Re: DSSSL and WYSIWYG Editing

On May 7, 10:44am, Greg Kostello wrote:

> Daniel Veillard wrote:

> >   A very simple solution to this problem is to have a multi-view
> > editor.
> > For example in Amaya there is a WYSIWYG view as well as a structure
> > view
> > showing the content.

> IMHO, people who are SGML-literate are more comfortable with structured
> views of documents. Mere mortals(tm) seem frightened and confused by
> structured views.

Yes, perhaps - but the structured view is only presented if one wants it.
The default view (at leas, in Amaya) is the WYSIWYG view that shows the
styles applied to the text. Just like you would see in a CSS-enabled
browser such as NS 4.0 or MSIE 3.0 - except that you can place the cursor
somewhere and start typing.

Also, the structured view is not a "view source". There are no angle
brackets to scare people. The tree structure of the document is exposed
for those that want it, however.

> So my question -- how do you give the power of style sheets to the
> masses?

Actually I think that the Amaya method is quite nice for "the masses/grand
public". Select text, pick a color, pick line spacing etc off palettes.
Amaya inserts an inline STYLE attribute. Want to re-use that look somewhere
else? Amaya lets you give that look a name (which causes it to be made into
a CSS rule, with an automatically generated selector, in the STYLE element in
the head of the document) and you can then choose that name from a list
anytime you want. Which is vastly easier that doing it with tags.

> Multiple views of documents are bound to confuse

Only if they are all presented at once. And as Daniel says:

> > An alternate view also provide an way to see how the document would
> > render on a text terminal.

When authors start getting beat up about the Americans with Disabilities
Act and "your document doesn't work in Lynx" being able to open another
live window to see the text view is very handy - edits in any window
being automatically reflected in the others. Far less confusing than
trying to run multiple browsers *plus* an editor and remembering to hit
reload each time you want to preview.

>  the person who
> just wants to write a document and have it look "correct."

The illusion that what they see is what everyone else sees can be
maintained for the naive user by only opening the WYSIWYG view, which
is the default view in Amaya.

> Sure, the
> power user doesn't mind previewing his or her document to test a script,
> but the power user is trying to solve a very different problem.

The power user wil appreciate not having to "preview" as a separate stage,
but instead getting constant feedback as they edit.

> I think very complex layout, complete with attributed content can be
> provided without forcing the user to think structure, scripts or
> schemes.. ( I know because I worked on such a product in a past life.)

So, tell us more...

> DigitalStyle Corporation                  http://www.digitalstyle.com/

Does DigitalStyle Websuite support CSS by the way? I found something that
looked as if such support might be planned:

http://www.digitalstyle.com/http://www.digitalstyle.com/noframe/other/ssheets.html

But nothing in the features list that said that CSS was supported. Can you
clarify?

-- 
Chris Lilley, W3C                          [ http://www.w3.org/ ]
Graphics and Fonts Guy            The World Wide Web Consortium
http://www.w3.org/people/chris/              INRIA,  Projet W3C
chris@w3.org                       2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
+33 (0)4 93 65 79 87       06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Received on Sunday, 11 May 1997 14:08:18 UTC