WYSIWYG for webdialogs.

jolran

Hi. Im new here so hello to everyone!

I have been trying to learn ruby last couple of weeks, and is on the "newbie level" of making an icon and call
for webdialog OK in SU.
It is kind of daunting to try to learn 3 languages(Ruby, HTML and Jsript) just to make a dialog.

My question is: Is anyone using WYSIWYG editors for plunking out html code?

It seems an easier approach to lay out the dialog visually. I realise one have to learn html somewhat but was thinking of shortcutting it a just littl,e and focus more on learning Javascript for callbacks to SU.

Have been trying Webbuilder 7. http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com/download.html

But a little consearned about the code generated. Its gives nice results visually and fast.
I cant really say if I'm waisting my time on this one, and that it will not work when
I am going to communicate with my dialog to SU.

Any advice would be nice.

Thanks.

driven

hi,
I wouldn't buy a wysisyg editor just for WebDialogs, [there are lots of open source ones out there]

if you use RubyCodeEditor.rb you can use a simple WebDialog code snippet, add simple html, inline css, inline js and run in directly in SU, if you make changes you just reload the file to see the difference... wysiwyg but inside SU.

also in the reference section of RCEditor there's a link to Martin Rhineharts 'Edges to Rubies' tutorials which has html/js for SU chapters...

here's a link, if you want to check it out first.

http://www.martinrinehart.com/models/tutorial/tutorial_toc.html

john

jolran

@unknownuser said:

I wouldn't buy a wysisyg editor just for WebDialogs, [there are lots of open source ones out there

Webbuild.7 is only 45 $. Affordable if I get "usable" results, wich acctually was the main question. Ive tried some other WYSIWYG editors and liked this
one the best cause of simplicity.

I am going to have a look at working with ruby code editor and HTML files.
Very good advice there, thanks!
I'm using it already but did not think of using it in that way.
Had some crashes in SU. Still using ver 7.1. But thats another topic...

I have gone through Martins R's tutorials. Funny guy. Very good tutorials though. I will go through them again when I have finished reading "Javascript in 24 hours"

Thanks for the respond.

thomthom

I never trust WYSIWYG editors - they often don't produce efficient or clean code. Often it doesn't work well across platforms.
And due to the nature of WebDialogs where you need to communicate with SketchUp you most likely need to have knowledge of the HTML,CSS and JS structure.

As a sidenote - I'm slowing building a library that let you build the WebDialog UI via Ruby. But there's still quite a bit to go before it's properly usable.

Jim

I agree with Thom - do the simplest thing that works. Make a simple WebDialog by hand until you understand how it interacts with the Ruby script. Then if/when you create the dialog using a wysiwyg editor, you will know where to look when things don't work.

jolran

I suspected some of you experts did not use WYSIWYG editor or did not trust them fully.

And get enough knowledge about the languages to know where to look,
even if using an editor, is an advice I will follow.

@unknownuser said:

I'm slowing building a library that let you build the WebDialog UI via Ruby.

That sound very interresting, and probably is a lot of work!
The inbuilt UI-menu for sketchup seams to be very limited indeed, so
this would be very welcomed.

The more I read up on things the more I realise there isent so many shortcuts
for knowledge.
But Ill give it a try. Its fun.

Thanks

thomthom

To get you started, focus on HTML and JS - get the functionality first. Then start worrying about the layout ( CSS ).

Have a look at HTML Dog for tutorials: http://htmldog.com/
It's a site that teaches you good practices - something which is scarce amongst the flora of webdesign tutorials.

Start with a simple case, have a try, ask questions here - and you'll soon the rolling.

jolran

Thanks ThomThom!

HTML dog indeed had some good libraries and tutorials.

I can see this "Ruby" side of Sketchup can fast become an addiction. A shame I havent started earlier.

thomthom

Looking forward to seeing your creations.

jolran

Thanks