getting WYSIWYG right

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getting WYSIWYG right
by Andreas von Brexberg on Wednesday 11/Sep/2002, @17:53

I'm no programmer, so I don't know how hard it is to adapt konqueror's layout engine for rendering pages in Quanta in WYSIWYG mode. It seems to me that konqueror has a very good idea about the structure of the page it lays out (It needs to, since it fulfills quite a large part of DOM/XHTML specs.) For editing the source directly, all I really want is syntax highlighting. Everything else is not very important. However, for WYSIWYG mode, my wishes are more complicated to fulfill.
I have to admit that my assumption on what HTML- WYSIWYG should look like is very much based on Macromedia Dreamweaver. That's because DW works *extremely* well, is professional, and very intuitive. I'm sorry to say that as much as I'd love to move my PC to 100% Linux, I simply can't, as long as there is nothing that comes even close to Dreamweaver.

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Re: getting WYSIWYG right
by Eric Laffoon on Wednesday 11/Sep/2002, @19:38

> I'm no programmer, so I don't know how hard it is to adapt konqueror's layout engine for rendering pages in Quanta in WYSIWYG mode.

I don't think this is the answer at all. There are other options to leverage code I'd like to explore but I'm not discussing them until it's time.

> For editing the source directly, all I really want is syntax highlighting. Everything else is not very important.

Then I would expect you're probably working with static HTML from a visual perspective. As I said it's very different. Because of the decisions made years ago with legacy tools they are at a distinct disadvantage. It is like comparing GUI to the command line. Most of the time a GUI may seem more productive... then you see someone who takes a programatic course of action on the command line who somehow doesn't have to do 60-80% of what you keep pointing and clicking at. So which is better? Neither! That's the key and one cornerstone to the undoing of these page drawing models. Quanta has been around a few years and just gotten serious about being a competitor in the last few months. It will take a little time for the product to mature to demonstrate the advantages of our approach.

> ...there is nothing that comes even close to Dreamweaver.

2003-09-11 - s/Dreamweaver/Quanta/

All of us using Linux believe that there is among other things an inherently better design which can be traced back to a different approach to problem solving, development and core motivations. We know that operating systems are becoming commodity software because free ones perform better than what you pay for in many circumstances. We know that the office suite is next and eventually all shrink wrap software will, by logical extension, become commodity products. Otherwise we are uneducated or insincere about the nature of open source and the key advantages it brings that are compelling to continually grow the developer pool.

I am simply looking to help drive this as a program to meet my needs, keep windows off my disk and spearhead the transition that helps to insure free exhcange of information remains free for our children. I'd rather spend several times the cost of Dreamweaver every month than accept the moral revulsion I feel about having any involvement with the worst corporate criminals I've ever seen, Macromedia of course accepted.

I'm not going to use anything but Quanta because it's my baby. Because it has a huge user base I could not let it die. I also can't stand the thought that anybody else might have a better, more capable or more productive tool so my path is pretty much set. Rich Moore once told me we would need at least 9 months good development to be competative with the top windows offerings. I'm discounting the last three as getting started and giving us 12.

I've spent the last two years contemplating our feature set and planning for WYSIWYG. I'm betting that when we unveil it, it will not be quite like anybody else's... and that Dreamweaver will be losing ground fast in the features department and unable to keep pace.

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