GSOC #2: TinyMCE improvements for Plone
University was quite successfully killing my overall productivity. Past week was grand finale, so I'm completely back to TinyMCE and Plone.
For few past weeks I was working on upgrading TinyMCE to version 3.4.3 (Plone currently uses version back from 2009). Fully automated upgrade procedure is now as easy as running a shell script. Upgrade was twice (or more) as painful as I originally anticipated. During upgrade many walls were hit and I questioned the whole approach. The conclusion is more or less: this is not maintainable. Few thoughts:
- we maintain separate branch from TinyMCE guys and make changes directly into the core -- correct approach would be to merge important changes upstream and keep our plugins separate (although this is near to impossible with current TinyMCE architecture)
- every Plone change to TinyMCE should be commented (explained atleast briefly) and noted where it starts and ends
- I created github fork of TinyMCE to keep merging easier. It will brings a little bit painful development, but that can be solved.
Mockups for browser dialog are finished! I'm quite satistifed with the result: screenshots. Following things were kept in mind while redesigning the interface, to keep it more inituitive:
- elaborate icons
- separate shortcuts and link types (also add explicit "internal" link intead of clicking "home")
- more clear idea that "current folder" is a place where uploaded file will land
- image thumbnails
- less fragments of window to make it less confusing
- few new features like external image upload
Until the midterm evaluations (15. July) I will try to get new design converted into HTML/CSS ready for backend changes and merge upgraded TinyMCE to github. Would love to hear comments on redesign, what can be further improved?