[support] How to insert links to other pages on the same site?

[cl at isbd.net]

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 at 02:18:10PM -0800, Earl Miles wrote:
> cl at isbd.net wrote:
>   > So your saying basically that all that Drupal is doing (I realise that
> > 'all' is a very great deal) is to separate the structure from the
> > content and that the content is still the same as it every was.  It ca
> > be 'masked' behind something like TinyMCE but that really loses as
> > much as it gains.
> > 
> > OK, I can understand that but it isn't what a lot of CMS systems seem
> > to be trying to sell me.  *Lots* of them are saying that once you have
> > set up your structure the 'designers' can relax and the non-techie
> > members of staff can do all the data entry.  What you're saying above
> > is that the data entry is still really HTML and the non-techie users
> > are going to have as much trouble as always (well, nearly, you have
> > taken away the problems of creating a nice menu structure and a
> > consistent look).
> 
> I wouldn't say as much trouble as always, for three reasons.
> 
> 1) The 'content' generally doesn't need the positioning details that make 
> working with web stuff hard. In general, CMS' expect the content stream to be 
> just a stream.
> 
Yes, I agree it is somewhat easier but I think I am arguing that the
content (at least for the sorts of things I want to do) is actually
*more* than a stream.


> 2) The markup set you need for content is minimal, and if you look in the 
> filter tips, there is some documentation to help non-techies understand what 
> they can mark the content up with. I'm not convinced that "non-techies" can't 
> cope with the few tags that are used, such as the <a>, <b> and <i> tags which 
> are still very common within content.
> 
> 3) A lot of the hard work is taken away. Titling is taken care of and 
> paragraphs are dealt with.
> 
'Titling' is where I take issue with you, titling is part of the
content.  This I think is why this whole thread started with 'how do I
get headings in the content?'.  Someone entering content (well me
anyway) *does* want control of titles and paragraph layout.

It's the 'provided by the structure' headings that irritate me, OK,
they're consistent but I simply don't want them!  I know they can
probably be removed but it's the assumption that they're provided by
the structure seems strange to me.


> But yes, at some level there has to be, still, some kind of markup. TinyMCE can 
> do some of this for you, if you can get it configured to work the way you like 
> it, but things like TinyMCE are worlds away from the editors we are more 
> familiar with.
> 
Yes, I know, however I use Mozilla (i.e. a previous incarnation of
what is now SeaMonkey) for editing web pages at work and find it very
good at what it does.  That's a WYSIWYG HTML editor but it gives me a
totally different feel of what I'm doing than TinyMCE does within
Drupal.


> I'm not sure that CMS' are steering you wrong; I do feel you have a couple of 
> errant assumptions about what you'll be getting, and certainly if you NEED 
> those assumptions, you may be in the wrong place, but there may not be a right 
> place.
> 
Quite agree, I'm not saying that Drupal is wrong, I'm saying that I
don't think it's what I want.  What I want is a non-browser based CMS
that probably creates static HTML (I think!).


> And on most sites, non-technical people do the data entry. But even non 
> technical people have to learn a few technical things. Even in Word. Heck, I'm 
> a technical person and I can't figure out Word most of the time. =)
> 
I have that problem too!  :-)
However you may have greater insight than you think there, it's partly
the similarities between Drupal (and many similar CMS) and Word that
annoys and confuses me I think.  It's the 'second guessing' of what I
want to do and the (what feels like) its rules impopsing themselves on
what I'm trying to do.  It's like when Word decides to capitalise a
word you don't want capitalised or turns something into a month
superscript when you don't want it to.  These things *can* be changed
but the default is annoying/confusing.

-- 
Chris Green (chris at halon.org.uk)