Re: spell checking and search woes

If I can add my humble point of view here, the real limit in Amaya as 
Web editor is the total absence of directory management.

I don't know if anyone use Amaya to manage 
DB-Driven-large-e-business-e-procurement-customer-adaptive-dynamic-Web-site 
but I think that specific tools such as Visual Studio .NET with .NET 
framework are needed.

But to managing document Web sites Amaya is excellent as editor to well 
format documents but not to manages file and directory into the Web 
site. So when you have the (insane) idea to change some 
Web-sub-directory names Amaya doesn't provide any automatic adjustments 
to the pages code. I totally dislike to use others Web tool to do this 
(especially like Front Page) because those tools frequently change part 
of pages code if you don't configure them very well (for instance they 
add lots of meta tag).

So, in others and fewer words, sometimes Amaya requires a lot of manual 
work.

R'grds

Cristiano Guglielmetti
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/guglielmetti/

Peter Kerr wrote:
> 
> On 24/02/2006, at 11:07 PM, Tom Cloyd wrote:
> 
>> Amaya users, lovers, and developers:
>>
>> I continue to be baffled and frustrated by how spell checking and 
>> search works in Amaya, and want to comment about why this is a problem 
>> for me.
>>
>> The most fundamental problem is Amaya's insistence on being 
>> idiosyncratic. A number of thoughtful people have written about 
>> problems associated with user interface design - be it web sites or 
>> application programs. As I read this material, what I encounter 
>> repeatedly is the idea that one should NOT surprise the user, that it 
>> is best to know what they expect and then to deliver it. In other 
>> words, simply make the user happy, rather than making them work 
>> needlessly to figure out your interface.
> 
> In an ideal world, yes. Especially when the user is paying a vendor for 
> commercial software, the vendor usually tries to satisfy the customers' 
> desires. How much would you be prepared to pay for Amaya if it did most 
> of what you want? It can never be all things to all people. But I agree 
> with you (without acknowledging this is good or bad) that at present it 
> tends to follow the FOSS lowest common denominator. I give Amaya some 
> latitude here, because it has to satisfy users of different platforms. 
> And quite a few of those users, and I suspect of the developers, use 
> Linux distros where the user is expected to have to tweak things for 
> himself.
> 
> ...
>> Say that I want to spell check an 18 page document I've just written 
>> in Amaya (this was the case last night). I already know that I can't 
>> predict what will happen when I push F7 to start the spell check 
>> function. Sometimes it just won't work. Other times it immediately 
>> opens the structure window and starts checking the text in THAT window 
>> (WHAT??? WHY?? I don't want this at all. What just happened? < - 
>> that's what I'm thinking at this point.) It's so simple: when I press 
>> F7 I want a spell check of the text in the window which currently has 
>> focus. Nothing more, nothing less. I do NOT want something strange and 
>> unexpected to happen. Why can't I have this? Too often I just give up, 
>> load my web page into another editor and use that, because it simply 
>> always works like I expect it to work. Why doesn't Amaya give me this 
>> experience?
> 
> Well, Amaya is an editor and a browser/verifier. Combining "composer" 
> and "browser" may be Amaya's fault. A browser will not normally allow 
> you to change text in its window. Perhaps a MS style dialog is wanted?
> 
>     You are spell checking in a browser window.
>     Any changes may do bad things to your formatting.
>                                        [ OK ]
> 
> ...
>> Next, I want to do a search of my text. What's my expectation? That 
>> I'm going to have to do too much thinking, and that maybe I'll get it 
>> to work, but just as often I won't. Too often. The search function 
>> opens with "Checking...after selection" as the default option checked. 
>> WHY???? No other program I use does this. I practically NEVER want this.
> 
> Ahh, I nearly always want this. I'm trying to remember back how many of 
> my word/text processors always started a search from the top, maybe 2. 
> Now I know that I can select in the search box "From top" if I don't 
> want the default of "from current position" and Amaya has this like all 
> my other editors.
> 
> ...
>> If you're thinking at this point, "he just doesn't understand, so 
>> let's explain it to him", you're headed the wrong direction. The goal 
>> is to not HAVE to explain, with very basic functions like spell check 
>> and search, is it not? It's like web site navigation - if it's not 
>> obvious how to work it, then the design's wrong. It has to be obvious. 
>> End of discussion.
> 
> How about I don't explain, but just try to make excuses ;-)
> Human Interface Design is the top end of operating system development. 
> It takes an unfortunately large amount of effort in developing 
> applications which have to work cross-platform. I use almost daily 
> Windows 2k, XP, MacOS-X, and less frequently a flavor or 3 of Linux, and 
> MacOS 9. It's often hard work remembering what this button does, or that 
> keystroke, in those which are not my chosen favorite. Even "mature" 
> applications with years of user feedback, still break users' 
> expectations with new version releases (Word anyone?)
> 
> ...
>> Please, is there any chance this can be fixed in the near future?
> 
> Sorry to harp on the commercial theme, but fixing things takes time and 
> effort. There's plenty of shareware around at US$30 - $50 which is less 
> functional, polished or standards compliant than Amaya. Amaya is 
> excellent value at its current price. Enough dirty words, a quote from 
> the home page:
> 
>    Amaya is an open source software project hosted by W3C.
>    You are invited to <a 
> href=http://www.w3.org/Amaya/Actors.html#contribute>
>    contribute</a> in many forms (documentation, translation,
>    writing code, fixing bugs, porting to other platforms...).
> 
> 
> BTW I do like your web page layout, Tom.
> 
> Peter Kerr
> School of Music
> University of Auckland,  New Zealand
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


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Received on Sunday, 26 February 2006 00:02:15 UTC