[Rhaptos] Using HTML5 Microdata Formats for New Editor

[Roché Compaan]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 7:28 PM, J. Cameron Cooper <jccooper at gmail.com> wrote:
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>
> On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 10:26 AM, Ed Woodward <ecw1 at rice.edu> wrote:
>>
>> ** Please note: Replies to this mail will go to the list, not the original sender**
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>> We have been discussing the possibility of using HTML5 Microdata formats
>> to document elements in a new WYSIWYG Editor for CNXML.  I've done a
>> conversion of 9 elements in CNXML that do not map directly to an HTML
>> element.  You can view the document at
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vVCMv7rsbO5NHpnUkVxomwvDc13budL4JGPhZv5DGo4/edit.
>> I've placed the CNXML first followed by the conversion to HTML5 Microdata.
>>
>> I would like to get some feedback from the community about using
>> microdata in the editor.  The microdata would be converted to CNXML at
>> some point (when saving?) and CNXML converted to microdata (checking out
>> existing module?).  The main usage would be for elements that do not map
>> directly to existing HTML elements.  You can see a list of those
>> elements at
>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArvuSYeGW6GpdGVzX0NhZUo1VUN5eGFPVks5THN5YlE&hl=en_US#gid=3
>>
>> The spec for HTML 5 Microdata is at http://dev.w3.org/html5/md/
>>
>> This Wikipedia article has a nice summary:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdata_(HTML)
>
>
> It seems like the right thing to use, but it seems like support in tools is rather short. On one hand, it is still draft; on the other, it's been around for a few years.
>
> Does TinyMCE or one of its friends support reading and/or writing microdata? Since apparently only Opera 11 understands it natively, that seems unlikely.
>
> Banging it into place with classes would be less elegant but would certainly work.

I agree with Cameron - the lack of support for microdata does not make
it the most attractive option and one can achieve must better and more
usuable rendering when using CSS classes and given that this is a
WYSIWYG editor, styling is important. I wouldn't necessarily have a
problem with using both classes and microdata but I'm not sure that
the amount of hacking required to support microdata in a WYSIWYG
editor is worth the effort.

-- 
Roché Compaan
Upfront Systems                   http://www.upfrontsystems.co.za