Here's the application: We have Zope and Plone installed and working for some months. We also installed BackTalk and CMFBackTalk in order to publish docs with inline comments in Plone. Works but there must be a better way. Let me explain: We create our documents in OpenOffice (OO) and then cut and paste them into stx docs. This works fine. However to use stx you have to indent each heading/content level. I can do this in a paragraph indent scenario like this with a BackTalk comment example: -------- This is a Heading This paragraph has the first line indented but all of the other lines will wrap over to start flush with the margine. This is how it should work so that I can cut my content after commenting and paste in back in my OO doc. It also turns 'This is a Heading' into a heading. I can continue with first line indents in order to generate different heading levels.<p> % this is a comment -------- When I do this, first of all I don't get a comment icon unless I break the rules (i.e. no inline html) and enter a <p> at the end of the paragraph where I want it. However this creates another problem. Once the comment is entered, since it is indented it makes the paragraph above it a heading. It also removes the comment icon once a comment is entered. However if I do this: ------------ This is a Heading The paragraph following is created by indenting the entire paragraph / and having to enter CR's at the end of each line. Boy this makes it a pain to enter the text into word processor afterwards. % the comment is indented again but doesn't turn the above paragraph into a heading ----------- This works. The paragraph above the comment doesn't become a heading and the comment icon remains meaning I can enter as many comments for one paragraph as I like. This really sucks when I want to paste it back into OO. What am I doing wrong? Is our process wrong? i.e. "create doc in OO -> copy to stx -> comment with BackTalk --> copy back to OO for formatting and delivery to client as .doc" Thanks. - Asad
Structured text has some well-known idiosyncrasies. One of these is that a body paragraph is defined as a block of lines followed by a carriage return where each line is indented to the same number of characters. Another is that a "heading" is defined as a single line of text followed by a carriage return and a further-indented block of text. Your examples show that you've created something that you think is a body paragraph, although structured text rules consider it a heading because it has no line breaks. Structured text has these idiosyncrasies because one of its tenets is that its source should be as "human-readable" as its rendering. For an example of "correct" structured text formatting, see http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ScriptingZope.st... (and its rendering at http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ScriptingZope.st...). You're not doing anything wrong, really, but BackTalk does make the assumption that you are willing to author your content in structured text (this is mentioned prominently in the docs). If you step outside the bounds of structured text, your formatting will suffer, as you've found out. I'd suggest using an indent-aware text editor instead of OpenOffice. I use emacs in "indented-text-mode" via External Editor. BackTalk can also create PDFs, so if you're comfortable with editing like this, you can deliver PDFs to your customer instead of .doc files. On the other hand, if structured text is hamstringing you, you might want to consider using something other than BackTalk, because it's nontrivial to teach it to use an input format different than structured text. On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 10:49, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Here's the application:
We have Zope and Plone installed and working for some months. We also installed BackTalk and CMFBackTalk in order to publish docs with inline comments in Plone. Works but there must be a better way. Let me explain:
We create our documents in OpenOffice (OO) and then cut and paste them into stx docs. This works fine. However to use stx you have to indent each heading/content level. I can do this in a paragraph indent scenario like this with a BackTalk comment example: -------- This is a Heading
This paragraph has the first line indented but all of the other lines will wrap over to start flush with the margine. This is how it should work so that I can cut my content after commenting and paste in back in my OO doc. It also turns 'This is a Heading' into a heading. I can continue with first line indents in order to generate different heading levels.<p>
% this is a comment --------
When I do this, first of all I don't get a comment icon unless I break the rules (i.e. no inline html) and enter a <p> at the end of the paragraph where I want it. However this creates another problem. Once the comment is entered, since it is indented it makes the paragraph above it a heading. It also removes the comment icon once a comment is entered.
However if I do this: ------------ This is a Heading
The paragraph following is created by indenting the entire paragraph / and having to enter CR's at the end of each line. Boy this makes it a pain to enter the text into word processor afterwards.
