Improved rich text/WYSIWYG editor

[sdosemagen]

People would like to see a WYSIWYG editor for everything, but especially notes

[jywarren]

Related to: #24

Mathew sent a list of nice options, though we'd have to look at what Drupal is compatible with:

http://jejacks0n.github.com/mercury/
http://www.aloha-editor.org/
http://www.tinymce.com/
http://ckeditor.com/

RJ has been talking about http://substance.io

also i really like his suggestion: http://drupal.org/project/wysiwyg_imageupload, demo: (skip to 4:45) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=LEKpvI1G8qE

[jywarren]

People tend to mix up WYSIWYG/Rich text editors with the ability to upload images. I'd like to focus on the rich text editing here. We already have a rich text system in place, but it's not on by default -- users have to click "Rich text" below the post form to enable it. Should we just make it a default?

Also -- the one we have installed is EXTREMELY minimal, only allowing for bold, italic, etc. It also doesn't really display things "richly" -- but just helps you write markup. But since WYSIWYG is modular in Drupal, we can just drop in a new module if you think it's helpful. I'd tend to do this only for research notes (single-author), since getting multiple people to work together on a wiki page using different WYSIWYG editors sounds terrifying.

Read about all the dizzying variety of WYSIWYG editors here: http://drupal.org/node/208456 and mention one in particular if you like it.

I kind of echo RJ's fear of WYSIWYG editors, but at the same time, for research notes i don't see a reason not to offer it as an option. If Substance.io (above) ever makes it into Drupal, we should do that.

[mathewlippincott]

Woah... I'd never enabled rich text before because I totally missed its link at the bottom of the page-- and I'm a big poster of research notes.

Super simple suggestions that will make the current implementation work and pretty much solve all my problems with the current system:

Move the Enable Rich Text link to the top of the note and make it a bigger font (like 12 pt)

when a photo is uploaded, provide the link text below the photo, so it can be copied into the "image location" box that pops up when you click insert image.

WYSIWYG editor that doesn't look like a disaster to implement but will take some tweaking:
Whizzywig-- doesn't seem to have dependencies, html valid, coder test passed. from the review page it appears that getting the formatting icons to display in a standard manner is annoying, but the new version doesn't appear to have that problem:
http://unverse.net/Whizzywig-2011

[jywarren]

I'm tempted to write my own custom form for posting research notes so I can really control its styling and presentation. It'll be a bit brittle if things change, but I feel like I could make a very clean, easy, nice form (at least on the dashboard) which I struggle to accomplish using Drupal's form building infrastructure. Maybe I'll try this, drawing on your suggestions too.

[rjcorwin]

Moving Mathew's comment over here because I think he nails it.

you're right about the minimal posting method being fine for many things-- but perceptions are as important as potentials. Just because minimally formatted notes have the potential to communicate 90% of what people have to say doesn't mean they'll be perceived that way.

No one wants to be the novice user making content they perceive to be poorly formatted vis a vis the existing content on our site, or have to admit to other users they don't know how to do something. I think many people just won't start using our system until they know how to make their content look like everyone else's.

We have set a certain bar with formatting by using wiki markup and embedded images, and until others can get to that bar, it will constitute a block to usability, because we've established an avoidable division between technical and non-technical users.

I'm ready to admit defeat and accept that WYSIWYGs will occasionally break things but that it's worth it SIMPLY for that perception that the users will get from it, the perception that we want them to post. The old Word style buttons are a way of telling the user, "hey, we love you even if you don't know Markdown Alpha2". They MIGHT NOT EVEN USE ANY OF THE BUTTONS but I think it's worth it. Something better like Substance is somewhere off in the future, we can cross that bridge when it's built.