Average user publish content system (modules)
Hi,
I've thought of posting this topic more than twice before starting to write. I know this issue is WIDELY discussed within this forum and that's the problem I've found: too much info. I can't get to have a clear idea. I would prefer some suggestions coming from experience than from theory here.
I've just finished (well, almost) developing my client's site in Drupal 4.6 (yes, I know 4.7 has just been released) but find myself with a problem. It is, in fact, my client problem at the moment: they can't easily publish content (text, some basic format in it and one or two picts by post) with any combination I've suggested them. This problem is discussed in node http://drupal.org/node/32221, among many others. If possible, I just would like an answer like: "bbcode + bbcode_wysiwyg + img_assist" or "TynyMCE configured that way" or ... It doesn't have to be 'clean&nice' but 'clear&easy' to them.
No image galleries, nor image nodes needed: just simple articles (aka nodes, aka blog_nodes) with some bold here, some link there, maybe some italic, and one image at some point of the content (they can have the image croped to the final size by themselves, the image style + float can be purely CSS styled and floated -so that they can't decide how it is displayed- , they even can upload the image separetly with the help of any other module).
No 'Pure HTML' nor 'reduced HTML' solutions will do due to the lack of knowledge of my clients + locale being spanish (non-english) makes outputs show with weird character combinations to them (accents and so on).
Any simple, clear and concrete solution is much appreciated.
Thanx in advance and sorry for I KNOW this has been much (too much?) discussed.
Have a good day,
hip
htmlarea
Well, how about starting with htmlarea?
I know it works well with some image modules, but perhaps just start with the editor first.
forget bbcode I'd say. If you don't want reduced html.
.s
I'll give it a try, again
I'll give it a try, again (just in case I missed something), but I WANT REDUCED HTML:
Anything else should be considered as an extra, and too many extras = a mess.
Thanx anyway, sime,
hip
TinyMCE
I'm using TinyMCE for that very reason for our new online community. MY members will know nothing to little about HTML so ive installed TinyMCE and img_assist to allow for them to upload images and insert inline easily through a controlled interface.
If you upgrade to 4.7 the TinyMCE module allows you to define buttons displayed so you can take out some of the ones that your client may not have knowledge of.
Everyone these days has a working knowledge of basic word processor controls and thats why i like tinyMCE from the get go. The members feel comfortable with it as its just like word or wordpad on their system. Img_assist gives them the unique and easy ability to inline and upload images from their desktop and that completes the solution for us.
I've also added some basic CSS for the way things should display (border and padding for images etc) and so far it seems to work well.
Thanx desm0n, Well I am on
Thanx desm0n,
Well I am on 4.6 and, at the moment, I'm not planning to upgrade (I'm just finishing this project and will wait for a few months to be up and running). You're right saying most people have a working knowledge of basic word processor controls. So your solution would do but I still have 2 main issues with TynyMCE:
1.- At some point of using it I get all text justyfied to center. It is not a Drupal issue but a TinyMCE one. It's happened to me in Joomla installations with TinyMCE too. Then, if I offer the advanced configuration, what I DO NOT WANT, for just want to keep it simple, it messes up with LOTS of non-XHTML code. (I do my first testing in Firefox, BTW).
2.- With TinyMCE, as with most WYSIWYG processors, I have a website uniformity style issue. When the editors (my clients) add content, most of the times they do it by copy & paste. That takes all the formatting with it, getting to display in the pages with font styles (& sizes & tags) not defined by the designer, what I recogn makes the look of the page horrible.
Having the above 2 issues solved would give TinyMCE 'the prize'.
PLEASE, get the idea (simple and solid solution for average users) and thanx in advance for any help. Have a good day,
hip
I understand your annoyance
I understand your annoyance about the style thing. Do you have any budget for introducing 3rd party apps? I am rolling out a site using Macromedia Contribute with Drupal in which I have been able to lock down styles via Contribute.
Hi, Thanx for the sympathy.
Hi,
Thanx for the sympathy. ;-)
I may add some reasonable amount to my client's budget definition, why not. Can you give me a link or some extra info? Thanx in advance,
hip
macromedia contribute helper
I think Adobe want Contribute to be the equivalent of MS Word. It is very easy, it is very much like mini-Word. You click "connect" and then "edit" and then "publish".
My client is a design company who use it already, so there was no learning curve - they specifically didn't want to use anything else. So they are responsible for editing these files:
http://contribute.epiclub.com.au/pages/
I can limit the stylesheet that they can use, effectively enforcing a style guide. And they don't touch any of the drupal stuff.
