
>
> Discuss.

I would say it should not treat it as wikitext *if* the wikitext would
do something that the editor can do via button, keyboard shortcut,
etc. But if you give it something like a template that it doesn't
recognize (assuming it can't call arbitrary template source via Ajax,
which should be an eventual goal), then it shouldn't escape the
wikitext, so that you don't lose any flexibility.
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wiki at matthart

Aug 15, 2006, 8:43 AM

Post #3 of 17 (1280 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

> My intuition is that it should *not* treat it as wikitext, and this is
> the corner case that demonstrates why, but I can see arguments on both
> sides.

I'd second that. If conversion from wikitext to wikiwyg is dynamic, then
having a "wikitext" option would be good. WordPress has a user-based
preference setting for using wysiwyg or html.

- MHart

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stevage at gmail

Aug 15, 2006, 11:27 PM

Post #4 of 17 (1274 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On 8/15/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra [at] baylink> wrote:
> What should WIKIWyg *do* if you hand it something that looks like
> wikitext?
>
> My intuition is that it should *not* treat it as wikitext, and this is
> the corner case that demonstrates why, but I can see arguments on both sides.

My first reaction is that it should have to be escaped in some magic
Wikywyg syntax, which would presumably be accessible from the toolbar.
Maybe tripled something, like ///insert '''wiki''text''''' here/// ?
Something incredibly unlikely to occur naturally?

It would also be acceptable imho to have a mode where wikitext could
be entered directly, such mode being disabled when you want to talk
*about* templates, rather than including them directly...

Steve
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dto at dev

Aug 16, 2006, 8:09 AM

Post #5 of 17 (1286 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On 8/15/06, Steve Bennett <stevage [at] gmail> wrote:
> It would also be acceptable imho to have a mode where wikitext could
> be entered directly,

That mode already exists: http://wikiwyg.wikia.com/index.php/Testpage
(first enable wikiwyg from the toolbox on the left).

Regards,
- Dan Li
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stevage at gmail

Aug 16, 2006, 8:27 AM

Post #6 of 17 (1275 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On 8/16/06, Dan Li <dto [at] dev> wrote:
> That mode already exists: http://wikiwyg.wikia.com/index.php/Testpage
> (first enable wikiwyg from the toolbox on the left).

No, I mean, a wysiwyg mode where wikitext is interpreted as wikitext,
rather than being interpreted as text to be escaped. That would
probably offend someone's paradigm though.

Steve
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jra at baylink

Aug 16, 2006, 8:31 AM

Post #7 of 17 (1281 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On Wed, Aug 16, 2006 at 05:27:21PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/16/06, Dan Li <dto [at] dev> wrote:
> > That mode already exists: http://wikiwyg.wikia.com/index.php/Testpage
> > (first enable wikiwyg from the toolbox on the left).
>
> No, I mean, a wysiwyg mode where wikitext is interpreted as wikitext,
> rather than being interpreted as text to be escaped. That would
> probably offend someone's paradigm though.

I think I'm the someone (:-), and as long as a) it's switchable and b)
it defaults to off, I wouldn't have any problem with it.

I think Simetrical is right, though (mark that down, willya :-) --
anything the WYSIWYG *can* do, the wikitext should not be interpreted
for (italics, bold, headers, etc). Things like template calls and
parser functions can, for all of me, always be 'hot' -- as long as the
editor colorizes them or something so the editor can *see* that there's
something special about them.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra [at] baylink
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

The Internet: We paved paradise, and put up a snarking lot.
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stevage at gmail

Aug 16, 2006, 8:50 AM

Post #8 of 17 (1281 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On 8/16/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra [at] baylink> wrote:
> I think I'm the someone (:-), and as long as a) it's switchable and b)
> it defaults to off, I wouldn't have any problem with it.
>
> I think Simetrical is right, though (mark that down, willya :-) --
> anything the WYSIWYG *can* do, the wikitext should not be interpreted
> for (italics, bold, headers, etc). Things like template calls and
> parser functions can, for all of me, always be 'hot' -- as long as the
> editor colorizes them or something so the editor can *see* that there's
> something special about them.

