Item9038: Indent not preserved in TinyMCE and Foswiki 1.0.9 - 1.1.3

In the TinyMCE editor, clicking on the "Indent" button visually indents the text in the editor window. Switching to HTML view show that a "padding-left" value has been added to the code. But after saving (either Save or Save and Continue), the text is no longer indented and inspection of the HTML shows that the "padding-left" value is gone.

-- EricOBrien - 19 May 2010

Thank you for this report!

WysiwygPlugin does not allow the HTML editor to inject whatever markup it feels into the wiki text; otherwise the wiki text would become an unreadable mess of HTML.

If you want more (or less) XHTML markup in your wiki topics, you can play with the WYSIWYG_STICKYBITS preference variable to adjust which elements should have what attributes preserved. For paragraphs, you would need to adjust the

P=align;

so that it said something like

P=align,style;

The real solution is for us to implement a markup for indented paragraphs in Foswiki, see Item2516

-- PaulHarvey - 19 May 2010

Thanks for the quick response. I realize that "WYSIWYG" editing is not an easy problem. But then, programmers are suppose to thrive on challenging problems. I did find item 2516, but reading it made me think that perhaps the "padding-left" solution had been implemented. I was further led to believe this when the editor actually used the "solution." I'm researching various wikis and I'll note that MoinMoin has figured out how to manage indents.

An important note about "WYSIWYG" editing. There are two things about this that I consider very significant usability benefits. 1) I can make the word "wombat" bold, for example, by typing my "usual" shortcut of ^Bwombat^B rather than typing wombat or I can create an indented list by pressing a button instead of pressing . The problem is not so much remembering the markup... but it's just one more fussy thing in my life I'd need to remember. 2) VERY important for me is the readability of what I've typed. I don't just type things and press save. I type, read, edit, re-read, type some more, etc., etc. Markup characters severely degrade my reading efficiency.

One final very important thing for efficiency is keyboard shortcuts at LEAST for "save" and "save and continue." Certainly "save and continue" is something I do very often. Why do I have to stop my keyboard activities, find the mouse, then find the correct button and press it, then find my way back to the keyboard? You might say, "But you CAN do ^K, for example." Not when I'm using Safari (and probably other Web Kit based browsers too?"

Thanks!

-- EricOBrien - 19 May 2010

You may have noticed the task's state was "confirmed". That means it's not even started, just that the work has been analysed (there was a comprehensive feature proposal to determine a new TML syntax to do indenting paragraphs). You won't need to know the new TML syntax for indented paragraphs if you use the WYSIWYG editor.

About your WYSIWYG notes 1 & 2, I don't understand the point you are making - TML markup is noisy, yes, but could be worse if it was HTML! But hopefully, if we make WYSIWYG good enough, nobody should have to know either TML or XHTML markup.

As for keyboard shortcuts, there is an existing task at Item2638 which I've mentioned the Safari problem for you.

I agree they're very handy; I didn't know they weren't working properly in PatternSkin (which I am not using much at the moment).

Keep the bug reports coming

-- PaulHarvey - 20 May 2010

This needs to be fixed

-- VilleSalmela - 03 May 2011

Agreed. If somebody wants to tackle the problem, please RequestAccessToSubversion - patches are welcome! Many of the WysiwygTaskTeam members are available to help out with guidance, advice on IRC and foswiki-discuss or foswiki-svn mailing lists.

-- PaulHarvey - 04 May 2011

Maybe in a patch release context we could at least disable the button if the cursor is not on a bullet to indicate that you cannot indent.

-- KennethLavrsen - 05 May 2011

Good point. I'm a few weeks away from reviewing any WYSIWYG bugs though.

-- PaulHarvey - 05 May 2011

I'll just note that I agree this should be fixed; it's a rather editor-specific problem, so I'm reassigning it to TinyMCEPlugin and confirming it. I rather like Kenneth's proposal, but equally I think the editor can be trained to generate the correct markup (instead of padding-left) elsewhere. "Just" needs a Javascripter. However I have difficulty classifying this as a release blocker, and am regrading it from Urgent to Normal.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 08 Jun 2011

We have a proposal to extend TML markup - SupportBlockquoteAndIndenting

-- PaulHarvey - 08 Jun 2011

Please fix this...

-- VilleSalmela - 08 Jul 2011

CrawfordCurrie is working on this issue as Item2516. See also Item11316. Closing here as duplicate of that bug.

-- PaulHarvey - 10 Dec 2011

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