% the comment is indented again but doesn't turn the above paragraph into a heading -----------
This works. The paragraph above the comment doesn't become a heading and the comment icon remains meaning I can enter as many comments for one paragraph as I like. This really sucks when I want to paste it back into OO.
What am I doing wrong? Is our process wrong? i.e. "create doc in OO -> copy to stx -> comment with BackTalk --> copy back to OO for formatting and delivery to client as .doc"
Thanks.
- Asad
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
Thanks Chris, The reason I am trying to use OO vs. something like emacs is that as we propose the use of Zope/Plone to our clients we want to offer them a solution which they will understand in the context of a world of word processors. It is difficult for someone to convert their word processor-based training manuals, for example, into a BackTalk book based on how structured text works. I don't mind emacs but clients won't feel quite as comfortable. Any thoughts on this? Chris McDonough wrote:
Structured text has some well-known idiosyncrasies. One of these is that a body paragraph is defined as a block of lines followed by a carriage return where each line is indented to the same number of characters. Another is that a "heading" is defined as a single line of text followed by a carriage return and a further-indented block of text. Your examples show that you've created something that you think is a body paragraph, although structured text rules consider it a heading because it has no line breaks. Structured text has these idiosyncrasies because one of its tenets is that its source should be as "human-readable" as its rendering.
For an example of "correct" structured text formatting, see http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ScriptingZope.st... (and its rendering at http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ScriptingZope.st...).
You're not doing anything wrong, really, but BackTalk does make the assumption that you are willing to author your content in structured text (this is mentioned prominently in the docs). If you step outside the bounds of structured text, your formatting will suffer, as you've found out. I'd suggest using an indent-aware text editor instead of OpenOffice. I use emacs in "indented-text-mode" via External Editor. BackTalk can also create PDFs, so if you're comfortable with editing like this, you can deliver PDFs to your customer instead of .doc files. On the other hand, if structured text is hamstringing you, you might want to consider using something other than BackTalk, because it's nontrivial to teach it to use an input format different than structured text.
On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 10:49, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Here's the application:
We have Zope and Plone installed and working for some months. We also installed BackTalk and CMFBackTalk in order to publish docs with inline comments in Plone. Works but there must be a better way. Let me explain:
We create our documents in OpenOffice (OO) and then cut and paste them into stx docs. This works fine. However to use stx you have to indent each heading/content level. I can do this in a paragraph indent scenario like this with a BackTalk comment example: -------- This is a Heading
This paragraph has the first line indented but all of the other lines will wrap over to start flush with the margine. This is how it should work so that I can cut my content after commenting and paste in back in my OO doc. It also turns 'This is a Heading' into a heading. I can continue with first line indents in order to generate different heading levels.<p>
% this is a comment --------
When I do this, first of all I don't get a comment icon unless I break the rules (i.e. no inline html) and enter a <p> at the end of the paragraph where I want it. However this creates another problem. Once the comment is entered, since it is indented it makes the paragraph above it a heading. It also removes the comment icon once a comment is entered.
However if I do this: ------------ This is a Heading
The paragraph following is created by indenting the entire paragraph / and having to enter CR's at the end of each line. Boy this makes it a pain to enter the text into word processor afterwards.
% the comment is indented again but doesn't turn the above paragraph into a heading -----------
This works. The paragraph above the comment doesn't become a heading and the comment icon remains meaning I can enter as many comments for one paragraph as I like. This really sucks when I want to paste it back into OO.
What am I doing wrong? Is our process wrong? i.e. "create doc in OO -> copy to stx -> comment with BackTalk --> copy back to OO for formatting and delivery to client as .doc"
Thanks.
