[Zope-dev] Re: [Zope] Re: [Zope-dev] RE: [Zope] Barriers to Zope popularity: Part 1:wysiwig editingwysiwig editing 1:wysiwig editingwysiwig editing

Michael Bernstein mbernstein@profitscape.net
Thu, 23 Sep 1999 13:47:50 -0700


Martijn Pieters wrote:

> At 03:50 23/09/99 , Dody Gunawinata wrote:
>
> <stuff deleted>
>
>
> >Much of the documentation is designed with *advance* developers in mind.
> >It's time for Zope for Dummies.
>
> <stuff deleted>
>
>
> All the DTML Methods and Folder objects and whatnot, are standard objects
> to help you design an interface, they are part of and build upon the Zope
> framework. Together with the ZODB, security, the web interface, the
> marshalling of variable types and RDBMS integration, Zope makes one heck of
> a Web Application Platform.

In particular, the deep integration of an OO philosophy is what gives Zope an
edge, but also creates some problems with existing tools that grew out of a
different mindset.

> Zope was designed for Web Application Developers, not designers. The
> documentation follows this design. I actually feel that dummies should stay
> away from Zope. Frontpage is for dummies.

Whoa, there. You're awfully close to saying that designers are dummies.

I'm a designer (among other things), and I use whatever tool is appropriate. A
good WYSIWYG editor (such as Dreamweaver) lets you experiment with the layout of
your page, and does not hide or mangle the underlying code.

I mean, who really wants to manually rearrange a three column four row table
structure with a rowspan in the middle into a four column three row table with a
colspan and ensure that every last dang cell has a non-breaking space in it?

And Frontpage isn't for dummies, it's for people who don't know better, or who's
bosses don't know better. A couple of years ago, I was working at a web hosting
startup (now defunct) that decided to standardize on FP because it was cheap. I
changed their mind eventually by demonstrating how FP mangled perfectly
reasonable javascript. And many corporate users are in the same boat I was in.

Now, it's true that most WYSIWYG editors aren't very good at understanding
dynamic page generation (except Homesite), but that doesn't change the fact that
interface designers need to work visually.

> As far as DTML editing goes: DTML was designed to put a face on the
> application, not so much as to be used on its own. DTML is very powerful
> for this, but its features also make it unsuitable for WISYWIG editing.

I respectfully disagree. Homesite (as an example) does very well as a code based
editor that understands dynamic page generation, and although it's primarily
geared towards using ColdFusion's CFML code, people have taught it to edit ASP
and Perl as well. There is no reason that it couldn't understand DTML and
Python.

As a WYSIWYG editor Homesite does have it's shortcomings, but it integrates
beautifully with Dreamweaver (an excellent WYSIWYG editor), such that code can
be passed from one to the other seamlessly, without any mangling. Macromedia
calls this 'round-trip HTML', Dreamweaver does this same trick with BBEdit on
Macs.

Dreamweaver has a number of other endearing features, such as dynamic
highlighting: when you select an element in the WYSIWYG view and switch to the
HTML view, the element in question is highlighted, making it very easy to find.

In short, there are many appropriate uses of WYSIWYG editors (note that I do not
think that adding or editing content are among these uses), and I don't think it
would be good to ignore the needs of interface designers.

Also, keep in mind that _graphic_ designers are a different breed from interface
designers, and have needs that I do not think Zope is appropriate for. Although
it would be nice if Fireworks was WebDAV enabled....

For myself, I think that Zope is the first tool to take a serious stab at the
needs of Information Architects for organizing content in dynamic and meaningful
ways, but I'm also a designer, and I'm also a coder of sorts. In the web world,
we all wear many hats, and have diverse needs.

Finally, I believe that one of the things that Zope has going for it is its
promiscuity WRT protocols and standards. In other words, even if better support
for a WYSIWYG environment were added somehow, it would not diminish your ability
to work with Zope in your preferred way, be it it through the management
interface, FTP, Emacs, or whatever.

Respectfully,

Michael Bernstein.