Macro integration UX proposal

[tkrieck]

@mleduc

In this picture, I’m not sure to understand the Search field. In XWiki’s CKEditor and in Blocknote, the search query is usually directly following the / in the content of the page. So it the search field achieving something else?

You’re right, I’ve modified my mock to use the standard, directly from the text:

@mleduc

Regarding the up and down arrows. Editors typically already have their own way to move blocks around. I’m not sure want to duplicate this with our mechanism.

From what I’ve seen, most editors rely on drag and drop. Now, there are accessible ways of moving blocks by keyboard shortcuts (ctrl+shift+arrows). The advantage of up/down icons is that there’s a visual cue for it (besides the drag handle). Perhaps we can simplify and go with the standard of the editor and check for feedback on this feature.

@mleduc

In XWiki we have a modal to search specifically for macros, allowing to search by keywords and to filter by categories, is it something we’d like to keep having (possibly with a bit of restyling)?

I don’t find that modal to be very usefull to be honest. The slash command does everything that the modal do in a more streamlined way. For example searching for development tools, in the slash command I can just type “development” and all appropriate macros are filtered. In the dialog I need to use the category field for it.

Slash command

Dialog

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have a discrete icon on the toolbar, though (for visibility reasons) I would just open the same menu as the slash command.

@mleduc

How macros behave in inline mode.

I couldn’t find a complex macro inline on XWiki, most of them are just styling options, so I wouldn’t develop something too advanced for them (maybe just a button to remove the styling).

@mleduc

I’m also wondering if it could be interesting to have some macro configuration available directly from the macro’s toolbar (the rest of the config would still be behind the cog button).

That’s a good option, I think we could have a reserved space (and rules) about them. The reserved space would be contextual to the macro being edited of course, the fixed buttons should always remain in their places.

@mleduc

• ability to split a macro (e.g., transform a warning macro with two paragraphs into two warning macros with one paragraph)
• ability to merge macros (e.g., transform two warning macros with one paragraph in a single warning macro with two paragraphs)

That’s an interesting use case, but I guess it should only be available when two identical macros are selected, right?

@CharpentierLucas

AFAIK there’s no alternative way to move a large block of content at once (source-> Ctrl+C->Ctrl+V ).

I had to dig a bit but found the ctrl+shift+arrows on Notion and Blocknote.

@CharpentierLucas

The way we did this drag-and-drop alternative on XWiki Livedata columns is:

Thanks for the reminder. This is a UI paradigm that needs to have the same behavior as the one in the editor.