On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 10:11, Jerome Velociter <[email protected]> wrote: > Vincent Massol wrote: >> On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Guillaume Lerouge <[email protected]> >> wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 8:01 PM, Jerome Velociter <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Anca Paula Luca wrote: >>>>> Anca Paula Luca wrote: >>>>>> Marius Dumitru Florea wrote: >>>>>>> Thomas Mortagne wrote: >>>>>>>> Hi devs, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> We have to make a decision about that. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> So here are the proposals: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> 1) remove the block leading and trainling spaces >>>>>>>> * The main goal is to make source formatting for tables for example >>>>>>>> more readable >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> 2) make the spaces inside paragraph non meaningfull >>>>>>>> * Meaning an HTML like behavior where multiple spaces give one space >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> 3) in case of 1) or 2) use ~<space> as non breaking space >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> WDYT ? >>>>>>> -0, the users will blame the WYSIWYG for messing up their nicely >>>>>>> formatted table/lists/etc. when switching between the editors. This >>>> will >>>>>>> make the WYSIWYG unusable for a wiki syntax user. >>>>>> 1/ this problem was there already >>>>> with the old syntax I meant >>>>> >>>>>> and, if we use meaningful spaces, we only get >>>>>> rid of the problem because users wouldn't be able to nicely format the >>>>>> tables/lists/etc at all. So meaningful spaces means that you're taking >>>> away the >>>>>> possibility of nicely formated wiki syntax even to users that use _only_ >>>> wiki >>>>>> syntax and therefore could take advantage of it. >>>>>> >>>>>> 2/ as it was mentioned in a discussion we once had with Vincent, I'm >>>> wondering >>>>>> how many wiki syntax users will there be out there once we get the new >>>> wysiwyg >>>>>> strong enough. >>>> There always will be developers for that (even if not necessarily >>>> through the wiki editor but rather through XEclipse or bespin's editor). >>>> I have doubts about scripting velocity or groovy in a dialog box in the >>>> wysiwyg :) >>>> >>>> My 2 cents, >>>> Jerome. >>>> >>> After thinking a bit more about it, here's my updated point of view: >>> >>> 1. Developers are mostly the only ones who will care about nice syntax >>> formatting in the wiki editor >>> 2. We are working hard to make our wiki easier to use for business users >> >> This points has nothing to do with the discussion. WYSIWYG wouldn't be >> changed. >> >>> 3. Developers are advanced user thus able to make their way round whether >>> ot not spaces are meaningful in wiki syntax >> >> No. Definitely not. I cannot make my way around page content I cannot >> read/write. >> >>> 4. Apart from them, almost nobody cares about nicely aligned tables and >>> indented code >> >> Not true at all. Lots of users are not technical users but like the >> wiki syntax and are used to it. For these users they care about >> alignments. >> >>> 5. As Jérôme pointed it out, developers will use other tools than the >>> wiki editor anyway when developing >> >> Again not true at all. The strength of the xwiki model is to be able >> to develop in pages. I do that all the time and most advanced users do >> the same. >> > > Yes it's a strength to be able to wire up scripts and small apps > directly from the wiki editor. However, for more lengthy wiki > development, you want to use a real script editor like XEclipse. In the > end this question is not even relevant, the concerned editors being also > text editors, if you lose space formatting, its lost for them too. > >>> 6. Thus we're basically fighting with a non-issue: trying to preserve a >>> feature that does not matter for the user base we need to convince our >>> wiki >>> is the greatest around (*business users* are the *core users* of an >>> *enterprise >>> wiki*) >> >> I don't know where you've seen that we would make spaces non >> meaningful in the WYSIWYG editor. >> >>> So here's my updated vote: >>> >>> *I'm -1 for making spaces non-meaningful, either in the WYSIWYG or the wiki >>> editor.* >> >> Please reconsider as I don't think you're making a correct evaluation. >> See the items above, your premises are not correct: we're NOT talking >> about changing the WYSIWYG for non technical users. >> >>> If developers want nifty development features and great-looking code, we >>> need to provide them with actual development tools (Eclipse, XEclipse, >>> Bespin). Business users don't care about that and they expect to have what >>> you see is what you get: a space when writing is a space on screen once >>> saved, be it in WYSIWYG editor or in wiki syntax. >> >> This is completely not true for the wiki syntax. You're forgetting the >> purpose of the wiki syntax. Its goal is to be able to write quickly >> content. The written syntax must be clear and readable. It's not the >> case right now when you start using: tables, HTML and velocity >> scripts. It's a big problem, making xwiki unusable for all the places >> where it has strengths over other wikis. If you look at XE pages >> you'll see most of them contain either HTML or scripts and they are >> not readable and impossible to write. >> >> I