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

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

Javi wrote:
> Dave wrote:
>> For users used to M$ Word it is quite a transition. 'Leading' them 
>> gently  from bold and underline and italic to semantic markup should 
>> be made as easy as possible, even if it upsets the hard line semantic 
>> folks.
> Elliotte wrote:
>> However I do think that if the user just wants to do simple bolding 
>> and italicizing of text, then they just want to do presentation-based, 
>> non-semantic markup. And indeed they probably do want that, and that's 
>> OK. But if so they should be using Word, not DocBook.
> I must totally agree with Elliotte. I do usually agree with Dave in most 
> of his ideas, but not in this one. If someone wants to write a 
> presentation-based document, DocBook is not a good selection. There are 
> much better things for this (quark, pagemaker, even word or openoffice). 
> There doesn't exist the right thing for everyone, the program everyone 
> will use.

Yes... but I think the context of oXygen 9 is quite 'new'?
The mode of working with O9(oXygen vsn 9) isn't a tags view of XML.
In that respect it's trying to bridge the gap between what 'we' do
and what the majority of the world do?
   Hence my cry for a little patience with new users?


> 
> I think, Dave, the idea is a change or perspective. You say, to make a 
> gentle transition from Word to DocBook, let's make the markup less 
> semantic so we come closer to Word.
> 
> Let me give you another perspective. If someone is using Word and he 
> thinks about using some other tool, it's because Word doesn't give him 
> what he wants. If he chooses DocBook it will be due to it's semantic 
> markup and the separation between presentation and structure. You can't 
> then offer him a tool with the same options as his old one.

There may be others reasons (the big boss said so :-).
No, not the same options. Just reducing the level of change?
Try to make the transition a little easier?

Pedro, later in this thread, notes the difficulty of transitioning
from Word to XML. *Anything* that makes that a little easier is a big 
help in my opinion.


> 
> I accept that oXygen people have a challenge, how to make this 
> transition a gentle experience. But I don't think the way is to diminish 
> the power of the tool and of the underlying model.

I'm not sure how this will diminish the power of the tool?
It's a bit of CSS, no more.


  Novel ideas and
> imagination will win in this task, don't get always the effortless way.

No, I think the users will have to use a lot of effort.
(I also have seen lots of rebellion too!)

regards


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