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List:       quanta-devel
Subject:    Re: [quanta-devel] my tool would be like this...
From:       Jens Herden <jens () kdewebdev ! org>
Date:       2005-04-08 5:09:47
Message-ID: 200504081209.47398.jens () kdewebdev ! org
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> Interesting idea, it's a kind of WYSIWYMean. It's more visual than a simple
> tree bit it keeps power and control.
> You didn't mention how to create nodes but I think it would be cool that
> they could be dragged from the toolbar.

This would be one way but I can also imagine to first select the position and 
than insert via toolbar button. If the selection is inside the textbox it 
will be inserted at the cursor position or around the text selection. If a 
colored box is selected the tag will be inserted before the selected tag. 

> I think inline nodes should be treated has mozilla composer does in the
> "HTML Tags" mode, i.e., showing a little box with the name of the tag
> before his text child node begins, 

Cool would be to have indicators for the start and the end of the tag and the 
ability to drag and drop them. Also if you delete one, the tag will be 
removed.

> and the style would be manipulated in 
> two ways: using direct HTML or in an external (CSS) stylesheet, by clicking
> on the tag name box.

A CSS editor in a toolview would be smart. But there are unlimited positions 
for CSS information: 
1. tag
2. file
3...n external files

To make a real good CSS editor is a challenge I guess.

> I don't know if it's feasible to show the style of inline text nodes and
> the arrangement of elements after been processed by CSS, at least I don't
> know how. Displaying just plain text would be enough (what about
> images...)? BTW, how to implement this? :) Maybe we need to have our own
> canvas where we would draw the block node structure and insert KHTML render
> fragments inside the block nodes scope (in case we didn't have just plain
> text)? This is a little crazy I know :)

I also was thinking about using KHTML to render the textboxes too. Reading you 
text lets me think if we could switch between preview mode (KHTML) and edit 
mode. Edit mode would be text only and additional indicators for the tags. 

Images are inline elements so we have to show them somehow, maybe just as 
thumbnail or an icon with tooltip that shows the image? And a doubleclick 
could open a dialog with the original size and ways to change the attributes. 
But the size can also be in CSS and I don't know if it is a good idea to 
offer a way to resize an image and adjust the CSS accordingly? 

> So, this approach has the advantage of easy manipulating the structure and
> having a more intuitive display, but at the same time is difficult to
> imagine how the document will display. It would be a complement view, as we
> also need things like dragging absolute positioned div elements and
> resizing images.

As I wrote, I do not see the need for being close to the result. Just hit F6 
and you know. Or let us make a live preview in a toolview that can be seen 
during editing. 

> I would say this is kind of a merge between the kafka part and the document
> structure. It's hard for me as a user to imagine how good such a tool could
> be but I would like to further discuss this ideas. I think we're heading in
> the right way and will take good conclusions out of all this.

Sure it is different from VPL and I think this is something we can implement 
when we made the switch to KDevelop framework. I would like to see many 
different plugins that all together create the functionality of the current 
Quanta. So adding a new edit mode would be writing a new plugin and the users 
have the choice what to use.

Jens
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