Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

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Re: One program to read, another to write

Author:	Sean Lindsay
Posted:	6/23/1999; 11:06:39 AM
Topic:	Hidden failure of Win2k
Msg #:	7723 (In response to 7716)
Prev/Next:	7722 / 7724

I know that I expect different things of my web browser and my text editor. When I slap some markup tags around a word, I want my editor to show me the tags without applying them, and my browser to apply them without showing them. These are different tasks, and I don't expect one program to be able to do both of them well.

A browser-based editing tool should be able to do both easily, and simultaneously. It's different from the TV analogy, because it's all software.

A text editor is just a browser (displaying text) with some extra buttons that do stuff, so why not a browser that becomes an editor when you add those buttons to it? The distinction between the editor software and the display software doesn't need to be visible to the user.

It really depends on what you want to accomplish with the new writing tool. IMHO, the debate doesn't go nearly far enough. <UL> <LI>A web-based email tool might only want decent cut/paste, an undo button, and a spellchecker. Or it might want <B>bold</B> and <I>italic</I> text.</LI> <LI>A discussion group interface like this one might want some controls for adding bulleted lists, images, links, etc.</LI> <LI>A full-blown Edit This Page facility might want WYSIWYG editing, with a toggle for editing source code, and perhaps "permission zones" preventing content editors from messing with the navigation bar.</LI> </UL><p> Having a decent editor in <textarea> boxes would of course be cool - but it's the next step up that really interests me, where the browser knows how to become an editor.<p> Frontier's Edit This Page approach would be a <I>dreamy</I> experience if the browser understood that the user had edit privileges. You could fix those typos directly onscreen, and post them to the server with the Enter key. Your favourite HTML editor (and set of customised Frontier controls) becomes a toolbar within the browser. If you want to use Word or FrontPage or BBEdit or Homesite for your toolbar, the browser shouldn't care.<p> And the process of creating content for the web is reduced to <I>one</I> step. This is (I think) where Dave wants to go - it's certainly where I want to go. <br><br><hr><b>There are responses to this message:</b><ul><li> <a href="msg007742.html">Re: One program to read, another to write</a>, Avram Grumer, 6/23/1999; 2:16:55 PM<p></ul> <br><br><hr>This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:51:00 PM.<br><br>© Copyright 1998-2001 <a href="http://www.userland.com/">UserLand Software</a>, Inc. </blockquote></blockquote> </body> </html>