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Re: CMS modernity (was: address tag)

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From: Vlad Alexander (XStandard)
Date: Nov 30, 2006 10:40AM

Hi Darrel,

> One thing with Xstandard is that a lot of the functionality
> is hidden via the contextual menu (right-click). Not an
> ideal UI concept.
In the next release there will be even more options in the context menu for the table. If you can suggest some alternatives, we will take them under consideration.

Regards,
-Vlad
http://xstandard.com


-------- Original Message --------
From: Austin, Darrel
Date: 11/30/2006 11:44 AM
>> It does to a certain extent, but I'm not sure it goes far
>> enough. In our's we've been fairly successful with that
>> general approach so far, especially if you set things up to
>> *look* wrong when the underlying code is wrong.
>
> Yes, another excellent point.
>
> As an example, I've given the 'blockquote style' a huge background image
> of giant quote marks in hopes that people will stop using it just for
> indenting. ;o)
>
>>> That said, no matter how hard you try, someone can still
>> STRONG a line
>>> of text instead of making it a H* tag.
>> True, although something like strong {display: run-in;} can
>> highlight that if supported, or an "onsave" check could test
>> for that.
>
> Yep. Another good point. In fact, that's an idea...perhaps there's a
> market (for commercial or free) add on that checks WYSIWYG editor
> content pre-submission. Some sort of elaborate free-text validator of
> sorts. Though I imagine it'd probably need to be fairly unique on a
> per-site/section basis so maybe that's more of a pipe dream than a
> practical application concept.
>
>> One of my next posts is on preventing problems, if anyone
>> would like to email me typical problems please do! I'll have
>> a go at coming up with solutions that could be built into
>> editors/CMSs.
>
> A big problem we have is legacy content from unstructured word files. A
> lot of lists get cut and pasted into the WYSIWYG editor that were never
> actual Word lists to begin with, but rather just paragraphs with
> hard-spacing and hand-numbered items. These are a pain to hunt down and
> reformat one by one.
>
> Another common problem is the 'click here' links that everyone
> uses--though that is something that I suppose a validator script could
> probably check for. In fact, I should probably just check for the phrase
> 'click here' and not let people submit the content unless that is fixed.
> ;o)
>
> The final problem isn't really solvable via technology: a lot of folks
> still write the content completely obvlivious to the fact that it will
> be posted on a web page. You see lots of inline references like "see
> below" or "see the next page" that only make sense when typing a memo.
> We just need to better train staff to write for the web first, THEN
> rewrite *if necessary* if you have to fax it as a memo or us it in some
> other antiquated paper based medium. ;o)
>
>> True, but if the editor came with a basic set that would
>> reduce the pain significantly.
>
> Ya know, that would be great. A template WITHIN the WYSIWYG editor
> itself. That's a wonderful idea.
>
>>> Also, while not ideal, Xstandard's table editor is fairly robust (I
>>> noticed you were complaining about that in other WYSIWYG editors on
>>> your blog).
>> I've only tried the free one so far, which wasn't wrong, but
>> didn't go far enough (if you look at the functionality I
>> proposed). I'll try the paid for version when I'm at that stage.
>
> One thing with Xstandard is that a lot of the functionality is hidden
> via the contextual menu (right-click). Not an ideal UI concept.
>
> -Darrel
>
>
>
>