2 May
2013
2 May
'13
8:47 a.m.
On May 2, 2013, at 8:36 AM, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote:
On May 1, 2013, at 7:44 PM, Denis Gervalle <dgl(a)softec.lu> wrote:
Bad argument because our goal is to move users to the latest syntax. The idea is that the
latest syntax is better so, no, we cannot say to users that they should stay on the old
syntax because it's nicer to type link refs… :)
Have I said the contrary ? 4 is better than 3, but not that much IMO since
we still have the split issue. 4 solve the problem for your current needs,
but does not lead to a general way of identifying ressources in XWiki.
It does! It's like solution 1 actually. Again here it is (and again we could think of
another syntax if we want, we don't have to use [[[…]]], we could use for example
didn't finish my sentence… :) I meant to say that we could some other markup if we
didn't want to have 3 [[[ and ]]].
Thanks
-Vincent
Hi Vincent,
On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 7:48 AM, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote:
I never ever type a URL! The only thing I do is copy paste URLs into documents…
Hi Denis,
On Apr 30, 2013, at 11:21 PM, Denis Gervalle <dgl(a)softec.lu> wrote:
Are we talking about navigating the wiki ? no, we are talking about editing
hyperlinked documents, and you need to type the http:// as soon as you
refer a document outside of your current server. Isn't that comparable to
linking document in another wiki ? On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 7:58 PM, Vincent Massol
<vincent(a)massol.net>
wrote:
> Hi Denis,
>
> On Apr 30, 2013, at 1:26 PM, Denis Gervalle <dgl(a)softec.lu> wrote:
>
>> Hi devs,
>>
>> I have a very bad feeling with proposal 3, since it split the
identifier,
>> which makes its main part to loose its
meaning when taken alone. So you
>> cannot comunicate the whole information easily on different channels
> (think
>> about copy/pasting such reference ?). This is also really verbose,
> sometime
>> it looks odd, and I found it to be complex from a user view point.
>> Moreover, it could not be easily applied in other situation than links,
>> while ressource identification is not limited to links (think about a
> macro
>> arguments ?, see MotionComposer macro that imitate image: for an
> example).
>> I know it is hard, but I am currently -1 for this proposal.
>>
>> If we look at large, what we really need and intend to achieve is to
have
>> an extensible syntax to identify
ressources in XWiki. There is
obviously
> a
>> ready made standardized syntax for such purpose: URN. Proposal 1 is
> really
>> near that specification (but too verbose for URL), but I agree with
> Thomas
>> that users will complains to be forced to use doc: everywhere. This is
>> precisely why I made proposal 2, which will fully avoid that constrains
> for
>> user of single wikis (a lot of our user since XE was our mostly
> downloaded
>> distribution until now).
>>
>> So my vote are (sorry Vincent, but your request to have a truly single
> vote
>> is far too restrictive for this matter)
>> +1 to really conform with a URN syntax as much as possible (remove the
>> useless verbosity for URL).
>> Proposal 1: +0
>> Proposal 2: +1
>> Proposal 3: -1
>
> I also prefer URIs but my problem with solution 2 is having to prefix
with
> "doc:" for links to subwikis. This
is pretty common.
I do not see why this is so annoying, we type http:// to start URLs,
and I
do not feel anyone has ever complains.
Yes but we don't type URLs often at all… We navigate by clicking. Imagine
that every time you click on a link you had to instead type it, it would
become quickly an issue…
In any
case I think the main issue now is that 1) we have already offered
a simpler way for users to type references to docs and 2) other wikis also
propose this simpler way. Because of these 2 points, I'm not sure we can
ever go back to making it harder to type references to docs...
I do not believe 1) is a good argument. First, if users prefer simpler
syntax for subwiki's links compare to an extensible URI base syntax, they
may simply continue to use syntax 2.1. Second, are there so much users with
that preference, that also use multiple wikis with links between them ?
