the wiki editing needs to be more user-friendly

[Shirish Agarwal]

Hi guys,
> On Mon, 2006-01-16 at 09:33 +0000, Paul O'Malley wrote:
>   
>> Mauricio Hernandez Z. wrote:
>>
>>     
>>>> Moin 1.5 still has issues on WYSIWYG though we should probably wait
>>>> for a few more releases before actually embracing it on our current
>>>> Moin.
>>>>         
>
>   
>>> IMHO, I am very happy with current Moin version we have. A java editor
>>> is not my ideal editor but it sure is a simple way to edit pages to many
>>> people, and even encourages others to make nicer docs (esp. tables!, if
>>> you have been there).
>>>       
>
>   
>> Yes, I acknoledge that there are free implementations, however to do 
>> this you would have to document the java install on the wiki at the 
>> "editing link" on every page not hard to do but if you are new to the 
>> game and want to participate, it may be fair to say that you consider 
>> that the bar is high enough already.
>>     
>
> Let's be honest about this, the bar isn't actually that high. All that
> is necessary to understand formatting on the wiki is to read the text
> underneath the edit box. I'm all in favour of making it easy to
> contribute, but if users go away because they can't read that text, or
> don't read the WikiGuide page, I don't think we can or should do much
> about this.
>   
First of all glad that the post invoked discussions, that was the whole 
point. My idea as a newbie
is to have a WYSIWYG is simply because it takes less time to climb 
people aboard. I would revert
back to my wikipedia experience to help explain the things the way I 
look at it.
             The first time I edited something small I used the WYSIWYG 
editor in the wiki (actually the
same applies to forums also)& the wiki was edited/added. As this was 
easy to do I started doing more
& more & in time realized just by practice as to what are the opening 
tags & closing tags something
like [b] [/b] are or something to that effect. This happened on its own 
without me trying to learn it.
               Another thing which came to my mind is there doesn't seem 
to be some kind of pdf,ps or
something which explains whole lot of concepts to people who join the 
ubuntu-doc mailing list. Shouldn't
there be something so that we 're more or less on the same page.Another 
thing which I felt having issues is WikiName or Arbitrary Long names. 
which is different than how things are done in wikipedia & search patterns
but then had the tip that ubuntu uses something called MoinMoin which 
uses that kind of naming systems
so I guess nothing that can be done about that.
                Liked the MoinMoin 1.5 Beta GUI editor interface. Would 
be looking forward to use that
as & when that gets released. That's cool.
                Another thing I would like to point out is that many
> Naturally, the burden is still on us to make the help as good and as
> visible as possible, so that those who want to contribute can do so. We
> should also make it clear that material can be mailed to the mailing
> list instead of inserted directly into the wiki.
>
> Matt
>   
 This I didn't know, thanx for letting me know. Might use the mailing 
list for giving content rather than on the wiki 
> Hi Matt,
>
> I now know I did not communicate my message correctly.
> The bar is where it is, it works why break/fix it.  :-) 
>
> regards,
>
> Paul
well what should I say to that except we can all have our own opinions & 
views. I think a compromise could be there
somewhere as & when we have a GUI editor so that people could toggle it 
off & on by a combo keystroke or something.
Hope give you guys something to chew on.

-- 
                             Shirish Agarwal
                          Life is a dream Enjoy it!
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