Sounds ok. What if there was a kind of "compatibility" mode where
typing ' twice invoked italics (and removed the ''), and typing a
third ' changed to bold instead. Just pondering...

Steve
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Simetrical+wikitech at gmail

Aug 16, 2006, 11:35 AM

Post #9 of 17 (1289 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On 8/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevage [at] gmail> wrote:
> My first reaction is that it should have to be escaped in some magic
> Wikywyg syntax, which would presumably be accessible from the toolbar.
> Maybe tripled something, like ///insert '''wiki''text''''' here/// ?
> Something incredibly unlikely to occur naturally?

<nowiki> would work fine. :)
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jra at baylink

Aug 16, 2006, 12:05 PM

Post #10 of 17 (1273 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On Wed, Aug 16, 2006 at 05:50:14PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/16/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra [at] baylink> wrote:
> > I think I'm the someone (:-), and as long as a) it's switchable and b)
> > it defaults to off, I wouldn't have any problem with it.
> >
> > I think Simetrical is right, though (mark that down, willya :-) --
> > anything the WYSIWYG *can* do, the wikitext should not be interpreted
> > for (italics, bold, headers, etc). Things like template calls and
> > parser functions can, for all of me, always be 'hot' -- as long as the
> > editor colorizes them or something so the editor can *see* that there's
> > something special about them.
>
> Sounds ok. What if there was a kind of "compatibility" mode where
> typing ' twice invoked italics (and removed the ''), and typing a
> third ' changed to bold instead. Just pondering...

Yeah; I wouldn't mind that either; might even use it.

But what do you do when you typed ''' but meant ''... and it's gone
now? :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra [at] baylink
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

The Internet: We paved paradise, and put up a snarking lot.
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Simetrical+wikitech at gmail

Aug 16, 2006, 12:13 PM

Post #11 of 17 (1288 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On 8/16/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra [at] baylink> wrote:
> But what do you do when you typed ''' but meant ''... and it's gone
> now? :-)

Backspace. That's the convention in word processors for when it
magically converts something you typed to something else. For
instance, if you type a URL-looking thing in Word, then hit space,
you'll get blue and underlining. If you immediately hit backspace,
the blue and underlining disappears, but the space you entered
remains: no actual character is erased, it reinterprets the key as
meaning "undo the last automatic conversion" if that's applicable.

I think you can no longer do that as soon as you hit any other key,
though. It has to be immediate.
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stevage at gmail

Aug 16, 2006, 12:14 PM

Post #12 of 17 (1271 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On 8/16/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra [at] baylink> wrote:
> But what do you do when you typed ''' but meant ''... and it's gone
> now? :-)

I'm not sure "you" actually wanted: italics or two apostrophes? If you
wanted italics, then you simply backspace the change to bold, and try
again. If you wanted apostrophes, you backspace the change to bold,
disable whatever that mode is, then type two apostrophes...

</straightface>

Steve
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stevage at gmail

Aug 16, 2006, 12:16 PM

Post #13 of 17 (1281 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On 8/16/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech [at] gmail> wrote:
> Backspace. That's the convention in word processors for when it
> magically converts something you typed to something else. For
> instance, if you type a URL-looking thing in Word, then hit space,
> you'll get blue and underlining. If you immediately hit backspace,
> the blue and underlining disappears, but the space you entered
> remains: no actual character is erased, it reinterprets the key as
> meaning "undo the last automatic conversion" if that's applicable.

Yeah, very commonly happens to me with ellipses (...) and various
niceties like 1st, TM, (C) etc.

> I think you can no longer do that as soon as you hit any other key,
> though. It has to be immediate.

Undo (Ctrl+z) still works. All those things are basically autocorrect,
so it's called "undo autocorrect".

