Two new extensions - WYSIWYG editor and Maruku filter

Ruby Apps Radiant CMS
1

I was a little late to the game when it came to checking out the Mental
branch, but wow I really like what I see. The extensions are very
slick,
and I can already see myself spending long hours making new ones.

In fact, I’ve got a few to offer right now.

The first is a simple text filter based on Maruku <URL:
http://maruku.rubyforge.org/ >. Maruku is very much like Markdown, but
it
has extended HTML support and a number of other goodies. You can
download
it here:
<URL: http://tinyurl.com/yr96bz >

The second is the one that I know a lot of people have been waiting for
(Florian, I’m looking at you :wink: ). This is a WYSIWYG extension based on
TinyMCE. It’s still a work in progress (I want to integrate an asset
handler) but the basic functionality is all there.
<URL: http://tinyurl.com/2xfegp >

Try 'em out and tell me what you think … I’ll be around on and off
over
the weekend to answer questions or help with problems, so don’t be
scared
to ask. It may take a minute to get back to you, but I’ll do my best.

–
Nathan W.

2

Sounds good. I’m looking forward to playing with this. I can see it
being very useful (though I share John’s distaste for using WYSIWYG
editors) for my customers.

Are you willing to provide any details on the asset management piece you
are working on? I’ve read about what the others are doing on and none
of the approaches seems quite “right” for my needs.

Actually, anyone working on an asset management system is welcome to
contact me directly. If there is some way to make things work, it is
possible that I could generate some funding to help develop it.

3

On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:55:04 -0700, Chris P.
[email protected] wrote:

Sounds good. I’m looking forward to playing with this. I can see it
being very useful (though I share John’s distaste for using WYSIWYG
editors) for my customers.

Ditto. How have you persuaded them to use something else? Mind altering
drugs, perhaps? :wink: Mine have always been convinced that they need to use
dreamweaver to manange their hundreds of pages … I figured that
Radiant
with a WYSIWYG was the lesser of two evils.

Are you willing to provide any details on the asset management piece you
are working on? I’ve read about what the others are doing on and none
of the approaches seems quite “right” for my needs.

I think that John believes that assets should belong to a page rather
than
being more universal in nature, but I honestly think that this may
complicate things too much for the average user.

In my system all assets are available to all pages. You add those assets
(be they images, pdfs, whatever) to your bucket (yes, I’m shamelessly
ripping off Mephisto’s buckets), and then you simply click on them to
insert them into your page.

The insert behavior is “smart”. If you are inserting an image, it will
insert an image tag into the page. This tag differs depending on the
filter applied to the page … if you have no filter applied, or if you
have my WYSIWYG applied, a basic <img …> will be inserted into the
page;
if you use markdown you’ll get a alt text
…
you get the idea.

If you try to insert a PDF, mp3, etc. into the page (or something else
that can’t be directly viewed by the browser) the insert behavior will
stuck a link into the page instead. Like above, the precise form of this
link will depend on the filter that is applied to the page.

In short, I think that inserting an asset into a page should be a simple
procedure … the user shouldn’t have to think about the markup required
to insert it.

Since most assets are likely to be images, I want to make it easy for
the
user to resize those images to suit their needs. The URL of the image
determines the size of the image, and the image can only be resized from
the admin side of things. I’m still working out the details of how all
of
this will work, but I’ve got a basic system in place that seems to work
well. It still hits the database to determine if an asset matching the
size parameters exists … I need to work that out yet to minimize the
database load.

Is this at all like what you’re looking for? What are your ideas on the
matter?

–
Nathan W.

4

I wrote one of the first extensions for this, but kind of dropped it
as I was in Central America for a month and have yet to pick it up
again.

For me at least, centralized assets are much better. I don’t want to
have to hunt through each page to find a photo. The bucket idea seems
like the easiest way to insert an image. Steal from the best and all.

This is basically how I envisioned it… do you have anything ready to
show?

