zim-wiki team mailing list archive

[Christoph Zwerschke <cito@xxxxxxxxx>]

Am 04.03.2012 11:48, schrieb Dotan Cohen:
> Then why do you prefer that you can type //some text// to have it
> italicized in the normal window? What is wrong with Ctrl-I before and
> after? It is exactly the confusion between raw/source mode and normal
> mode that hinders Zim from handling arbitrary input.
>
> In other words, there already exists shortcuts for headings and
> formating in Zim, with the Ctrl modifiers just like in any other
> formatted editor. If one wants to type wiki-syntax directly, then have
> an easy way to switch to wiki-syntax / raw / source mode.

The advantage is that you can write wiki syntax everywhere, not only in 
zim, and if you are accustomed to that syntax, it's easier to use than 
having to remember all these Ctrl/Alt-keyboard shortcuts. Ok, Ctrl-I for 
italics is easy, but what's the shortcut for code again? And how do you 
enter a bulleted list? I like the idea that my data is stored in a very 
simple format that can be exported and converted easily, and that is so 
simple that I can edit it directly.

I have tried both wysiwyg tools and tools with a strict separation of 
edit/view modes in the past, and I had problems with both. Zim appeared 
to me as a middle ground combining advantages of both approaches.

But ok, maybe the problems I experienced with other tools are only based 
on shortcomings in the software, not in the paradigms themselves.

For instance, Evernote is great. But there is no simple way to enter 
code snippets or shell commands inside a page. I have to manually mark 
the snippet, select a monospaced font, maybe change the size or color. 
Similarly, there is no way to mark a level 1 or 2 heading. Again, I have 
to mark the heading, and change the font size. And then all you have is 
formatted text, no semantic markup that could be used when exporting to 
other systems. Maybe this could be solved by Evernote adding simple 
semantic markup and ways to export that, but they never implement such 
things because they want to be attractive to the "casual" user who 
doesn't care about such things.

Likewise, ConnectedText is great. But having to switch between edit and 
view mode gives me headaches because the text looks completely different 
in both modes and it's often difficult to find the right location. Maybe 
this could be solved by automatically mapping the cursor location 
between modes, but I think switching view modes is still inconvenient in 
everyday use, I want to have living data that can be easily accessed and 
altered without switching modes.

-- Christoph