- Asad
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
I've found out through experience that most non-programmers find it very dificult to understand and use Structured Text. Grokking STX requires thinking about computerized text in a way that makes no sense to most users, although it is very natural for programmers. Structuring by indentation, the relevance of whitespace and many other STX rules are only "intuitive" for us. Also, to be productive in STX you must use a programmer's editor, and they don't behave like user's expect. Word and Notepad simply don't work for STX editing (auto-indent is missing, for one thing). After a few failed attempts, we gave up trying to push STX as a solution to non-techies. We now use a WYSIWIG editor which unfortunately is only IE 5.5/6.0 compatible (this is not a real problem for our intranet clients, who already have standardized around IE). We are actively looking for a Mozilla compatible WYSIWYG editor. As a final note, I'd like to say that personally I like very much the idea of STX and think the current implementation is very useful and useable. But I am not a typical end-user at all: believe it or not, I am one of the people who invented the "ASCII Ribbon" campaign against the use of HTML in e-mails... --------- /"\ \ / Campanha da Fita ASCII - Diga NAO ao HTML em emails X ASCII Ribbon Campaign - Say NO to HTML in email / \ --------- Luciano On quarta-feira, fev 26, 2003, at 16:54 America/Sao_Paulo, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Thanks Chris,
The reason I am trying to use OO vs. something like emacs is that as we propose the use of Zope/Plone to our clients we want to offer them a solution which they will understand in the context of a world of word processors. It is difficult for someone to convert their word processor-based training manuals, for example, into a BackTalk book based on how structured text works. I don't mind emacs but clients won't feel quite as comfortable.
Any thoughts on this?
Chris McDonough wrote:
Structured text has some well-known idiosyncrasies. One of these is that a body paragraph is defined as a block of lines followed by a carriage return where each line is indented to the same number of characters. Another is that a "heading" is defined as a single line of text followed by a carriage return and a further-indented block of text. Your examples show that you've created something that you think is a body paragraph, although structured text rules consider it a heading because it has no line breaks. Structured text has these idiosyncrasies because one of its tenets is that its source should be as "human-readable" as its rendering.
For an example of "correct" structured text formatting, see http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ ScriptingZope.stx/document_src (and its rendering at http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ ScriptingZope.stx).
You're not doing anything wrong, really, but BackTalk does make the assumption that you are willing to author your content in structured text (this is mentioned prominently in the docs). If you step outside the bounds of structured text, your formatting will suffer, as you've found out. I'd suggest using an indent-aware text editor instead of OpenOffice. I use emacs in "indented-text-mode" via External Editor. BackTalk can also create PDFs, so if you're comfortable with editing like this, you can deliver PDFs to your customer instead of .doc files. On the other hand, if structured text is hamstringing you, you might want to consider using something other than BackTalk, because it's nontrivial to teach it to use an input format different than structured text.
On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 10:49, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Here's the application:
We have Zope and Plone installed and working for some months. We also installed BackTalk and CMFBackTalk in order to publish docs with inline comments in Plone. Works but there must be a better way. Let me explain:
We create our documents in OpenOffice (OO) and then cut and paste them into stx docs. This works fine. However to use stx you have to indent each heading/content level. I can do this in a paragraph indent scenario like this with a BackTalk comment example: -------- This is a Heading
This paragraph has the first line indented but all of the other lines will wrap over to start flush with the margine. This is how it should work so that I can cut my content after commenting and paste in back in my OO doc. It also turns 'This is a Heading' into a heading. I can continue with first line indents in order to generate different heading levels.<p>
% this is a comment --------
When I do this, first of all I don't get a comment icon unless I break the rules (i.e. no inline html) and enter a <p> at the end of the paragraph where I want it. However this creates another problem. Once the comment is entered, since it is indented it makes the paragraph above it a heading. It also removes the comment icon once a comment is entered.
However if I do this: ------------ This is a Heading
The paragraph following is created by indenting the entire paragraph / and having to enter CR's at the end of each line. Boy this makes it a pain to enter the text into word processor afterwards.
% the comment is indented again but doesn't turn the above paragraph into a heading -----------
This works. The paragraph above the comment doesn't become a heading and the comment icon remains meaning I can enter as many comments for one paragraph as I like. This really sucks when I want to paste it back into OO.
What am I doing wrong? Is our process wrong? i.e. "create doc in OO -> copy to stx -> comment with BackTalk --> copy back to OO for formatting and delivery to client as .doc"
Thanks.