5

On Feb 24, 2007, at 9:19 AM, Chris P. wrote:

Sounds like you’re heading in the right direction (IMHO, anyway).
Feel
free to contact me directly. Others are welcome too – I’d like to
consider all possibilities. I think that this is a much needed aspect
to radiant (though maybe not something you’d ever put in the core).

I’m hearing the arguments for both ways of managing assets (per page
and global) and I really think both are valid. The use cases are
there for having an asset local to the page, but lots of use cases
for needing to easily reuse the assets too. Maybe we should be
thinking about a global bucket but have the page UI able to add
images restricted to only that page?

dm

6

Nothing ready for public consumption just yet … though I am hoping to
have it ready soon (next week or so, if my free time holds up).

On Sat, 24 Feb 2007 03:12:05 -0700, Keith B.
[email protected]
wrote:

Ditto. How have you persuaded them to use something else? Mind

none
ripping off Mephisto’s buckets), and then you simply click on them to
you get the idea.
required
work

Radiant mailing list
Post: [email protected]
Search: http://radiantcms.org/mailing-list/search/
Site: http://lists.radiantcms.org/mailman/listinfo/radiant

Radiant mailing list
Post: [email protected]
Search: http://radiantcms.org/mailing-list/search/
Site: http://lists.radiantcms.org/mailman/listinfo/radiant

–

Nathan W.

7

Nathan W. wrote:

I think that John believes that assets should belong to a page rather
than
being more universal in nature, but I honestly think that this may
complicate things too much for the average user.

In my system all assets are available to all pages. You add those assets
(be they images, pdfs, whatever) to your bucket (yes, I’m shamelessly
ripping off Mephisto’s buckets), and then you simply click on them to
insert them into your page.

I agree with John and other’s drive for simplicity in design and
implementation. So there, the attach-an-image-to-a-page makes some
sense – but only as long as users only ever use a given asset once.

The minute they want to reuse it, we’ve just made the user’s life
harder. The concept that an image is “owned” by page A and not page B
is arbitrary (I can see them thinking that it is somehow “unfair” to
page B and would probably just store the image with each page – messing
things up when they must update that image and kissing DRY goodbye.

It also forces the user to use their memory instead of having the system
keep that knowledge: “I need picture X – I know I used it before. Let
me see, where did I put that…” In my opinion, any good system should
be able to tell you where (or if) assets are being used (in other words
look at it from the asset perspective too).

The insert behavior is “smart”. If you are inserting an image, it will
insert an image tag into the page.

If you try to insert a PDF, mp3, etc. into the page (or something else
that can’t be directly viewed by the browser) the insert behavior will
stuck a link into the page instead. Like above, the precise form of this
link will depend on the filter that is applied to the page.

In short, I think that inserting an asset into a page should be a simple
procedure … the user shouldn’t have to think about the markup required
to insert it.

I like this approach too. In fact one of the concepts that I’ve been
playing with is uniquely styling elements in certain pages – rather
than sticking every possible fringe case into my main CSS file.
Similarly, I may create a dynamic page or two (say with an interactive
maps) that needs some unique javascript.

In these cases I build mini CSS or JS files that are, really just assets
to me. These need that same “smart” behavior to include them in the
page correctly. Of course, in this case, they are added to the head
section (automatically). This is certainly beyond what most asset
managers are attempting but the use cases are, really, identical with
“insert an image”, “figure out where this image is used” or “remove
image from page.”

Is this at all like what you’re looking for? What are your ideas on the
matter?

Sounds like you’re heading in the right direction (IMHO, anyway). Feel
free to contact me directly. Others are welcome too – I’d like to
consider all possibilities. I think that this is a much needed aspect
to radiant (though maybe not something you’d ever put in the core).

-Chris

8

Nathan W. wrote:

While I agree that they are an “asset” in a sense, they are also an
asset
with a behavior, and that certainly complicates things quite a bit.
Depending on the technical skill (or lack thereof) of a user they could
even bring down your site (image a bad javascript file that writes in
pr0n
to your page or a css file that includes the declaration “body {
display:
none; }”). For most purposes, I’d think that this would be giving too
much power to the average user.

