After my thread a while ago about the weakness of editing content in
Drupal (not just Drupal, most CMS have the same problem IMHO) I did some
thinking.
I already use a Firefox extension called Mozex, among other things this
allows you to use a local (and powerful/familiar) editor to edit a
textarea. In general I use it with Wikis when I want to do some serious
editing - start editing, get a textarea and hit CTRL/E and the textarea
appears in my favourite editor (vile, a vi clone) on my local system. It
gives me two big advantages, much faster editing because I'm editing a
local file on my system rather than a textarea across an HTTP connection
and a familiar editor.
So I wondered if I could do the same with the content editor in Drupal,
and the answer is yes! :-)
If I set it up correctly I can pop up (for example) kompozer (the
unofficial update of nvu) to edit my content in Drupal. It gives lots
of advantages, mostly similar to using vi for a Wiki. I get *much*
faster WYSIWYG editing because it doesn't have to go back and forth
down an HTTP link, I get my choice of WYSIWYG editor, or I can use vi,
or I could use Bluefish.
Whoopee! I may even try Drupal again, having tried a wide range of
alternatives many of which trip over at the same place, rather weak
(and clumsy) content editing.
I realise this is a 'one user' fix, it's not going to be a generic
approach to editing in CMS but it makes a big difference for me and
maybe this could be useful for others.
--
Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)
