Better Overview?

dudomann · 2005-02-18 15:34:17

Hey guys. I've been looking through the htmlArea docs that are in our release. I still haven't found a good overview of the software, so i have a few questions.

CMS- google define, best guess, this is a "content management system"? and if so, then give me a definition of that, or a demo site to look at.

WYSIWYG Text Area replacement- instead of a user being able to put non formatted plain text into an html text area, Xinha gives the user the opportunity to make the text look nicer.

Just some info about me, why i have these questions-
I'm a college student, finishing my second year. I've had 2 semsters of C++, 2 of java, 1 of VisualBasic(yuck), 1 of cobol, and no scripting/html/web app experience. I"m interested though, and i'm quick to pick up on things, so long as when i get stuck, i can ask someone questions.

I do hope to be able to contribute to this project, and i certainly hope to learn alot on the way.
Thanks again,
~Bobb

gogo · 2005-02-18 23:00:21

dudomann wrote:

Hey guys. I've been looking through the htmlArea docs that are in our release. I still haven't found a good overview of the software, so i have a few questions.
CMS- google define, best guess, this is a "content management system"? and if so, then give me a definition of that, or a demo site to look at.

Yes, CMS = Content Management System. It's such a broad area, and people have lots of different definitions of it. Some think that CMS means a PHPNuke type site (umm, blogish news/community site), but we refer to it as something wider than that, simply a web browser based system which allows the management of website content (html, images etc).

WYSIWYG Text Area replacement- instead of a user being able to put non formatted plain text into an html text area, Xinha gives the user the opportunity to make the text look nicer.

A normal HTML textarea, just like I'm typing in here, only allows plain text (which could of course be HTML "source code", or any other textual content). Xinha, and other WYSIWYG (almost) allow one to use a more "word processer" type interface to edit (ultimatly) html source code in the textarea, displaying how it will (roughly) look on the site, instead of a whole lot of plain text source code.

Well known example, perhaps the Hotmail mail editor (I think it allows bold etc, been a while since I've used Hotmail ), to, say bold something you hightlight the something and click bold. Behind the scenes the editor writes html code into the textarea, like

<strong>the thing you bolded</strong>

the user doesn't know that, and just as well, because most users wouldn't understand it.

That is what Xinha, and other editors do, think of it (almost) as a word processor embedded into your web browser used for editing things that the website developer provides for you to edit.

dudomann · 2005-02-19 03:05:02

Great.

One last clarification-
The reason I stumbled accross this was to find an easy GUI Html editor (yes like FrontPage or Dreamweaver) that i didn't have to pay for. My friend wanted some space on my site to put some of his content, and i wanted to find something for windows that he could use.

To do that with Xinha though, i would have to create a -CMS- which would use a template (html page information), then i could use Xinha in the CMS to do all the formatting, etc.

Then i would make the CMS save the file, and be able to upload it to his space via ftp.

By this example, Xinha is a software tool, mostly for web developers . Is that more-or-less the scope of the project?
~Bobb

gogo · 2005-02-19 22:39:50

dudomann wrote:

By this example, Xinha is a software tool, mostly for web developers . Is that more-or-less the scope of the project?

Yeesssss. Probably it helps if you know html to understand what Xinha is. Basically it replaces <textarea> tags, like the one you wrote your forum posts in, with a graphical editor allowing you to for example just press the "bold" button after highlighting foobar rather than writing <bold>foobar</bold>.

It doesn't have any file loading/saving capability, nor any capability oter than providing a graphical means to markup HTML.

Best you see the examples page: http://xinha.gogo.co.nz/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/Examples

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#1 2005-02-18 15:34:17

Better Overview?

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Re: Better Overview?

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Re: Better Overview?

#4 2005-02-19 22:39:50

Re: Better Overview?

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