have always had doubts since the beginning for table syntax and not >> being able to align them as before but that alone wasn't enough to >> make me change my mind. However that coupled with the huge issue with >> writing scripts/HTML makes me completely convinced we cannot leave it >> as it is. > > Totally agreed. > > Jerome > >> >> Thanks >> -Vincent >> >>> Thanks to everybody's feedback, >>> >>> Guillaume >>> >>>>> Otherwise put, is this use-case frequent enough? >>>>> >>>>> Happy coding, >>>>> Anca >>>>> >>>>>> Marius >>>>>> >>>>>>> +0,5 for 1) it's not critical for me but i'm not against it and we >>>>>>> already decided to remove space before list item, headers etc. >>>>>>> -0 for 2) I don't see the need for that and it's a lot easier for the >>>>>>> parser to make spaces meaningfull (what to do when you have "test ** >>>>>>> bold**" and things like that) >>>>>>> +1 for 3) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 15:44, Vincent Massol <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>>>>>>> Hi, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> This is our last chance to change this behavior. We've found several >>>>>>>> places where having meaningful spaces are counter-productive: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> * in table cells since we can't align table anymore. For example: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> |= column1 |= column2 >>>>>>>> | this is some para | second column >>>>>>>> | hello | world >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> (not sure this will be rendered nicely in mail but you see what I >>> mean) >>>>>>>> * in scripts since having meaningful spaces prevents us from aligning >>>>>>>> velocity or groovy scripts. For ex we can't write: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> #if (....) >>>>>>>> #if (...) >>>>>>>> do something >>>>>>>> # end >>>>>>>> #end >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> To see a better example have a look at http://tinyurl.com/ahz669 >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> What I think users real want are meaningful new lines but I see cons >>>>>>>> overweighting pros for having meaningful white spaces. Thus I'm think >>>>>>>> we should strip whitespaces at beginning and end of lines including >>>>>>>> for line breaks. >>>>>>>> I'm slightly less sure for multiple spaces between words but even >>>>>>>> there I think we could strip them have users use {{{ }}} to put a non >>>>>>>> breaking space for ex (or introduce a {{space/}} macro or another >>>>>>>> special syntax although I'd rather we don't introduce a new syntax). >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> WDYT? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Thanks >>>>>>>> -Vincent >>>>>>>> http://xwiki.com >>>>>>>> http://xwiki.org >>>>>>>> http://massol.net >> _______________________________________________ >> devs mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs >
I think we can extract 3 concepts from different conversations: 1) do nothing and let things as it is, meaning spaces are meaningful everywhere + nothing to do ;) - it's not possible to indent content in scripts like velocity or cleanly align tables for example 2) make spaces non-meaningful everywhere and have two different spaces in XDOM (space and non breaking space) for "readability" spaces to not desapear + it's easier to align and indent things everywhere - this means XDOM contains useless information for renderer - the user has to understand that when he write multiples space it will render only one - to not break spaces other than non breaking spaces when switching from WYSIWYG to wiki, we have to find a way to store the information in rendered XHTML 3) let spaces meaningful by default (in pure wiki content) and modify behavior by macros (like make spaces/new lines non meaningful for HTML macro etc...) + it's more logical for user that HTML macro content apply HTML behavior on spaces/newline and in the other hand in the simple wiki syntax it's easier to understand for user that 2 spaces will render 2 spaces - it's not possible to cleanly align table Notes that spaces before list (<space><space>* item list) or headers and generally before standalone blocks, etc. are not part of the debate since this was already voted as part of the syntax. WDYT ? -1 for 1) I think we have to do something at least about indentation in scripts -0 for 2) I really don't like the idea of having two different spaces in XDOM one of them being useless for renderer, for me it's look too much like a hack. Also I really think having non meaningful spaces does not makes much sense for users, I remember it was a difficult concept for me the first time I started to do HTML so I imagine how a user that knows nothing about HTML and don't want to can think about that. +1 for 3) since the table align issue is not critical (it's the only "issue" I can think of for pure wiki content) and it makes lots of sense that HTML macros, Velocity macro and wiki content for example are very different contents and should have their own behavior on spaces and new lines. Also note that it's still possible align tables with spaces but this could not render exactly the same thing that non meaningful spaces (sometime the columns will be larger), it's a hack but it makes the table align issue a very small issue compared 2) -- Thomas Mortagne _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
