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?

PS: Without Vim as my "battle with text" ultimate tool, the job would be a suicide.
PPS: I'm participating at Sauna Sprint 2011, which will be an important week for the project, you should join while there is space left ;)
PPPS: Thanks for all the ideas around improvements, I will prioritize report what's being worked on!