- Asad
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
I agree with your analysis on STX, programmers, and end-users. I am looking for an editing solution that is user-friendly for non-technical users. Does the IE WYSIWYG editor produce STX? Is it producing HTML and delivering via WEBDAV? I'd love to know which editor your are using, why & how you are using it. Thanks. Luciano Ramalho wrote:
I've found out through experience that most non-programmers find it very dificult to understand and use Structured Text.
Grokking STX requires thinking about computerized text in a way that makes no sense to most users, although it is very natural for programmers. Structuring by indentation, the relevance of whitespace and many other STX rules are only "intuitive" for us. Also, to be productive in STX you must use a programmer's editor, and they don't behave like user's expect. Word and Notepad simply don't work for STX editing (auto-indent is missing, for one thing).
After a few failed attempts, we gave up trying to push STX as a solution to non-techies. We now use a WYSIWIG editor which unfortunately is only IE 5.5/6.0 compatible (this is not a real problem for our intranet clients, who already have standardized around IE).
We are actively looking for a Mozilla compatible WYSIWYG editor.
As a final note, I'd like to say that personally I like very much the idea of STX and think the current implementation is very useful and useable. But I am not a typical end-user at all: believe it or not, I am one of the people who invented the "ASCII Ribbon" campaign against the use of HTML in e-mails...
--------- /"\ \ / Campanha da Fita ASCII - Diga NAO ao HTML em emails X ASCII Ribbon Campaign - Say NO to HTML in email / \ ---------
Luciano
On quarta-feira, fev 26, 2003, at 16:54 America/Sao_Paulo, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Thanks Chris,
The reason I am trying to use OO vs. something like emacs is that as we propose the use of Zope/Plone to our clients we want to offer them a solution which they will understand in the context of a world of word processors. It is difficult for someone to convert their word processor-based training manuals, for example, into a BackTalk book based on how structured text works. I don't mind emacs but clients won't feel quite as comfortable.
Any thoughts on this?
Chris McDonough wrote:
Structured text has some well-known idiosyncrasies. One of these is that a body paragraph is defined as a block of lines followed by a carriage return where each line is indented to the same number of characters. Another is that a "heading" is defined as a single line of text followed by a carriage return and a further-indented block of text. Your examples show that you've created something that you think is a body paragraph, although structured text rules consider it a heading because it has no line breaks. Structured text has these idiosyncrasies because one of its tenets is that its source should be as "human-readable" as its rendering.
For an example of "correct" structured text formatting, see http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ ScriptingZope.stx/document_src (and its rendering at http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ ScriptingZope.stx).
You're not doing anything wrong, really, but BackTalk does make the assumption that you are willing to author your content in structured text (this is mentioned prominently in the docs). If you step outside the bounds of structured text, your formatting will suffer, as you've found out. I'd suggest using an indent-aware text editor instead of OpenOffice. I use emacs in "indented-text-mode" via External Editor. BackTalk can also create PDFs, so if you're comfortable with editing like this, you can deliver PDFs to your customer instead of .doc files. On the other hand, if structured text is hamstringing you, you might want to consider using something other than BackTalk, because it's nontrivial to teach it to use an input format different than structured text.
On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 10:49, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Here's the application:
We have Zope and Plone installed and working for some months. We also installed BackTalk and CMFBackTalk in order to publish docs with inline comments in Plone. Works but there must be a better way. Let me explain:
We create our documents in OpenOffice (OO) and then cut and paste them into stx docs. This works fine. However to use stx you have to indent each heading/content level. I can do this in a paragraph indent scenario like this with a BackTalk comment example: -------- This is a Heading
This paragraph has the first line indented but all of the other lines will wrap over to start flush with the margine. This is how it should work so that I can cut my content after commenting and paste in back in my OO doc. It also turns 'This is a Heading' into a heading. I can continue with first line indents in order to generate different heading levels.<p>
% this is a comment --------
When I do this, first of all I don't get a comment icon unless I break the rules (i.e. no inline html) and enter a <p> at the end of the paragraph where I want it. However this creates another problem. Once the comment is entered, since it is indented it makes the paragraph above it a heading. It also removes the comment icon once a comment is entered.
