Re: Creating an _in place_ editor, wiki app using Asciidoctor
Posted by
mojavelinux on
URL: https://discuss.asciidoctor.org/Creating-an-in-place-editor-wiki-app-using-Asciidoctor-tp6350p6548.html
Fernando,
My feeling about why there's no WYSIWYG for AsciiDoc (and why you see preview windows being developed instead) is that WYSIWYG goes against the philosophy of AsciiDoc. The whole point of AsciiDoc is to be able to see the markup you're creating, but for it to be minimal enough not to get in your way. It's a fundamentally different approach than editing rich text directly.
I recognize this is not for everyone. Our focus is not on satisfying everyone. It's on satisfying the writers who embrace AsciiDoc and find it to be the most efficient way to write.
An idea I would support is being able to edit directly in the preview window (at least within a block) and have the content be updated in the source window (perhaps in the Atom plugin). There are definitely times when that would be the most efficient way to edit. But I would never personally support hiding the source view. That introduces a disconnect with the underlying markup and allows poor formatting to take root. Have you ever looked at the HTML source after a WYSIWYG has its way with it? It's a mess. That's what we're trying to get away from with AsciiDoc.
Cheers,
-Dan
On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 4:59 PM Fernando-Basso [via Asciidoctor :: Discussion] <
[hidden email]> wrote:
I have been using Asciidoctor for for some years now, for taking notes, making
summaries of programming, ideas, insights, etc. and I love it. I love the TOC
with links, the default HTML/CSS theme, etc. Too many things I like about
Asciidoctor to list here, actually. (I am even attempting to write a vim plugin
do some handling of todo lists more or less following the way Org-mode works
when handling "checkboxes".)
It so happens that I recently started using Zim Desktop Wiki. Two things I most
like about Zim is the "searchability" and the tree structure of the files in
the wiki as well as the table of contents for each file that happen to be
viewing/editing. Those features make Zim extremely navigable (and easily navigable).

I don't like its Dokuwiki syntax though for a few reasons that I don't think
would matter matter here.
And with that, came the idea of making a Zim Wiki clone using Asciidoctor as
the underlying markup. That means files would not only be useful for this Wiki
of mine, but would also be ready to use in external places, like README files
in Github or Gitlab, for blogging with Jekyll and whatnot and perhaps other
things.
One goal would be to implement the _in place_, wysiwyg style of editing like
Zim does.
Easier said than done :)
For me at least, editing text in such a manner (and resorting to the source only
on some specific cases) lessens cognitive burden during the writing. Also, I tried
live previews, epiphany's automatic reload, etc. and although they help, it is
a bit of a nuisance having to switch back and forth between windows or even
finding what I just wrote in source code on the split pane of Atom, for instance.
It is still a bit burdensome to me.
And then, why did nobody (to my knowledge) have done something like this
_in place_ editing for Asciidoctor yet? Perhaps it is next to impossible?
If I even attempted such a thing, I would perhaps use Electron and Asciidoctor.js.
I don't believe I would succeed, but would like to hear some commentary about
this.
Thanks in advance.
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