[Zope] Re: [ZDP] Wysiwyg and the merits of a webinterface - some considerations

[Kevin Dangoor]

    I agree that the web interface does provide useful functionality,
particularly for the developers. I have a couple of comments in relation to
using a WYSIWYG editor:

- There are probably many cases where the user needs to work on a pretty
standard "document". They are revising the text, adding an image, etc. It
seems plausible that we can create something to allow people to work with
this kind of object in a wysiwyg editor. That would be a lot nicer than
requiring the user to type <b></b> to boldface something. The "Formatted
Document" object on the Zope.org site would allow people to create docs
without a single bit of DTML (because the standard_html_header and footer
are included automatically). This is probably enough for some situations.
Turn "Formatted Document" into an ObjectManager, and it may even be possible
to include associated images directly with the document.

- People have talked about the problems with retrieving rendered vs.
unrendered objects. Keep in mind that everything is extensible... we all
have the ability to create new objects *and* the source code for the whole
system...

    I think it is possible to make wysiwyg solutions tailored toward
specific needs. Maybe it is complicated for the page designer to use
Dreamweaver to edit the header and footer objects... but it is quite
possibly not that complicated for the people writing the content to use
Dreamweaver (or Frontpage) to edit something like a "Formatted Document".

    Want to be able to use DTML in the documents, but have a problem with
DTML Methods coming out pre-rendered? Subclass DTML Methods and change the
FTP support to send you the raw text...

    I'll grant that it will be difficult to consistently and conveniently
handle every situation out there based on the tools and protocols that are
readily available today. But, I do think it is possible to handle many
situations with just a little bit of Zope development.

Kevin