However if I do this: ------------ This is a Heading
The paragraph following is created by indenting the entire paragraph / and having to enter CR's at the end of each line. Boy this makes it a pain to enter the text into word processor afterwards.
% the comment is indented again but doesn't turn the above paragraph into a heading -----------
This works. The paragraph above the comment doesn't become a heading and the comment icon remains meaning I can enter as many comments for one paragraph as I like. This really sucks when I want to paste it back into OO.
What am I doing wrong? Is our process wrong? i.e. "create doc in OO -> copy to stx -> comment with BackTalk --> copy back to OO for formatting and delivery to client as .doc"
Thanks.
- Asad
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
The latest Mozilla includes a rich text editor you might want to have a look at. Regards, Fernando
-----Original Message----- From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of Asad Quraishi Sent: quarta-feira, 26 de Fevereiro de 2003 22:00 To: Luciano Ramalho Cc: Chris McDonough; zope@zope.org; Stephen Brown Subject: Re: [Zope] Structured text is inconvenient esp. w BackTalk
I agree with your analysis on STX, programmers, and end-users. I am looking for an editing solution that is user-friendly for non-technical users.
Does the IE WYSIWYG editor produce STX? Is it producing HTML and delivering via WEBDAV? I'd love to know which editor your are using, why & how you are using it.
Thanks.
Luciano Ramalho wrote:
I've found out through experience that most non-programmers find it very dificult to understand and use Structured Text.
Grokking STX requires thinking about computerized text in a way that makes no sense to most users, although it is very natural for programmers. Structuring by indentation, the relevance of whitespace and many other STX rules are only "intuitive" for us. Also, to be productive in STX you must use a programmer's editor, and they don't behave like user's expect. Word and Notepad simply don't work for STX editing (auto-indent is missing, for one thing).
After a few failed attempts, we gave up trying to push STX as a solution to non-techies. We now use a WYSIWIG editor which unfortunately is only IE 5.5/6.0 compatible (this is not a real problem for our intranet clients, who already have standardized around IE).
We are actively looking for a Mozilla compatible WYSIWYG editor.
As a final note, I'd like to say that personally I like very much the idea of STX and think the current implementation is very useful and useable. But I am not a typical end-user at all: believe it or not, I am one of the people who invented the "ASCII Ribbon" campaign against the use of HTML in e-mails...
--------- /"\ \ / Campanha da Fita ASCII - Diga NAO ao HTML em emails X ASCII Ribbon Campaign - Say NO to HTML in email / \ ---------
Luciano
On quarta-feira, fev 26, 2003, at 16:54 America/Sao_Paulo, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Thanks Chris,
The reason I am trying to use OO vs. something like emacs is that as we propose the use of Zope/Plone to our clients we want to offer them a solution which they will understand in the context of a world of word processors. It is difficult for someone to convert their word processor-based training manuals, for example, into a BackTalk book based on how structured text works. I don't mind emacs but clients won't feel quite as comfortable.
Any thoughts on this?
Chris McDonough wrote:
Structured text has some well-known idiosyncrasies. One of these is that a body paragraph is defined as a block of lines followed by a carriage return where each line is indented to the same number of characters. Another is that a "heading" is defined as a single line of text followed by a carriage return and a further-indented block of text. Your examples show that you've created something that you think is a body paragraph, although structured text rules consider it a heading because it has no line breaks. Structured text has these idiosyncrasies because one of its tenets is that its source should be as "human-readable" as its rendering.
For an example of "correct" structured text formatting, see http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ ScriptingZope.stx/document_src (and its rendering at http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ ScriptingZope.stx).
You're not doing anything wrong, really, but BackTalk does make the assumption that you are willing to author your content in structured text (this is mentioned prominently in the docs). If you step outside the bounds of structured text, your formatting will suffer, as you've found out. I'd suggest using an indent-aware text editor instead of OpenOffice. I use emacs in "indented-text-mode" via External Editor. BackTalk can also create PDFs, so if you're comfortable with editing like this, you can deliver PDFs to your customer instead of .doc files. On the other hand, if structured text is hamstringing you, you might want to consider using something other than BackTalk, because it's nontrivial to teach it to use an input format different than structured text.
