Alternative page syntax ideas

[jhelvy]

Description

Right now we use Quarto fences (:::) to denote pages in surveydown. You have to denote both the start and end of each page, like this:

::: {.sd_page id=page1}

This is the page 1 content

```{r}
sd_next()
```

:::

::: {.sd_page id=page2}

This is the page 2 content

:::

In watching people make surveydown surveys, I've noticed two issues:

1. People often get the syntax wrong, e.g. mixing .sd-page with .sd_page, or id: welcome instead of id=welcome
2. People often forget to include the closing ::: at the end of the page

With this in mind, I'm curious how people think about an alternative page syntax, something simpler and more shorthand. Here's an example:

--- page1

This is the page 1 content

--- page2

This is the page 2 content

With this syntax, we no longer need to remember the closing page :::, and we no longer need to remember syntax like : vs = for the page ID. We just put the --- followed by the page ID directly.

In addition, notice how I included the sd_next() in the first example, but not in the second. I think we could set it up so that a next button with a default label is always inserted at the end of the page if one is not detected. That way the user can avoid having to keep inserting sd_next() all the time. Most of the time respondents go to the next page anyway. Of course, if you had some custom logic where you wanted to change the next button label or go to a different page, you could still just use sd_next().

Overall I think this would be a much simpler UI. The good news is I think we could achieve this while still remaining backwards compatible with the current syntax. We just update the lua filter we currently use to detect this. In fact, I think we could mix and match the two syntaxes and still make it work (though this would not be recommended).

What do you think?

[david-lippert]

I like this. It seems clean, but also, if you have a User Interface (UI), then the backend implementation can be hidden. Ideally the backend implementation is following a standard and has been thought through. I suppose I'm being as clear as mud, but I'm fine with you keeping Quarto fences as your backend implementation standard and then hiding and simplifying things on the front end. I need to kick the tires on surveydown and the UI to give you a better answer.

[jhelvy]

That's essentially the idea. The fences syntax is what Quarto understands and interprets into pages, but we could introduce this simpler syntax and add a filter that runs while rendering that interprets this syntax and converts it into what Quarto understands. The user wouldn't know anything different, but the syntax for specifying pages is greatly simplified so they can just focus on their content.