Browser-like text display

[Jerry Muelver]

I'd like to have text capabilities close to the behavior of HTML with respect to:

1. Paragraph-linked (rather than total-text-box) text format controls
2. Numbered and unnumbered lists
3. Text wraparound for inserted graphics
4. CSS display rules

[marielle]

fully fledged html + css rules is on my wish list as well.

[BvG]

Most people want a real text editor field, the problem is that it might get slower, or buggy with too many features... at least that's what i fear.

Thus i would want this in an additional Object, instead of a modified text field, and I want it in the engine, so to avoid another table field fiasco.

[Garrett]

I second Jerry's request. I too would like just a little more in the
HTMLText.

And I would add to that the ability to use HTML comments within the
HTMLText. Besides adding comments, it would allow us to set markers
in the code. I use the comment tags a lot when generating and reading
html code to let my programs know where to produce or read specific
information.

-Garrett

[malte]

Count me in for the wanters.

Oh and it also would be nice not to use the original character when using <img> tags and setting the HTML text.

All the best,

Malte

[Dave Cragg]

I too would like it all. But I wonder if I would like the solution if it were delivered. Apple's TextEdit app, which may contain the minimum of expected text formatting features weighs in at over 8 MB. Browsers that offer full CSS display features are much larger than that.

Also, we use text fields for both text editing and text display. Yet I know of no app that combines text editing and CSS.

I suspect we may have to trim down our wish list. In the short term, I'd happily settle for being able to apply current field attributes to individual paragraphs. But how much in application file size would I be willing to trade? 500 KB perhaps.

[malte]

True Dave. Filesize is an issue.

All the best,

Malte

[Jerry Muelver]

If overhead is an issue, I'll use HTML output and display in a browser. I'm going for a simple-syntax markup in text, with output filters for Rev textcontrol (Hobbit HTMLtext) and standard HTML file. File-save format is the text markup version. Kind of like a poor-man's XML, borrowed from WikiWriter (http://hytext.com/iwiki/markup.htm). The filter can be tinkered to match whatever format options Rev comes up with in the future.

My creative engine is still stuck in the nroff and PC-Write side-track from the 80's.....

[marielle]

I'm going for a simple-syntax markup in text, with output filters for Rev textcontrol (Hobbit HTMLtext)

You can indeed implement some very html 2 wiki conversion using a simplified regexp notation.

Code: Select all

  put field "html" into twiki
  put the number of lines in trules into nbLines
  repeat with x = 1 to nbLines
    put item 1 of (line x of trules) into tfrom
    put item 2 of (line x of trules) into tto
    put replacetext(twiki, tfrom, tto) into twiki
  end repeat
  put replacetext(twiki, "[ \t]*¬", cr) into twiki

Where the variable trules contains some rules like this:

Code: Select all

<h1>,¬! 
<h2>,¬!!  
<h3>,¬!!! 
<hr>,¬-----
</?ul>,
<li>,¬* 
<p>,¬
</?u>,''
</?em>,__
</?i>,__
</?strong>,''
</?b>,''
Note: In the preciding ? stands for present or not, * stands for any number of the previous character, ¬ stands for cr

You could replace the wiki formating rules with the corresponding html formating commands. Note however that this forces you to write somewhat very intricate sequences of html tags in your htmltext. The use of css helps keep much of the formating intricacies separate from the text content.

In fact, what is missing is a way to define a set of simple styles and apply them easily (like the wiki markup you refer to). It seems to me it should be possible to have a relatively lightweight solution if we could have a "style" tag to any html tag .

For instance: <p style="quote">a paragraph</p>

With the possibility to define somewhere a style["quote"] variable that contains a set of formating to apply on this paragraph
style["quote"] = "textcolor=gray;textsize=14;textstyle=italic,bold,textshift=-2"
that has for effect to set the props of the corresponding objects or selectedtext to the new values.

Could be a great addition and still require less than a 500K increase in size for the engine.

[Dave Cragg]

With the possibility to define somewhere a style["quote"] variable that contains a set of formating to apply on this paragraph
style["quote"] = "textcolor=gray;textsize=14;textstyle=italic,bold,textshift=-2"
that has for effect to set the props of the corresponding objects or selectedtext to the new values.

Could be a great addition and still require less than a 500K increase in size for the engine.

I agree it would be a nice addition, but until the Rev text field object can support paragraph level formatting, I don't think it takes us very far forward. The formatting I'm thinking of are things such as indents, text alignment, tabstops, tab alignment, and paragraph spacing. I wouldn't be willing to place bets on how much of that can be done in 500K.

[stam]

With the possibility to define somewhere a style["quote"] variable that contains a set of formating to apply on this paragraph
style["quote"] = "textcolor=gray;textsize=14;textstyle=italic,bold,textshift=-2"
that has for effect to set the props of the corresponding objects or selectedtext to the new values.

Could be a great addition and still require less than a 500K increase in size for the engine.

I agree it would be a nice addition, but until the Rev text field object can support paragraph level formatting, I don't think it takes us very far forward. The formatting I'm thinking of are things such as indents, text alignment, tabstops, tab alignment, and paragraph spacing. I wouldn't be willing to place bets on how much of that can be done in 500K.

I can't say I have any idea what the overhead would be for all those features, but on the other hand i use to have a version of MS Word which would fit in less than a 800k diskette, back in the dark ages. Maybe not impossible to add features in 500-1000K...

[rozek]

Well,

the Revolution development team might have a look at Tk's text widget. It has all features required to setup a styled-text editor, a (simple) web browser (with editable contents, of course) etc. With full scripting support, of course - otherwise I would not mention it!

It's stable since a long time, the source is available...I don't think that resource requirements and the fear of potential bugs are real arguments.

The free Tcl/Tk has styled text since years - it's really astonishing that the expensive Revolution Studio does not have anything comparable yet

[Mark]

Well,

the Revolution development team might have a look at Tk's text widget. It has all features required to setup a styled-text editor, a (simple) web browser (with editable contents, of course) etc. With full scripting support, of course - otherwise I would not mention it!

It's stable since a long time, the source is available...I don't think that resource requirements and the fear of potential bugs are real arguments.

The free Tcl/Tk has styled text since years - it's really astonishing that the expensive Revolution Studio does not have anything comparable yet

Especially potential bugs are perhaps no real arguments but definitely realistic arguments. I prefer Revolution to do well what it does now rather than have new features.

That aside, I would love to see a true html field object built into Revolution. Since there is altBrowser already, I don't expect a feature like this to get much priority from the RunRev Ltd.

I think this dsicussion justfies an enhancement request in BugZilla. I have created one at http://support.runrev.com/bugdatabase/s ... gi?id=3804 and you are free to add your comments. Maybe it is a good idea to discuss ideas here before adding them to BugZilla.

Best regards,

Mark

[Mark]

One more thing, dont' forget to vote for the request, if you still have some votes left.

Mark