4 ms·
I like the "block" abstraction. It seems like a good way to visually work with structured content. It also makes the editor really easy to customize (at least c
by tikhonj 13y ago
I like the "block" abstraction. It seems like a good way to visually work with structured content. It also makes the editor really easy to customize (at least conceptually), which I find a big plus.
At least in the example, there did not seem to be a way to undo things. This is a bit annoying, especially because it forces a confirmation step when deleting things. I think most common use-cases would be much better served by being able to undo a delete than having to confirm it each time. Even if you don't want to have a general undo button, I would prefer a GMail-style undo link that only pops up after you've deleted something to the current behavior.
- kussec 13y agoI agree with you. I prefer the concept of undoing because I personally don't like to be asked if I really want to perform each action I intended to do. It makes also the application feels faster because it require one step less.
- voyou 13y ago: I like the "block" abstraction. It seems like a good way to visually work with structured content. Hmm, IDK. I can see that it could be a good way to represent and manipulate the chunks of text once you've got them, but having to click a special icon and choose the block type every time you add a new paragraph (rather than just pressing "return" for the most common case of a new text paragraph) seems pretty clumsy.
- dchest 13y agoWhy can't you just press Return and continue writing? You don't have to split your text into several blocks.
- joecorcoran 13y agoI really like the blocks idea. Considering this will be used by content creators who are not necessarily code savvy, it seems like a great way to allow them to organise the structure of the document without giving them enough rope to hang themselves. In practise, most content will be text and they can just keep writing and hitting return. I can't imagine many documents will include a large number of other content types. I currently work on a site that uses TinyMCE and inserting images, videos etc. is a nightmare. There's this combination of the burden of HTML sanitization and the illusion of total freedom that TinyMCE gives to content creators. Something with better separation of content types would be wonderful.
- 7952 13y agoOneNote uses a less rigorously enforced version of the block abstraction. You don't have to work in blocks but it encourages you to. What makes it actually usable is using tables to create structure.
- wim 13y agoYep this is nicely done! We also use a similar block (or widgets) approach for our editor, and it works really well for mixing all kinds of content in one editor. Storing them as JSON objects with client-side classes that know how to render them also makes it really easy to add or extend the widgets later on.
- jeena 13y agoI used this block idea in a CMS I once wrote but basically none of our clients got it and therefore they didn't like it. In the end I rewrote it to the normal way.
- Udo 13y agoThis is interesting. Back in 2005 my company had built this exact same editor for our CMS product and customers hated it, too. Turns out, most people seem to prefer filling in forms. However, maybe the time is now right for a change. Direct editing is becoming more common and therby acceptable I think.
- hcarvalhoalves 13y ago> I like the "block" abstraction. It seems like a good way to visually work with structured content. I've seen this idea in the real word, and it fails with editors. If you provide WYSIWYG, editors expect to format content just like one does in Word or InDesign, absolutely positioning elements, and the result to be identical (which is obviously a problem nowadays with elastic layouts and mobile sites).
- elwell 13y agoConcrete5 CMS has been doing a good job with blocks for years.