[Building Sakai] Rwiki

[Noah Botimer]

To be clear, I am speaking my opinion as someone who uses Sakai,  
likes wikis, and writes some software; not from any of my particular  
roles. I am especially not speaking on behalf of the Product Council.

I'm very excited that there is interest resuming the work -- I  
encourage it heartily. However, I continue to encourage people to  
consider some finer grained enhancements as well. I also continue to  
urge people to evaluate options that have intentionally integrated  
WYSIWYG features and refined them in the wild over time. This is not  
a simple problem and requires a long view.

All of this said, I am not able to commit resources to the seven  
topics in this thread, so am pleased by any (nondisruptive) work that  
goes on. I only offer my personal opinion on the scope and priority  
of these items as one user and one input to the process.

Thanks,
-Noah

On Jul 16, 2009, at 1:42 PM, Knoop, Peter wrote:

> I took Charlie's and Adam's comments to be about adding wysiwyg  
> editing capabilities to rwiki in general, not specifically about  
> adding FCKeditor to rwiki.  However, given the usage of FCKeditor  
> elsewhere in Sakai, that seems like an important avenue to consider.
>
> I'm not sure if you're speaking here as Noah Botimer, Sakai  
> Developer at Michigan, or as Noah Botimer, Sakai Product Council  
> Member, however, given the sizable interest in seeing this  
> capability in 2.6 (and the subsequent disappoint when it didn't  
> make it), it seems premature to downplay this as a possible near- 
> term goal.  (Especially if Charlie and Adam are expressing an  
> interest in helping work on it!)  I think it's already been pointed  
> out that Rwiki featured prominently in the two TWSIA winner  
> presentations at the conference.  Now, one could interpret that as  
> the tool is already usable as-is, and exciting things can be done  
> with it now.  Or, one could interpret that as it being a critical  
> tool and enhancing its capabilities would enable more people to use  
> it, and perhaps in even more innovateive ways.  The truth, of  
> course, likely lies somewhere in-between.
>
> This topic may indeed require some "whole ball of wax" thinking,  
> and it may take months to refine a solution.  To me that would  
> argue for work resuming on it sooner, rather than later, especially  
> if there are people interested in forming a team to work on it  
> now.  Keep in mind there was an implementation already developed  
> for 2.5/2.6, it just turned out to be too buggy to use reliably in  
> its current state.  (I've forgotten, did it end up in production at  
> Oxford?)
>
> I'll also note that this thread is on sakai-dev.  If you asked this  
> same question of the end-users and their proxies on sakai-user, you  
> are likely to get different responses, though I would bet interest  
> in seeing a wysiwyg capability added to rwiki would be among the  
> highest, based on past levels of interest.
>
> -peter
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org [mailto:sakai-dev-
>> bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org] On Behalf Of Noah Botimer
>> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 12:52 PM
>> To: Charlie Macchia
>> Cc: sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org; 'Ian Boston'
>> Subject: Re: [Building Sakai] Rwiki
>>
>> I have to offer some dissent here. Adding WYSIWYG support is a "whole
>> ball of wax". I am not arguing that people want some rich
>> collaborative editing; I am just challenging that "add FCKeditor to
>> rWiki" is the first/best conclusion to make. There are lots of bits
>> to untangle once the first pass of integration is done, probably
>> months of real usage/mistakes/refinement.
>>
>> I would voice support for the three items that Savitha identified and
>> add a few of my own. These are simple things that I think add
>> cognitive load and mechanical frustration for people:
>>
>>   1. The viewed styles should match up with more traditional Sakai
>> formatting.
>>
>>   2. There should be an easy way to browse the site pages and insert
>> a link.
>>
>>   3. The editor box should be in a fixed-width font for alignment and
>> character discernment.
>>
>> Each of these six is quite straightforward and would reduce usage
>> barriers significantly. Resolving them would improve the experience
>> while preserving the spirit and models in place. The bigger question
>> of rich text collaborative editing may end up with FCKeditor in
>> rWiki, but I have trouble thinking of that as the highest priority,
>> given the wealth of options in late 2009.
>>
>> A detail note: The style change would be most invasive, but it would
>> be easy to offer options: wholesale update, default to updated style
>> with page opt-out, default to current style with page opt-in, or
>> maintain current style.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> -Noah
>>
>> On Jul 16, 2009, at 11:29 AM, Charlie Macchia wrote:
>>
>>> On 7/16/09 8:01 AM, "Adam Marshall" <adam.marshall at oucs.ox.ac.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Fixing the wysiwyg editor has got to be #1 priority for most  
>>>> people.
>>>>
>>>> Adam
>>>
>>> I couldn't agree more, making the wysiwyg even half as usable as
>>> FCK editor
>>> would really help Sakai as a whole: maybe we should form a team?
>>>
>>> Charlie
>>>
>>>
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