Re: DSSSL and WYSIWYG Editing

Chris Lilley wrote:

> 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.

I think we are in agreement here.  We have plenty of ways to enable the
power user. The difficulty from a design standpoint is ensuring that the
average user can be productive.

>
>
> > 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.

That is certainly a viable approach.

>
>
> > 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.

That will be possible in some cases and not in others. For example, if
your editor supports DOM, you might want to enable the processing of
scripting features which do not alter the document. However, the editor
might want to disable "document.write" unless in preview mode.

>
>
> > 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...

In a former life, I worked on a product called Pages by Pages Software
(the company is now out of business). Pages was a WYSIWYG  structured
document editor that separated content/structure/style. A user could
create elegant looking documents and simple by changing the style sheet,
change the entire look for you document . It made for great demos, but
it was on the wrong platform (NeXTStep). Needless to say, I'm still a
very strong advocated for stylesheets and for providing people with
great authoring tools.

>
>
> > 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



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Greg Kostello                        mailto://kostello@digitalstyle.com
DigitalStyle Corporation                   http://www.digitalstyle.com/
10875 Rancho Bernardo Road, Suite 110             voice: (619) 618-2222
San Diego, CA 92127                                 fax: (619) 673-5054
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