Re: [docbook-apps] oXygen 9 beta with WYSIWYG-like editing supportfor DocBook

[Dave Pawson <davep@dpawson.co.uk>]

Elliotte Harold wrote:
> Dave Pawson wrote:
> 
>> If you want tags on semantic editing, fine. Use oXygen in that mode.
>> Some users want an alternative non-tagged view, for their own reasons.
>> Please don't knock them for that, they've as much right to use
>> the editor in their way as you have.

> I am arguing that the *user interface for input* should be based on 
> applying semantics rather than applying styles. That is, I do not want 
> the buttons to say "Make this bold" or "make this italic". Instead I 
> want them to indicate "Emphasize this" or "Foreign word".

Why? If the target user is not 'tags aware' then why make another hurdle
for them to jump?


> 
> If the marked up text then appears on the screen as bold or italic or 
> whatever, that's fine. No one has to look at the tags.

Yet you'd have them think about the styling step when it's not 
necessary? For some users, big and bold and centred is meaningful.
section/title is not.

> 
> I also suspect it would help to have a convenient way of editing the 
> styles so one can tell the app things like, "please make citations 
> quoted, not italicized".

See Georges later post.
That's the level of flexibility we are getting towards. A word like 
view, with docbook output.

> 
> However we're never going to get there if we just try to copy Word. We 
> don't need to make the interface good for Word users. 

I'd beg to differ there. Weaning a user off word towards semantic markup
is 95% a people issue. The more we can do to help them make that step
the better IMHO.

regards


-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT, XSL-FO and Docbook FAQ
http://www.dpawson.co.uk