On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 10:49, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Here's the application:
We have Zope and Plone installed and working for some months. We also installed BackTalk and CMFBackTalk in order to publish docs with inline comments in Plone. Works but there must be a better way. Let me explain:
We create our documents in OpenOffice (OO) and then cut and paste them into stx docs. This works fine. However to use stx you have to indent each heading/content level. I can do this in a paragraph indent scenario like this with a BackTalk comment example: -------- This is a Heading
This paragraph has the first line indented but all of the other lines will wrap over to start flush with the margine. This is how it should work so that I can cut my content after commenting and paste in back in my OO doc. It also turns 'This is a Heading' into a heading. I can continue with first line indents in order to generate different heading levels.<p>
% this is a comment --------
When I do this, first of all I don't get a comment icon unless I break the rules (i.e. no inline html) and enter a <p> at the end of the paragraph where I want it. However this creates another problem. Once the comment is entered, since it is indented it makes the paragraph above it a heading. It also removes the comment icon once a comment is entered.
However if I do this: ------------ This is a Heading
The paragraph following is created by indenting the entire paragraph / and having to enter CR's at the end of each line. Boy this makes it a pain to enter the text into word processor afterwards.
% the comment is indented again but doesn't turn the above paragraph into a heading -----------
This works. The paragraph above the comment doesn't become a heading and the comment icon remains meaning I can enter as many comments for one paragraph as I like. This really sucks when I want to paste it back into OO.
What am I doing wrong? Is our process wrong? i.e. "create doc in OO -> copy to stx -> comment with BackTalk --> copy back to OO for formatting and delivery to client as .doc"
Thanks.
- Asad
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
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_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
On quarta-feira, fev 26, 2003, at 18:00 America/Sao_Paulo, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Does the IE WYSIWYG editor produce STX? Is it producing HTML and delivering via WEBDAV? I'd love to know which editor your are using, why & how you are using it.
For several months we've been using the IE Editor for Zope, written by V. Satheesh Babu. You can get it at: - http://vsbabu.org/webdev/zopedev/ieeditor.html It works very well, but only on IE for Windows, versions 5.5 and above. It generates HTML in a textarea which you handle like a regular form field (so this involves no WebDAV). In the product page, Babu says "I should probably make use of MSHTML control since DHTML Editing Control used in this is no longer supported by Microsoft." Anyway, since we like to reduce ties with Microsoft stuff, in the past few days we've donwload a few Mozilla-1.1-based WYSIWYG editors. We haven't been succesful installing ComposIte and another one (I forget which one right now) on two Debian and one MacOS X machine. We are testing on those plaforms first, because we really want something cross-plaform (we don't mind if the solution browser-specific, as long as the browser is open source and multi-platform like Mozilla). We are very interested in a Mozilla-based solution because we feel that is the way to go. Anythinng Java-base is a dead-end for me (re-implementing rich-text rendering within a browser sounds like a very bad idea). A very extensive list of WYSIWYG editors was compiled by Paul Browing, another Zopista: - http://www.bris.ac.uk/is/projects/cms/ttw/ttw.html This is an ongoing investigation for us. When we reach some conclusion I'll let you know. Meanwhile, if anybody has had real world experience deploying any of these Mozilla-based editors, we want to hear from you! Best regards, Luciano
Thanks Luciano, Very good and helpful explanation. Please keep me posted as you learn more and I'll do likewise. - Asad Luciano Ramalho wrote:
On quarta-feira, fev 26, 2003, at 18:00 America/Sao_Paulo, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Does the IE WYSIWYG editor produce STX? Is it producing HTML and delivering via WEBDAV? I'd love to know which editor your are using, why & how you are using it.