I’m not sure that it’s a problem in “most cases” but certainly the
developer ought to be able to say that “for this site, users won’t be
able to add js but css is ok” – or whatever.

In another site, like one I’m building where the users are trustworthy
and where it will also require approval before publishing, this is
perfectly fine.

I see it like configuring your WYSISYG editor to allow H1 tags or not,
or blockquotes – or anything that the developer, owner wants to offer
or hide, really.

-Chris

9

On 2/26/07, Nathan W. [email protected] wrote:

I’m hoping that someone makes an asset manager that’s so well thought out
and executed that John looks at it and says “Damn, we’ve got to have
that!”

The have an interesting look asset management system at
http://www.silverstripe.com/home/. Maybe radiant can borrow some ideas.

Nicholas

10

It also forces the user to use their memory instead of having the system
keep that knowledge: “I need picture X – I know I used it before. Let
me see, where did I put that…” In my opinion, any good system should
be able to tell you where (or if) assets are being used (in other words
look at it from the asset perspective too).

I agree.

In these cases I build mini CSS or JS files that are, really just assets
to me. These need that same “smart” behavior to include them in the
page correctly. Of course, in this case, they are added to the head
section (automatically). This is certainly beyond what most asset
managers are attempting but the use cases are, really, identical with
“insert an image”, “figure out where this image is used” or “remove
image from page.”

While I agree that they are an “asset” in a sense, they are also an
asset
with a behavior, and that certainly complicates things quite a bit.
Depending on the technical skill (or lack thereof) of a user they could
even bring down your site (image a bad javascript file that writes in
pr0n
to your page or a css file that includes the declaration “body {
display:
none; }”). For most purposes, I’d think that this would be giving too
much power to the average user.

Sounds like you’re heading in the right direction (IMHO, anyway).

Thanks, I’ll certainly keep the list posted. That, and your comments
have
given me some great new ideas/directions to take this thing.

I think that this is a much needed aspect
to radiant (though maybe not something you’d ever put in the core).

I’m hoping that someone makes an asset manager that’s so well thought
out
and executed that John looks at it and says “Damn, we’ve got to have
that!”

–
Nathan W.

11

Just had a little bit of a poke around in their demo site. What ideas
are you thinking we should borrow?

On 2/26/07, Nathan W. [email protected] wrote:

I’m hoping that someone makes an asset manager that’s so well thought
out
and executed that John looks at it and says “Damn, we’ve got to have
that!”

The have an interesting look asset management system at
http://www.silverstripe.com/home/. Maybe radiant can borrow some ideas.

Nicholas

12

I just finished building a site that used a lot of PDF files scattered
across pages. At over 50 pages, in some cases a single PDF fit well on
more than one page.

Now that I’m done, it looks like I am going to build another page
listing all the PDF documents - an asset tree, if you will. This way,
if the user remembers seeing a particular asset somewhere and wants to
see it again, they can find it more directly.

I’ve already organized my PDFs in an organized folder structure inside
/public. I did this naturally – in keeping with Dan’s comment that all
the assets in one “folder” would be a big mess.

It seems to me that if I organized all my PDFs in some sort of asset
manager centralized location, that I could now automatically create the
asset tree summary page I need - complete with organization. Just like
you’d create a menu using radiant tags based on pages.

-Chris

13

On 3/2/07, Daniel S. [email protected] wrote:

Just had a little bit of a poke around in their demo site. What ideas are
you thinking we should borrow?

I liked the method used for maintaining an image in page. Option to
select
another from the asset location or via an upload. Which I assume can be
upload to a specified location in the asset tree.

Their draft/staging mechanism is interesting as well. I haven’t used
radiant
for a long while so I’m not sure where it is with that. I’m planning to
set
it up again for a small site, so I might have better comments after
that.

I think that assets like images, pdfs, etc should be centrally managed
as
the can often be access by multiple pages. Allocation them to their own
tree
also allows more opportunity for static caching.

Nicholas