I think so, especially since we're making XEM the default (first step was virtual=1
by default, second step is to be able to create wikis by default).
Finally, we also provide other means to create
documents then writing them
using the xwiki syntax. We could also think about improving the editor to
insert link/image more easily.
IMO this fails the concept of the wiki syntax which is to be extra simple and quick to
use. So yes auto completion on linking/images is a good thing we need in the future but if
we could also have a simple syntax at least for doc ref it would be good.
So is the limitation of solution 2, imposed by
the need for flexibility, so
blocker, as you seems to believe ?
- Solution 1 is nice because it's simple and coherent. But harder to write doc refs
- Solution 2 is slightly less nice because not coherent. Simple to write doc refs but not
cross wikis.
- Solution 3 is less nice because it drops the concept of URIs which could prove useful
in the future for other things in XWiki
- Solution 4: is less nice than 1 because less coherent but at the same level of
coherency as solution 2 and 3 and at the same time it doesn't have the drawback of
solution 2. It's very close to solution 3 but keeping the concept of URIs.
Regarding point 2), I have not enough knowledge
of other wikis, but it
could be interesting to elaborate and see how and which of those other
wikis really support easy interwiki links in there syntax, while providing
at the same time support to different kind of ressources. I may be wrong,
but I do not believe there will be numerous competitor with those criteria.
They don't have this concept. But we need to be careful, we cannot allow to be
powerful and complex. We need to be powerful and simple. So making the main use case hard
just for supporting other use cases that are used 5% of the time is not a good solution
IMO.
So, solution 1 is not that bad, and
solution 2 is only a feature over it, for those who use very basic
feature.
It compare to the omnibox of chrome that try to
be clever and works in
most
situations, but some still require you to enter
the http:// prefix.
> I had proposed another solution in the other thread with a different
> notation for proper URI notations. The idea was to use the shortcut
> notation when you wanted to use document references for simplicity
reasons
> and use the proper syntax when you use proper
URIs.
>
> Maybe that solution wasn't that bad. I'm putting it again here (with a
> difference using [[[…]]] instead of >>> as I had said since that
doesn't
> work for images):
>
> * Shortcut notation for doc refs: [[label>>docref]]
> * General notations for URIs: [[[label>>type:reference]]]
> * Shortcut notation for images: [[image:docref]]
> * General notation for URIs in images: [[[image:type:reference]]]
>
> It looks clunky at first but it isn't really since it represents what we
> want:
> * shortcut notation for doc URIs
> * full notation for any URI
>
> WDYT?
>
This again increase complexity (from a user POV) for very little benefit
IMO. It look odd and again it cannot be applied anywhere, like in macros.
So I see this fourth solution not much better than solution 3.
You're not very logical here :) You said you wanted URIs and solution 4 is
about URIs while solution 3 isn't about URIs so you should prefer solution
4 over solution 3 normally :)
[[[label>>type:reference]]]
Now just because we want to make it easy to type doc ref we also allow a **shortcut**
(not the canonical way!):
[[label>>docref]]
Having a consistant solution is also important,
and a good way to simplify
the user experience.
Yes but only solution 1 provides this but at a big cost which I currently consider too
large.
Of course since this is an important decision I'd like to know what others think
too.
If you're keen on URIs (as I am, thanks for
reminding me that in your email
Thanks
-Vincent
>> Thanks
>> -Vincent
>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> -Vincent
>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Vincent Massol
<vincent(a)massol.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Typos below.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Apr 30, 2013, at 11:02 AM, Vincent Massol
<vincent(a)massol.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi devs,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Following this thread
http://markmail.org/thread/vw3derowozijqalr it
>>>>>> seems clear that we need to introduce a better syntax for links
and
>>>> images
>>>>>> in XWiki Syntax 2.2 (in order to cope with use cases such as
>>>>>> http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XRENDERING-290).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The need is to be able to plug new reference type handlers
without
>>>>>> breaking backward compatibility in XWiki Syntax 2.2 (since right
now
>>>> with
>>>>>> XWiki Syntax 2.0 and 2.1 adding a new type reference handler
would
>> break
>>>>>> backward compatibility).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So here are various proposals to that effect for XWiki Syntax
2.2
>> (I've
>>>>>> only kept the interesting proposals from the previous thread).
