Silverlight-based Rich Text Content Editor for FlexWiki

1. Silverlight-based Rich Text Content Editor for FlexWiki Shankar Arunachalam & Raam Kumar Ganesan

2. Preamble Abu, do another thing now: Belbo orders Abu to change all words, make each “a” become “akka” and each “o” become “ulla,” for a paragraph to look almost Finnish. Akkabu, dulla akkanullather thing nullaw: Belbulla ullarders Ak-kabu tulla chakkange akkall wullards, makkake eakkach “akka” be-cullame “akkakkakka” akkand eakkach “ulla” becullame “ullakka,” fullar akka pakkarakkagrakkaph tulla lullaullak akkalmullast Finnish. Umberto Eco’s take on a word processor, Abulafia Foucault’s Pendulum, 1988 FlexWiki - WikiCreate

3. What is deal with FlexWiki? A collaborative web-based authoring environment implemented on the Microsoft .NET platform. Originally developed by Microsoft and released in SourceForge as an open source project in late 2004 (Microsoft’s 3rd open source initiative) 4 project administrators and 25 developers Version control using SVN Development using C#, ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 Automated testing using NUnit FlexWiki - WikiCreate

4. Is FlexWiki Open Source? • Yes. Because FlexWiki is filed under COMMON PUBLIC LICENSE 1.0 which is a popular open source license approved by the Open Source Initiative and the Free Software Foundation • Some of the popular open source applications that use CPL1.0 are phpMyAdmin, FileZilla, Azureus, 7-Zip etc FlexWiki - WikiCreate

5. What is the deal with text editor? FlexWiki community was looking for an intuitive WYSIWYG interface for Rich Text Content creation The interface should be online with future provision for offline editing Should be in sync with the development platform of FlexWiki Can be a plug-in or a standalone application that interacts with FlexWiki In the words of the lead developer: FlexWiki - WikiCreate

6. Is the project about “Bold & Italics”? • Live Mesh Features: • Synchronize data across devices that I own • A cloud called Live Desktop to access shared data • Access my other devices using remote desktop • Work offline with applications • Synchronize through the cloud when you go online later ‘LiveMesh’-enabled Analysis - Our perspective Analysis – Community perspective Solution Yes and no Main focus was to build a silver-light based, web application that will interface with FlexWiki through web services to exchange content Needed to choose the best option for developing a Rich Text Editor out of a set of options FlexWiki - WikiCreate

7. So, how does it work? FlexWiki Server Web Service FlexWiki - WikiCreate

8. What is our contribution? • Implementation of a Silverlight application, WikiCreate, which hosts: • A Rich Text Editor user control based on an open source initiative, RichTextEdit2.0 (MIT License) • Added features like Hyperlinks, Justification • Implemented hooks for undo, redo, select all, delete to be consumed by hosting page • Consumed existing hooks in the hosting page • Animated toolbar for Content Creation using open source images • Establishing contact between WikiCreate and FlexWiki using FlexWiki’s EditService web service • Content massaging to convert internal representation of rich text data in RichTextEdit2.0 into representation consumable by FlexWiki (ongoing process) FlexWiki - WikiCreate

9. Development - UI Client UI developed in Silverlight (Extensible Application Markup Language - XAML) using Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft Expression Blend 2 Open Source Images from Tango Project (Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license) Implemented a hierarchy of Dialog box controls to handle ‘hyperlinks’, ‘find’ and ‘open’ functionalities with exposed events that help in passing data back to the parent control Implemented dynamic building of tool bar using .NET reflection, with information read from an XML file Discussion FlexWiki - WikiCreate

10. Development – Web Service Handshake • FlexWiki has a hierarchy of namespaces and Wiki topics to organize content • Consumed the following asynchronous Web Methods of EditService web service of FlexWiki: • GetAllNamespacesAsync – Used in Open Dialog • GetAllTopicsAsync – Used in Open Dialog • SetTextForTopic – Used in saving the content back to FlexWiki server • Discussion FlexWiki - WikiCreate

11. Deployment and Version Control • Have sent our signed copies of Assignment Agreement to Microsoft for registration and awaiting completion • First, the contract assigns ownership of the contribution to Microsoft • Second, it gives us back the rights we need to do what we want with our contribution • Lead developer John Davidson has given access through LiveMesh to a shadow deployment of the FlexWiki for deployment and configuration FlexWiki - WikiCreate

12. Was it easy sailing? Yes and No  John Davidson was amazingly co-operative Constant discussions in the forum helped a great deal during conception and implementation Hadn’t been exposed to Silverlight concepts (XAML etc) before Had to analyze and understand FlexWiki and RichTextEdit2.0 code bases Mesh-enabled web applications is a bleeding edge technology (introduced at the Microsoft PDC 2008 on October 29th, 2008) FlexWiki - WikiCreate

13. Road Ahead… Loads of features yet to be implemented Has to fine-tune the web service handshake and content massaging Has the potential to become the first fully developed Rich Text Editor control in Silverlight Has to complete the ‘mesh enabling’ step to utilize the power of offline editing FlexWiki - WikiCreate

14. Resources FlexWiki - WikiCreate

15. FlexWiki - WikiCreate Merci!