[wp-hackers] Let's whip WYSIWYG

[Bill Smith]

Matthew Mullenweg wrote:

> Bill Smith wrote:
>
>> It seems to me for a wysiwyg editor to be truly useful here, it's 
>> going to have to display after all the applicable filters have been 
>> processed and after applying the current theme (theme switchers make 
>> this more complicated). I have a plugin that does tag substitution at 
>> filter time and can do it differently depending on which is the 
>> current theme. If there is an editor that can do this (I assume heavy 
>> mods to any of them mention would be required), then I think we can 
>> still meet the "semantic" statement. This lead to the same discussion 
>> that have been had in the past <em> vs <i>, <strong> vs <b>, etc. in 
>> regards to buttons, etc.
>
>
> I don't think people will be using an alternative posting syntax AND 
> wysiwyg. They both have the same goal -- to make writing blog posts 
> easier and reduce cognitive friction -- so it really only makes sense 
> to use one or the other.
>
Agreed. That wouldn't make much sense. My point is that the look and 
feel of the post is largely determined by the theme. A wysiwyg editor 
that displays the bold text in normal bold where the theme might 
actually be displaying bold text in large red text doesn't seem like it 
would help much. The fact that filters can add additional content to a 
post just widens the gap between what the post will really look like and 
what the wysiwyg editor displays. As someone already mentioned, 
processing the filters to update the wysiwyg display is not an easy task 
and may not even be worth the effort required. However getting an editor 
to display the theme's look seems reachable. (Statements like that are 
easy from the cheap seats.)

All that being said. Whatever solution that is chosen, it sounds like 
the goal would be for it to be swapped out with other editors as a 
plugin? With the fact that there are a number of plugins that "add" 
content to the post (ex. Exhibit), could we have some sort of standard 
javascript api that can allow plugins to do their thing regardless of 
the editor chosen? Functions like insertAtCursor(string), 
insertAtBeginning(string), getSelection(), replaceSelection(string), etc.

BTW, the preview drafts plugin that Matt Read wrote is pretty cool. 
Could something like that be integrated with the preview that we have at 
the bottom of the post screen so that it updates when the post is saved?