==WikiWYG editing== //Disclaimer: this project has no relation to the abandoned WYSIWYG wiki editor at http://wikiwyg.net// //To start editing, use UEB ( http://universaleditbutton.org/ ) or **double-click**; use creole wiki markup symbols ( http://wikicreole.org/ ); to stop editing, press Esc.// Both WYSIWYG and visible markup approaches have their //pro// and //contra//. By using the visible logical markup of T,,e,,X, Prof. Donald Knuth was able to write a book nobody will ever entirely read. On the other side, by selling a WYSIWYG editor named "Word", Mr. William Gates made a sum of money he will never entirely spend. Let's discuss both approaches in more detail. ===WYSIWYG=== In most cases, WYSIWYG is more convenient for newbies. Immediate feedback makes editing comfortable. On the other side, WYSIWYG inevitably causes some costs. Take **Wikipedia**, for instance. Is it possible for millions of **Word** files to be concurrently edited by millions of uncoordinated users over the internet, still nothing to be broken badly? It is unclear whether that is possible with HTML; with .doc that is surely impossible! * Advantages *# ease of use *# immediate visibility of the result * Shortcomings *# hidden (invisible) entities *# cost *# visual formatting substitutes logical structure ===Visible markup=== Wikitext is known for its typability: nothing distracts the user from the keyboard. L,,a,,T^^e^^X has similar advantages: long complex formulas are better typed in L,,a,,T^^e^^X markup than in, say, Word; probably, because the writer has clear understanding of the logical structure, while the visual representation is complex to deal with. * Advantages *# cheap, so scalable *# no hidden entities, so manageable *# typability * Shortcomings *# users need to learn the markup ===WikiWYG=== WikiWYG is a hybrid approach aiming to achieve both extreme simplicity of wikitext and immediate visual feedback of WYSIWYG editors. Namely, a user types in wikitext. The wikitext is parsed on the fly and spiced up with HTML tags to produce WYSIWYG appearance. Even CSS might be freely applied. Still, the backend storage format is plain wikitext. One particular advantage of the approach is the possibility to learn by copying: just copy the visible markup to get the desired result! WikiWYG is also very simple; the editor even has no toolbar! ====Feature table==== | markup language | Creole-based wikitext | structural markup| Paragraphs, headers, lists (nested lists), tables | inline markup| //**bold** and italic//, ,,sub-,, and ^^superscript^^, __underlined text__, http://urls | implementation | JavaScript (actually, regular expressions); a bit of CSS; the browser's support for //contentEditable// is vital | supported browsers| Firefox 3 (FF2 has a critical glitch), Internet Explorer 6/7, Safari 3 | code metrics | about 150 lines of "core" code plus 90 lines for cross-browser compatibility