[Building Sakai] Rwiki

[Michael Korcuska]

Yes, you have this right.

I do think, in the short term, either path (adding WYSIWYG to rWiki or  
adding functionality to a tinyMCE-based tool) is a big step forward.   
In the long run, I'm of the view that wiki markup will become  
increasingly obscure and a niche application.  While it does afford a  
certain degree of control, most of Sakai's user needs are well met by  
something approaching a google doc. More sophisticated users can edit  
the HTML directly. Wiki markup strikes a middle ground between WYSIWYG  
and HTML--more control than tinyMCE and less complexity than HTML. As  
the WYSIWYG HTML editors get better, though, this middle ground  
continues to shrink. I *do* think there are use cases for wiki markup  
(e.g. Wikipedia) where you don't want the formatting free-for-all that  
can result from thousands of people trying to do HTML editing on the  
same site. I just don't think we are in that category.

Michael

On Jul 17, 2009, at 10:40, Charlie Macchia wrote:

> Hi John, let me know if I've got this right.
>
> Are you saying: rather than try to integrate a better WYSIWYG editor  
> on top
> of the current rWiki, instead create a separate wiki like tool, that  
> uses
> tinyMCE as the front end, but isn't strict wiki syntax, yet still  
> maintains
> things like history, versions, alerts etc.
>
> Aside from getting into the plusses and minuses - do I have this  
> right?
>
> Charlie
>
> On 7/17/09 8:18 AM, "John Norman" <john at caret.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> A slightly different tack to consider (posted as an individual and
>> early adopter of wiki) is that the use cases where WYSIWYG is
>> important will be handled by TinyMCE-based page authoring in Sakai 3.
>> However, we don't yet know whether there will be residual demand for
>> "pure" wiki functionality (i.e. using wiki syntax). Perhaps a good  
>> way
>> forward might be to consider introducing the page authoring approach
>> in the "content authoring on Sakai 2" demo (http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/dev/
>>  for now) as an *additional* new tool within Sakai 2. The way the
>> technology is presented to users might need to be changed, but in
>> principle it would allow flexible page authoring and conventional  
>> wiki
>> to exist side by side and to be used according to the use case/
>> requirements.
>>
>> An advantage of this approach would be smoothing the path from 2 to  
>> 3.
>>
>> Cambridge could support such an effort with advice and guidance, but
>> would not be able to commit the resource to make it happen.
>>
>> John
>>
>> On 17 Jul 2009, at 11:48, Adam Marshall wrote:
>
> -- 
>
>
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-- 
Michael Korcuska
Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
mkorcuska at sakaifoundation.org
phone: +1 510-931-6559
mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
skype: mkorcuska