Incomplete document about raneto

[batjko]

Since Renato doesn't have any in-built editor (something which should really be rectified), but simply displays existing file content, wouldn't it make sense to just add a line above your first headline yourself?

[jbrooksuk]

At the moment I've put:

<div class='alert alert-warning'>
    <strong>This document is incomplete.</strong>
</div>

But I'm sure it could be nicer.

[batjko]

How did you implement this though? On a Raneto page specifically, and if so, do you toggle it somehow?

I was just thinking that a warning for that should be inside the markdown file itself, because Raneto wouldn't know it has an unfinished page, unless you implement some kind of persistent status value for each page?

[jbrooksuk]

I place the HTML within the Markdown file directly.

My thoughts were more along the line of adding:

wip: true

To the header block (with Title and Sort keys).

[batjko]

I can get behind that. 👍

I still think Renato should use an embedded Markdown editor though, making interaction between Renato and the stored md files quite a lot smoother.
Additionally, Renato could keep an index of stored files with additional info, like the wip status, author, maybe even git integration for versioning etc etc...

[jbrooksuk]

I happen to disagree with embedding a Markdown editor. We use Renato for our internal development guide, HR and staff training (each an individual instance of Renato). We push the code to our Dokku server, which isn't persistent. Having an embedded editor in this instance does nothing for you because any edits made would be lost.

I can see why it's beneficial, but I bet quite a few people are using Renato in a similar way, perhaps with Heroku?

[batjko]

I can see that point if you use it in that kind of scenario.
To me, Renato would persist files locally as drafts and then send them off to the server if the right button is clicked etc.
For a knowledge base scenario, you'd want people to click an edit button, make a change and save it down, seamingly.

I have gotten EpicEditor embedded for this purpose, just to see if I could make it work. It's actually very easy, with very good out-of-the-box properties.

I think it should certainly be an option to use or not.

[jbrooksuk]

If it was an option then I could get behind that :)

[vyp]

I don't think I understand, what sort of effect are you looking for by marking a document as incomplete? Wouldn't a simple emphasized note: line or something to that degree solve this? Why should raneto in particular have to deal with it?

@batjko Regarding an embedded editor, I'd disagree like @jbrooksuk, seems like a waste of time? What's the advantage with having an embedded editor? I don't see it as making interaction "quite a lot smoother" than just using a normal editor? Also what do you specifically mean by git integration?

Just my opinions though, not a developer.

[jbrooksuk]

@jumpwah having an option to mark the document as incomplete could allow further options like stopping the page from being listed, or display a warning as my original suggestion etc.

[vyp]

Nice idea, that might be useful yes, thanks for elaborating.

[batjko]

@jumpwah Well not everyone has access to the files directly. I would have thought, and I seem to be wrong, that the usual use case for this kind of application is Renato on a web server, in order to make pages available to users. Normally your users are not your server admin team or developers, but just people who want to see the pages, without knowing the exact server the .md files are stored on, or having any access to it?

Thus, you'd want people to be able to upload new pages and edit existing ones, no?

[vyp]

@batjko I guess your last line is the main point here. Never thought about that since wouldn't that make it more like a wiki? Is that what raneto is/should be? To be honest, you might not be wrong since who am I to say what you should or should not do (with raneto).

But couldn't what you're saying be implemented without raneto directly? Have something else manage the uploading of new pages and editing of existing ones and have raneto simply function as the viewer for the md files?

Also, if you don't have access to the files directly, I'm not sure why you make a point of interaction being smoother with an embedded editor since there isn't any interaction with the files to begin with anyway. First you would need to have some sort of access to the files before the interaction to them can be made smoother, right?

[batjko]

You're quite right, I see Raneto very much as a wiki-type knowledge base, or at least as the bare bones shell of one. I think I am approaching it with that mindset and got confused that it is apparently assumed that people have access to the .md files as much as they have to the viewer.

But by "smoother" I meant that anyone wanting to edit the files - whether they have access to the files on the server or not - might want to do that directly from within the viewer, rather than log onto the server, navigate to the raneto content folder etc etc...

I don't know. I guess I was just a bit more ambitious with this idea?

[gilbitron]

I'm not sure adding wip functionality to Raneto is required in the core. It makes the project lean towards a wiki instead of just a knowledgebase. Certainly something that could be implemented as a relatively easy customisation though.