I obviously had to write a module for creating a node based on a html file. So in admin I just link them together and everytime the customer changes the html file using Contribute, the module determines whether the "modified" date has changed and inserts the "body" of the file into the database.
Here is the module although I'm just putting the finishing touches on a proper working version. It is in action here:
http://test.epiclub.com.au
Once this site is finished, I'll be updating the module, tagging it for 4.7 and writing a proper installation guide. Basically, the whole concept works fine, there are some nice features, but I'm still skeptical about whether my client is giving themselves the best control available to them :-/
Also, I don't know about the licence cost, so if you have a lot of users I'm sure it could get pricey. I only have two users :-)
HTH
Simon
Thanx for the info and nice
Thanx for the info and nice job. I'll give it all a look. It might be one possibility for next project. (now I just need some days off ;-) ).
Have a good day,
hip
I understand your
I understand your frustration and i think what your asking for then is simple BBCode in all honesty. But thats not going to truly help the average user design nice content.
For a truly uniform, no brainer, input of text that requires no formating on the users point of view you would need to leave drupal as default i think with a none wysiwyg editor included and then run a series of filters on content for output formating, However the average user has little to no understanding of HTML and thus will not be able to do basic things like bold, italics etc.
Regarding the first point with TinyMCE this is, more often than not, due to an open tag somewhere in the underlying code. You could rectify this without user intervention using the HTML corrector (i haven't tested this) that will scan and close all tags that are open but not closed. That should take care, for the most part, of that issue.
This is a HTML correcting module. The filter scans the input, builds up a list of open tags and closes them when needed.
http://drupal.org/project/htmlcorrector
As regards point 2 you could get the Filtered HTML filter to strip out unneeded content for you. I just tried this and it works well but i'm not sure about classes or divs.
I think the point i'm trying to make is you have two choices. You can A. design a site that isn't user friendly (if they are totally unaware of HTML etc) but likely to have less input issues or B. design one with what they already know and are comfortable with as their interface.
Also you can limit tinyMCE to a default small interface with the most basic Bold, Italics etc showing so that limits the possibilities of error.
Hopefully that gives you some insight and guidiance. TinyMCE is far from perfect but for the most part average joe gets on well with it. My wife for instance can log in, load up and post content in a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere with tools she is fully used to. This couldn't be said when we ran say PHPBB with bbcode usuage.
Anyway i hope that helps somewhat.
didn't know that.
Good to know.
handy
yes its very handy.
However i love the 4.7 updated module intergration with TinyMCE as that allows you to build your own TinyMCE interface with only those functions displayed that you wish to use.
This is very powerfull and one of the many reasons i upgraded to 4.7 RC versions before release.
Much appreciated help
Hi desm0n,
Thanx for the sympathy, too. It's loud&clear that there's many of us suffering this pain that I'd love to have as a core feature. I still have some hope (on Drupal usability).
Regarding to BBCode, I think that's the closest approach to my needs. In fact most of the projects I develope are CMS systems run by one or two editors. I could easily teach them to use BBCode with just 5 or 6 tags. Then content from visitors (just comments to already posted content) could be simple text + auto URL conversion. The issue I find here is to easily allow 'upload + insert' images. Maybe I should play over with the inline.module. Though I'd love to minimize clicks, popup windows and operations for them (the editors) to simply place a already trimmed image they have in their Windows desktop at some point of the text they are typing (or have pasted).
An easy insert-image solution is much appreciated!
Regarding TinyMCE, I agree it is the friendlier to the average user. The simple (limited) interface is almost what I need, and it gets even better in Drupal 4.7 where one-by-one button customization is available.
a.- You're most probably right about the open tags. I'll give it a look. In case that is the problem to the 'centered text' issue, I'll try the HTML corrector that you suggest (a module, I guess).
b.-About the annoying 'cut&paste' porting styles from ??? (anywhere) it really sounds as a solution to make use of the Filtered HTML filter. Classes and divs, as far as they get the inner styling stripped off, or not an issue, for they won't be styled in my own stylesheet. Hopefully.
Your help is MUCH appreciated. I'll report as soon as I get any results. Hopefully I'll have the time not too late (work overload! :-( ).
Towards a not-only-powerfull but usefull (for COMMON users) Drupal!
Have a good day,
hip
LOL, remember in a couple of
LOL, remember in a couple of years, most of our clients will have used a blog tool, or a rich editor in hotmail.
The people who don't want to know will have access to a plethora of people who do.
