Baltimore Squirrels

Providing direct ways for non-technical content creators to edit web pages has been a dilemma since the dawn of the web. Indeed the larger problem, exposing powerful formatting and layout abilities without also exposing complex and cryptic presentation formulas, must realistically occupy a reasonably large percentage of everything we task personal computers for. The problem is complex, and a complete solution has not yet been found, but there are a number of powerful and elegant alternatives at our disposal. I’m going briefly discuss two options, embedded rich text editors and lightweight markup languages.

Embedded Rich Text Editors

The technologies the web relies upon have steadily advanced, new more powerful tools have been created, and thanks to the ever-enduring Moore’s law we can squeeze a great deal of functionality into a web page. There was a time when embedding a rich text editor in a page was an excessive and extravagant feat, yet today there are a plethora of simple ways to do it. TinyMCE and FCKEditor are the most popular, but many others exist (including the impressive YUI editor which I did not know about until today).

Embedded rich text editors are great tools but they may not be suitable for the discerning geek. In general these editors have a reputation for creating messy and verbose source code. How important this really is has been and will be a subject of debate for some time, but there is no question that clean, standards-compliant code is a good thing to have. When it comes down to it, I tend to think that if you can do something the right way with a reasonable amount of effort, why sacrifice correctness for a little bit of convenience?

Lightweight Markup Languages

When HTML is too verbose or complex for what you really need to accomplish, and rich text editors don’t give you the quality of code you’re looking for, you’re left with lightweight markup languages.

There are a number of different approaches to lightweight markup, in fact if you follow the Wikipedia link above you’ll possibly find more than you really care to know about, but there are only two that have emerged as the preferred choices among the current generation of web developers: Textile and Markdown. Markdown is great, but for the sake of this article I’m going to focus my attention on Textile, which is currently my favorite.

Textile relies on simple markup that is easy to edit in a plain text editor, or a simple textarea on a web form. A major benefit of Textile is that it is also easy to read in it’s unprocessed form, so editing it is relatively painless and not nearly as confusing as editing raw HTML. The syntax is easy to pick up, and new users can typically start authoring comment with very little introduction.

Here is a quick example of Textile code:

h3. Sample

This is a sample paragraph, complete with *bold* text, _italic_ text,
+underlined+ text and even a "link to google":http://google.com/.

For kicks, here is a second paragraph.

And this is what it looks like when displayed:

For a complete list of Textile samples view the example-based reference.

One of it’s greatest strengths, Textile adds a great deal in the way of proper typography. For most of the web, trademark symbols are left as TM, hyphens are substituted for en-dashes and “dumb” quotes are used instead of smart quotes. With Textile these nuances of type are easy to handle with very little effort. A (TM) is automatically converted to ™, a single hyphen is converted to an en-dash (two hyphens for an em-dash), and straight quotes around phrases are converted to smart quotes. With minimal effort you get a significantly more professional result.

Conclusion

Lightweight markup is not without it’s shortcomings. Rich text editors often provide enough visual aides to get people going with little or no introduction, and as I stated before the value of clean HTML in a web page is sometimes debated. In addition, the nature of rich text editors leaves the door open for more powerful features, such as built-in flickr browser or point-and-click YouTube video embedding. All the same, for most tasks, for most sites, I believe that lightweight markup languages are the best option.

Links of Interest

• Textile:
  • Wikipedia entry
  • Homepage and playground
  • Example-based reference
• Textile Alternatives
  • Markdown
  • reStructuredText
• Embedded Rich Text Editors
  • Kupu
  • TinyMCE
  • FCKEditor
  • YUI Rich Text Editor

I’ve decided I need to make a video game, probably for the iPhone, of my little bumble bee. I’m going to call it Clumsy Bumble and gameplay will consist of tilting the phone around to navigate a bumble bee through a series of poorly drawn obstacles. There will be a faint but constant buzzing sound, not real buzzing mind you, more of a little buzzy song, something along the lines of “buzz buzzy buzz buzz buzzzzzzzz buzzy buzzy” (lyrics not finalized). The buzzing will stop when the bumble hits something, replaced by a pathetic shriek and the end of the bumble.

That’s one option. Another is to have a side-scroller (also with a buzz song and pathetic bumble bee shrieks) that requires tapping on enemies (creepy bugs, drawn by Jess on a napkin some booze-inspired evening a while back) at which point the bumble will destroy the target with laser beams from it’s eyes. As targets are destroyed, the bumble will emit a little giggle or if something goes wrong, a sad sound of disappointment.

I think the bumble will be named Claude, Claude the Clumsy Bumble. There will be merchandise too, plush Claudes, coffee mugs and toddler onesies.

That’s the plan anyway…

Jon Stewart held an informal breakfast chat with some of the biggest names in journalism a few days ago, the theme more-or-less summed up in the title of this post. The Indecision 2008 blog has it covered in three parts (click, click and click). Pity the event wasn’t recorded…

An interesting project from Mozilla Labs. Reminds me of Quicksilver (and I’m not the only one). Most impressive.

Mikayla won’t leave me alone at the moment. She gets in these moods now and again where she just sits by my chair looking at me expectantly, squeezing out the occasional “mew”. She does the same thing when I go to bed, once I’ve put my head on the pillow and started to close my eyes I’m quickly greeted by a cat in my face, looking at me, squeezing out more pleas for attention. If I roll the other way she follows around, persistently…

Freddie works in a more shark-like manner. He usually circles me a bit first, getting a feel for the terrain and potential angles of approach until he decides on a way in. Maybe he’ll lay down on the far side of the desk where it’s too much of a hassle for me to remove him. Then he slowly twists and slinks his way towards me until one outstretched paw can just rest on my hand, at which point the claws come out just a tiny bit, just so I know he’s there. If I even acknowledge that he’s touching me in any positive way, say by petting him or making eye contact, he pops up and starts trying to rub on my face. It’s cute, but damn if it’s not annoying. Like an Ewok with a spear, or a child Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

Note the reckless sprawling and complete disregard for the things around him. Textbook Freddie maneuver.

Mikayla when she isn’t being chatty

From today’s Running woman and madman:

The whole thing is unconscious. It has the visual semantics, but not the intention, of cheesecake. She is simply late, happens to be beautiful, and isn’t dressed like an Anabaptist. Nevertheless, her passage fractures the Matrix.

Mmmmm, cheesecake.

An excerpt from Dexter Filkins’ account of his time in Iraq as a reporter for the NY Times:

Our leader that day was Sgt. Sam Williams, a 24-year-old from northern Michigan. Sam pointed to the top of the tower and told his men to fire. And so they did, guns singing, grenade launchers, machine guns, boom-boom-boom-boom. Horrendous and loud.

What if Miller is still alive? I thought. There was so much firing and so much stuff flying, bricks, shrapnel, bullets. Two marines were wounded. One of them was Lance Cpl. Demarkus Brown, a kid from Martinsville, Va., 22. The marines were raking the minaret, Demarkus was, too, and then he dropped his rifle and grabbed his right cheek. “I’m hit – I’m hit!” he said, panic in his eyes, real panic as if he was going to die. But the wound was small, and Demarkus was so young, he seemed like one of those kids on the playground who gets hurt every time. He seemed so frightened. He was killed a week later.

The young age of the soldiers struck me, as did the portrayal as Demarkus just before you find out he gets killed.

Seriously, what the hell?