Re: [docbook] Re: XML Editors

[Janning Vygen <vygen@gmx.de>]

Am Mittwoch, 30. April 2003 17:56 schrieb Dave Pawson:
> At 08:54 30/04/2003 +0200, Steinar Bang wrote:
> >I use GNU Emacs/psgml, which works great for me, with DTD-aware
> >element insertion and attribute editing, XML tree navigation and
> >editing, folding, and validation.  But I wouldn't dream of even
> >_proposing_ it to someone who today uses MSWord.
>
> Sigh. I tried it.
> Now I'd follow that advice.
> I got some really funny looks  when I showed them emacs+psgml.

Does any XML editor discussion  just show us, how difficult it is to 
let an end user edit XML? Doesn't the end user always have to know 
some markup to understand what his editor does?

I am using XML a lot and i am editing in emacs and its fine. And some 
customers of mine are editing their XML stuff in raw text editors 
too. after teaching XML in half a day they managed it. 

every wysiwig editor i know has problems. It is not end user 
compatible OR isnt flexible enough.
 
But on the other hand: XMLEditors are always compared with Word. But 
how many users can really use word? They can set a font, a font size, 
bold, centering and thats it. Most people use word like an enhanced 
text editor. 

So i think to edit XML by an end user you need a reduced XML Editor. 

For docbook it would be fine to have an editor just doing the simple 
stuff and maybe have a text mode in behind for advanced users. 

90% of all editing from the user perspective is
 - paragraphs
 - bold (means emphasis of course)
 - linking
 - add a graphic
 - add a list
 - tables 

i would like to have an editor just doing this in a word-like way 
(with nice buttons and stuff like this) Most users don't really need 
more. 

kind regards,
janning