In my case my clients (AKA
In my case my clients (AKA editors, AKA content admins) CAN do rich editors such as Blogger. The equivalent would be TinyMCE, e.g. But as I've remarked I'm concerned of front-end style repercussions: don't want hard design work to be spoiled by niceties like:
<SPAN lang=EN-IE style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE"><p class="MSO Normal">
<UL style="MARGIN-TOP: 0cm" type=circle>
<o:p> </o:p>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list 36.0pt'>
(sample taken from http://tim.mackey.ie/CleanWordHTMLUsingRegularExpressions.aspx)
I believe that's pretty self-explanatory. ;-) Nor I want broken open-not-closed and closed-not-open non-standard XHTML tags, breaking up the lot.
We do need a half way between WYSIWYG and simple text. (I tried to explain it at my first post)
Thanx,
hip
Your most welcome
Your very welcome and i understand your goals completely. Its funny how easy it is to make assumptons about your users and editors abilities. Today for instance i was watching new members sign up and wondering why they wasn't yet posting in the forums. Then i released that the term itself "forums" may indeed be alien to them and that they were wondering around the site totally lost as what to do.
So i put up a banner saying something on the lines of "don't forget to stop by our online discussions and leave your views and comments". I then linked that to forums so it educates as well as serves a need.
Again i know i'm harking on about TinyMCE but another reason for me adopting it was the ease of inline image uploading for my members who will want blogs and forum posts. Img_assist was key to this and adds into TinyMCE seamless, even providing an icon on its toolbar. After that to the user they are one in the same and its simply a matter of clicking the camera icon, filling in a few fields and bingo, their desktop image is now onsite and in a wysiwyg editor where they can move it around to their hearts content.
This may be more than you need for say forum messages but it is paramount for blogs as many will design visually.
BBCODE is limited as far as i'm concerned and also comes with a learning curve. I mean [b][/b] or [i][/i] isn't that indifferent to its html counterparts although many sites adopt BBCODE as its safer from a security point of view.
Please do let us know how you get on.
Much talked about issues,
Much talked about issues, accessibility and usability (mainly the last one), here at Drupal. And that's not by chance!
We could draw 5 levels of Drupal-related human beings:
In this thread discussion focuses the usability for the editors regarding the DBWD's target. It IS true many people don't know what a 'forum' is, as well as many people are totally unaware of what the web is. You may believe it or not. Many of the final users will fit that pattern.
In my very case the problem concerns some 2 editors, so they can be taught a few lessons (not many though, for they pay to get it done nice&easy) in order to keep system stability, on both design and composition of the website pages.
Besides Drupal being a powerful CMS system (Drupal developers, DBWD and even CMS admins may be proud of it) I do believe there's some lack of attention to final users and a great lack of interest on editors. This last point puts still some more pressure and work on us (me at least), DWBD, to theme and structure the admin backend to a usable level for non-geeks, non-programers and even people not knowing (nor wanting to know) what Drupal is at all.
If I had a gardening store I wouldn't want to know about Drupal, nor PHP, nor design, but would need to have a web system where I can post my articles, offers and tips for future clients. Again, he would be an editor.
Someone would talk here of permissions. The don't only help, they're necessary. But a 3 or 4 layered admin presentation (not to talk about a custom number) would improve performance and, therefore, spread Drupal sites all over the web.
So we keep this issue up, desm0n. I'll post my impressions as soon as I do any testing. it won't be very soon, though. I need holydays! :-(
Have a good day,
hip
note: I haven't checked 4.7 yet. There may be some improvements in this direction. ;-)
Hi again. The site I talked
Hi again.
The site I talked about is still waiting for the clients deep test but after the first contact between my client and the backend posting system he seemed to be quite happy.
I finally opted for a non WYSIWYG textarea with simple BBCODE. My client (who will be the content editor as well) has been posting in forums and system blogs like Blogger for some months now. So he can manage with simple tagging and his main concern was not having the styles 'imported' when he does copy/paste from other website pages or MSWord docs. He tried and checked that the text format (style) stayed stable for all the posts within the site and had no problem in re-coding for bold, italics nor even for links.
We still have to pass the 'insert image' issue, for what I opted for the img_assist.module.
I'll tell you how things go. But, despite my client's satisfaction, I believe this is still a issue, not only for Drupal but for many other content systems (CMS & blogs mainly), to be taken in account. If there's none yet, IMHO there should be an open document to discuss and define the future of the 'average user' content-edition & system-basic-administration usability.
Thanx for the reading. Have a good day,
hip