Writing in a browser?
Jeff linked a Clay Shirky comment earlier wherein Mr. Shirky lamented that his browser makes a poor writing tool. (I give the link again because, why make the reader work more than they have to? Links are cheap.) I use anything but a browser window for text entry; for one thing, in Blogger at least, one cannot alter the size of the text window. If I edit on a computer, why would I subject myself to the limitations of essentially a PDA sized window? The Draft feature in blogger serves as a save feature (but ruins flow by taking the writer out of the editing window) and could address Mr. Shirky's concerns about reliability. No help for the person who writes in anything aside from Blogger.
All the tools available for browsers enable downloading content or pushing content to users. What can one expect given the paradigm of the browser is one-way, down to users? Even if the web were not commerce centered, the simplest web page one can write involves sending content out. The web is not built for dialogue. So my first thought on reading Mr. Shirky's post is, why so surprised that the browser remains an unreliable writing tool?
My solution, had I the inclination, would be to build a text editor as a Firefox/Mozilla extension. It would be integrated into sidebar, and for all purposes would be a wordpad -- with save function, with simpler ASCII text "markup". Something similar to NoteStudio for PalmOS. A single function key press would kick properly marked up text into a selected text box. Or I can just continue to use NoteStudio, as I'm doing now, to write and typeset. A button press displays it on a browser, from which I can get an html document. Everything about this process is a kludge. Maybe what we need is to combine the web with instant messaging.
Have a permanent text entry frame or window at the bottom of a web-messenger hybrid. If a web site enables reader comments, hooks are enacted that allows for instant comment uploading, along with identity and timestamp. It should offload the work needed to maintain user comments to the user, but makes it as simple as possible to reply. Membership requirements can still work in this two way setting.
All the tools available for browsers enable downloading content or pushing content to users. What can one expect given the paradigm of the browser is one-way, down to users? Even if the web were not commerce centered, the simplest web page one can write involves sending content out. The web is not built for dialogue. So my first thought on reading Mr. Shirky's post is, why so surprised that the browser remains an unreliable writing tool?
My solution, had I the inclination, would be to build a text editor as a Firefox/Mozilla extension. It would be integrated into sidebar, and for all purposes would be a wordpad -- with save function, with simpler ASCII text "markup". Something similar to NoteStudio for PalmOS. A single function key press would kick properly marked up text into a selected text box. Or I can just continue to use NoteStudio, as I'm doing now, to write and typeset. A button press displays it on a browser, from which I can get an html document. Everything about this process is a kludge. Maybe what we need is to combine the web with instant messaging.
Have a permanent text entry frame or window at the bottom of a web-messenger hybrid. If a web site enables reader comments, hooks are enacted that allows for instant comment uploading, along with identity and timestamp. It should offload the work needed to maintain user comments to the user, but makes it as simple as possible to reply. Membership requirements can still work in this two way setting.
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