Last modified: 2007-04-24 20:39:46 UTC
wikibits.js / insertTags was originally designed for wrapping selected text with start and end tags. Later it was used as a cheap way to enter arbitrary characters not on the keyboard since it already handled various browsers etc. Later again the charinsert extension gave us a new tag to make it easier to create sections of useful but hard to type characters. Now insertTags is probably used a lot more for charinsert than for inserting tags. We probably need a new function "insertChar" or "insertSpecial" designed especially as an extension to the keyboard. It may be impossible to edit the browser URL bar with javascript but it should be possible to edit all text input elements in all forms. It would be particularly useful for entering search terms. Wikis that use a lot of <charinsert> (like the English Wiktionary) will also become slightly less bloated with a dedicated function that takes fewer parameters than insertTags.
See also bug 9592
Doesn't really sound feasible. Used where applicable for edittools as is, but you're limited in what you can support.