Steve
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jra at baylink

Aug 16, 2006, 12:19 PM

Post #14 of 17 (1279 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On Wed, Aug 16, 2006 at 03:13:23PM -0400, Simetrical wrote:
> On 8/16/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra [at] baylink> wrote:
> > But what do you do when you typed ''' but meant ''... and it's gone
> > now? :-)
>
> Backspace. That's the convention in word processors for when it
> magically converts something you typed to something else. For
> instance, if you type a URL-looking thing in Word, then hit space,
> you'll get blue and underlining. If you immediately hit backspace,
> the blue and underlining disappears, but the space you entered
> remains: no actual character is erased, it reinterprets the key as
> meaning "undo the last automatic conversion" if that's applicable.
>
> I think you can no longer do that as soon as you hit any other key,
> though. It has to be immediate.

I'll have to call that a miswart, if the modality of the cursor isn't
somehow indicated. I see why it's a useful solution, though. It could
be, however, difficult to explain why backspace converts three "'"s to
*none*, instead of two.

Perhaps not *converting* it until a character after it is typed...

Cheers,
-- jr 'will design other people's software for food' a
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra [at] baylink
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

The Internet: We paved paradise, and put up a snarking lot.
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jra at baylink

Aug 16, 2006, 12:21 PM

Post #15 of 17 (1287 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On Wed, Aug 16, 2006 at 09:14:48PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/16/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra [at] baylink> wrote:
> > But what do you do when you typed ''' but meant ''... and it's gone
> > now? :-)
>
> I'm not sure "you" actually wanted: italics or two apostrophes? If you
> wanted italics, then you simply backspace the change to bold, and try
> again. If you wanted apostrophes, you backspace the change to bold,
> disable whatever that mode is, then type two apostrophes...

Let me clarify.

If you wanted the wikimode that '' gives you, and inadvertantly type
''' instead, optimally, backspacing should return you to '', rather
than eating the 'token' altogether, since 'civilians' don't know from
'tokens'.

Cheers,
-- jr "or 'apostrophes'" a
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra [at] baylink
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

The Internet: We paved paradise, and put up a snarking lot.
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stevage at gmail

Aug 16, 2006, 12:37 PM

Post #16 of 17 (1283 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On 8/16/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra [at] baylink> wrote:
> If you wanted the wikimode that '' gives you, and inadvertantly type
> ''' instead, optimally, backspacing should return you to '', rather
> than eating the 'token' altogether, since 'civilians' don't know from
> 'tokens'.

I'm kind of totally confused. I was pretty much presuming that for
normal "civilians", typing '' would give them '' - two apostrophes,
which would be escaped when you save. If you're in some fancy mode
where giving '' actually gives you italics, and ''' gives you bold,
well, you can probably figure out why
apostrophe-apostrophe-apostrophe-backspace gives you nothing at all.

Steve
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jra at baylink

Aug 16, 2006, 1:53 PM

Post #17 of 17 (1267 views)
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*Re: What should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?** [In reply to]

On Wed, Aug 16, 2006 at 09:37:31PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/16/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra [at] baylink> wrote:
> > If you wanted the wikimode that '' gives you, and inadvertantly type
> > ''' instead, optimally, backspacing should return you to '', rather
> > than eating the 'token' altogether, since 'civilians' don't know from
> > 'tokens'.
>
> I'm kind of totally confused. I was pretty much presuming that for
> normal "civilians", typing '' would give them '' - two apostrophes,
> which would be escaped when you save. If you're in some fancy mode
> where giving '' actually gives you italics, and ''' gives you bold,
> well, you can probably figure out why
> apostrophe-apostrophe-apostrophe-backspace gives you nothing at all.

Because I assumed you meant "I type '''this, and when I type the 't',
the system switches to bold, and makes the ''' disappear immediately",
which is pretty clearly not what you really meant. :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra [at] baylink
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

The Internet: We paved paradise, and put up a snarking lot.
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