Please
>>>> vote
>>>>>> for the one you prefer or add new solutions if you have other
better
>>>> ideas.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Proposal 1
>>>>>>> =========
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Force XWiki Syntax 2.2 to *ALWAYS* use the full form when
creating a
>>>>>> link or image, i.e. all links would need to be written:
>>>>>> [[label>>type:reference]]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Examples:
>>>>>>> * [[label>>doc:space.page]]
>>>>>>> * [[label>>doc:wiki:space.page]]
>>>>>>> * [[label>>path:/some/path]]
>>>>>>> * [[label>>url:http://xwiki.org]]
>>>>>>> * [[label>>user:evalica]]
>>>>>>> * [[image:doc:wiki:space.page@image.png]]
>>>>>>> * [[image:icon:someicon.png]]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> CONS:
>>>>>>> * Harder to write links to documents which is the main use
case
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Proposal 2
>>>>>>> =========
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Same as with XWiki Syntax 2.1 but for links or images to
subwikis
>> force
>>>>>> the user to use the "doc:" notation
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Examples:
>>>>>>> * [[label>>space.page]] or
[[label>>doc:space.page]]
>>>>>>> * [[label>>doc:wiki:space.page]]
>>>>>>> * [[label>>>path:/some/path]]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Should be [[label>>path:/some/path]]
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * [[label>>http://xwiki.org]] or
[[label>>>url:http://xwiki.org]]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Should be [[label>>http://xwiki.org]] or
[[label>>url:
>> http://xwiki.org
>>>> ]]
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * [[label>>user:evalica]]
>>>>>>> * [[image:doc:wiki:space.page@image.png]]
>>>>>>> * [[image:icon:someicon.png]]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> PRO:
>>>>>>> * Still easy to reference docs and images in the current
wiki
>>>>>>> * Close to current XWiki Syntax 2.1
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> CONS:
>>>>>>> * Harder to write links to documents in subwikis (for
workspaces
>> users
>>>>>> for example, see example of xwiki.org)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Proposal 3
>>>>>>> =========
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Always define the type as a link or image parameter, i.e.
separate
>>>>>> subwiki notation from type.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Examples:
>>>>>>> * [[label>>space.page]] or
[[label>>space.page||type="doc"]]
>>>>>>> * [[label>>wiki:space.page]] or
>> [[label>>wiki:space.page||type="doc"]]
>>>>>>> * [[label>>>/some/path||type="path"]]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Should be [[label>>/some/path||type="path"]]
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * [[label>>http://xwiki.org]] or
[[label>>>http://xwiki.org
>>>>>> ||type="url"]]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Should be [[label>>http://xwiki.org]] or
[[label>>http://xwiki.org
>>>>>> ||type="url"]]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks
>>>>>> -Vincent
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * [[label>>evalica||type="user"]]
>>>>>>> * [[image:wiki:space.page@image.png]] or
>>>>>> [[image:wiki:space.page@image.png||type="doc"]]
>>>>>>> * [[image:someicon.png||type="icon"]]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> PRO:
>>>>>>> * Still easy to reference docs
>>>>>>> * Clear separation between subwiki and types
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> CONS:
>>>>>>> * Harder to write typed links
>>>>>>> * Harder to write references in non xwiki/2.x syntax that
would not
>>>>>> support link parameters
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks
>>>>>>> -Vincent btw :)), then I believe solution 4 is currently
the best one.
I do not agree, if you're keen on URIs (and I am) Solution 1 is the best
one, considering it will only affect a new syntax.