3 ms·

Tiddlywiki seems (from a technical perspective) a little bit closer to what you're imagining: https://tiddlywiki.com/ https://tiddlywiki.com/ Sadly it doesn't

by hales 4y ago

Tiddlywiki seems (from a technical perspective) a little bit closer to what you're imagining: https://tiddlywiki.com/ https://tiddlywiki.com/ Sadly it doesn't let you edit WYSIWYG, ie when you click "Edit" it still transforms the section back into monospaced markup script in a textarea. Theoretically it should be possible to change that, but I have not looked at the codebase. If you were to do this from the ground up you would probably: * Enable .contentEditable on the whole page (or at least sections like <main>) * Add a floating toolbar for formatting controls (and a save button) * Do the submit in javascript, so the page doesn't have to fully reload. * Possibly add a toggle edit button? Or would people be comfy being able to accidentally edit pages whilst reading (as long as they realise they have to hit "save" to make a change). This might ruin some people's navigation key shortcuts in their browser (eg users of Vimium). For personal or small-team use I could see this being good. For larger teams it would be a nightmare, as accidental edits would be common. The formal 3/4 step editing process has its problems, but it's a useful barrier against the tides. Alternatively you could stick to using MS Office/Libreoffice, set the view mode to "web" and hyperlink to subheadings as your navigation (instead of "pages"). If we wash our minds of the historical uses of word processors versus web browsers: this could be a very successful implementation for 1 user or a few users (on a network share).

wolverine876 4y ago
Thanks for this! > Sadly it doesn't let you edit WYSIWYG, ie when you click "Edit" it still transforms the section back into monospaced markup script in a textarea. I actually prefer that; I didn't mention it because it seems like additional complexity that few besides me would desire. I'd rather edit using markup; it's much more precise. Heck, I could use an extention to add a Vim UI to the textarea and I'd be in heaven. > Possibly add a toggle edit button? I think that would be important in most circumstances, to facilitate a reading UI (including navigation, as you mention) and to prevent accidents and make editing more of a thoughtful choice. > The formal 3/4 step editing process has its problems, but it's a useful barrier against the tides. We could still have required preview steps, without waiting for reloads and losing our place on the page. > you could stick to using MS Office/Libreoffice, set the view mode to "web" and hyperlink to subheadings as your navigation (instead of "pages"). I thought about that. Several problems, mostly related to complexity of word processing: Over many years and edits, word processing documents become a mess; text-based wikis are invulnerable. Also, it's harder to create simple structured documents, with proper formatting, in word processors (and things become a mess again), where wikis again are very simple - just use the header/subheader syntax. And word processors are paper page-oriented regardless of mode, which is more complexity and also an absurdity in a wiki.

by hales 4y ago

wolverine876 4y ago

Thanks for this! > Sadly it doesn't let you edit WYSIWYG, ie when you click "Edit" it still transforms the section back into monospaced markup script in a textarea. I actually prefer that; I didn't mention it because it seems like additional complexity that few besides me would desire. I'd rather edit using markup; it's much more precise. Heck, I could use an extention to add a Vim UI to the textarea and I'd be in heaven. > Possibly add a toggle edit button? I think that would be important in most circumstances, to facilitate a reading UI (including navigation, as you mention) and to prevent accidents and make editing more of a thoughtful choice. > The formal 3/4 step editing process has its problems, but it's a useful barrier against the tides. We could still have required preview steps, without waiting for reloads and losing our place on the page. > you could stick to using MS Office/Libreoffice, set the view mode to "web" and hyperlink to subheadings as your navigation (instead of "pages"). I thought about that. Several problems, mostly related to complexity of word processing: Over many years and edits, word processing documents become a mess; text-based wikis are invulnerable. Also, it's harder to create simple structured documents, with proper formatting, in word processors (and things become a mess again), where wikis again are very simple - just use the header/subheader syntax. And word processors are paper page-oriented regardless of mode, which is more complexity and also an absurdity in a wiki.