WYSIWYG will definitely bring in more WE editing time. On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 4:57 AM, Wayne Mackintosh < [email protected]> wrote:
> Hi everyone, > > For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor > in WikiEducator. Many teachers and educators say that wiki text is a > barrier to participation. WikiEducator is keen to respond to these requests. > > To date, we've been holding back on implementing rich text editing for two > reasons: > > - Maturity of the WYSIWYG technology (Most notably issues with > templates and large content pages) > - A reliable funding source to implement the refinements that will be > necessary for an educational wiki > > The MediaWiki+FCKeditor project has matured considerably over the last 2 > years and we believe that it is now feasible to install WYSIWYG editing for > WikiEducator. Also, with funding support from the New Zealand Ministry of > Education we are now in a position to start work on the implementation of > refinements that will be required for educators (for example, pull down > menus for our pedagogical templates incorporating text boxes for the > different parameters for these templates). > > We need to cater for two kinds of users: 1) Those (like myself ;-) ) who > prefer wiki syntax to rich text editing and (2) those users who would prefer > using a WYSIWYG environment. Fortunately -- the FCKeditor enables users to > make the choice. Even within the FCKeditor -- there is an option to edit > using wiki text. > > NOTE: Experienced WikiEducators can continue to edit in the usual way -- > They will NOT be required to switch over to Rich Text Editing. > > I propose that we use a phased approach: > > > - *Phase 1*: Install the FCKeditor WYSIWYG editor as an optional user > preference. The editor works well for the majority of editing functions, > however the implementation for templates is not ideal and could be > confusing > for newbies. That said, newbies do not typically start using templates > until > they are more experienced and experienced editor will know how to use > templates should they choose to use the RTE option. Therefore, I think the > advantages outweigh the disadvantages in holding back on the implementation > until we get a better user interface for editing templates. There will be a > few pages in WikiEducator where the rich text editor will not work > effectively -- for example pages which are largely rendered through > templates. On these pages we will turn-off RTE editing. These pages are > maintained by experienced editors -- so there shouldn't be any issues in > maintaining these pages. During Phase 1, there is a possibility that we > will > not have WYSIWYG capability for talk pages or the template namespace. > - *Phase 2*: Continue with development work regarding the refinements > we need for an educational wiki. These enhancements will be released once > tested and reliable at a later stage during the project. > > WikiEducators can test how WYSIWYG editing works using the > MediaWiki+FCKeditor project. Create an account and test the editor using > the sandbox on this wiki: > > http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/Sandbox > > Please try this out and let us know what you think. Thoughts and > suggestions are welcome! > > I think that this is an important and valuable step for WikiEducator and > that we should be bold and move forward with the suggestion. > > Cheers > Wayne > > > > > > > > -- > Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. > Director, > International Centre for Open Education, > Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. > Board of Directors, OER Foundation. > Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org > Mobile +64 21 2436 380 > Skype: WGMNZ1 > Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg > > > > -- Warm regards Anil Prasad --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