For several months we've been using the IE Editor for Zope, written by V. Satheesh Babu. You can get it at: - http://vsbabu.org/webdev/zopedev/ieeditor.html
It works very well, but only on IE for Windows, versions 5.5 and above. It generates HTML in a textarea which you handle like a regular form field (so this involves no WebDAV). In the product page, Babu says "I should probably make use of MSHTML control since DHTML Editing Control used in this is no longer supported by Microsoft."
Anyway, since we like to reduce ties with Microsoft stuff, in the past few days we've donwload a few Mozilla-1.1-based WYSIWYG editors. We haven't been succesful installing ComposIte and another one (I forget which one right now) on two Debian and one MacOS X machine. We are testing on those plaforms first, because we really want something cross-plaform (we don't mind if the solution browser-specific, as long as the browser is open source and multi-platform like Mozilla).
We are very interested in a Mozilla-based solution because we feel that is the way to go. Anythinng Java-base is a dead-end for me (re-implementing rich-text rendering within a browser sounds like a very bad idea).
A very extensive list of WYSIWYG editors was compiled by Paul Browing, another Zopista: - http://www.bris.ac.uk/is/projects/cms/ttw/ttw.html
This is an ongoing investigation for us. When we reach some conclusion I'll let you know. Meanwhile, if anybody has had real world experience deploying any of these Mozilla-based editors, we want to hear from you!
Best regards,
Luciano
I think this is an argument for you to not use BackTalk, unfortunately. For better or worse, it only knows about structured text. In practice STX is not really "compatible" with most word processors unless you work very hard to teach the user and/or word processor to constrain the input, which is of course impractical when you're dealing with nontechnical users and gargantuan office suites. - C On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 14:54, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Thanks Chris,
The reason I am trying to use OO vs. something like emacs is that as we propose the use of Zope/Plone to our clients we want to offer them a solution which they will understand in the context of a world of word processors. It is difficult for someone to convert their word processor-based training manuals, for example, into a BackTalk book based on how structured text works. I don't mind emacs but clients won't feel quite as comfortable.
Any thoughts on this?
Chris McDonough wrote:
Structured text has some well-known idiosyncrasies. One of these is that a body paragraph is defined as a block of lines followed by a carriage return where each line is indented to the same number of characters. Another is that a "heading" is defined as a single line of text followed by a carriage return and a further-indented block of text. Your examples show that you've created something that you think is a body paragraph, although structured text rules consider it a heading because it has no line breaks. Structured text has these idiosyncrasies because one of its tenets is that its source should be as "human-readable" as its rendering.
For an example of "correct" structured text formatting, see http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ScriptingZope.st... (and its rendering at http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/ScriptingZope.st...).
You're not doing anything wrong, really, but BackTalk does make the assumption that you are willing to author your content in structured text (this is mentioned prominently in the docs). If you step outside the bounds of structured text, your formatting will suffer, as you've found out. I'd suggest using an indent-aware text editor instead of OpenOffice. I use emacs in "indented-text-mode" via External Editor. BackTalk can also create PDFs, so if you're comfortable with editing like this, you can deliver PDFs to your customer instead of .doc files. On the other hand, if structured text is hamstringing you, you might want to consider using something other than BackTalk, because it's nontrivial to teach it to use an input format different than structured text.
On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 10:49, Asad Quraishi wrote:
Here's the application:
We have Zope and Plone installed and working for some months. We also installed BackTalk and CMFBackTalk in order to publish docs with inline comments in Plone. Works but there must be a better way. Let me explain:
We create our documents in OpenOffice (OO) and then cut and paste them into stx docs. This works fine. However to use stx you have to indent each heading/content level. I can do this in a paragraph indent scenario like this with a BackTalk comment example: -------- This is a Heading
This paragraph has the first line indented but all of the other lines will wrap over to start flush with the margine. This is how it should work so that I can cut my content after commenting and paste in back in my OO doc. It also turns 'This is a Heading' into a heading. I can continue with first line indents in order to generate different heading levels.<p>
% this is a comment --------
When I do this, first of all I don't get a comment icon unless I break the rules (i.e. no inline html) and enter a <p> at the end of the paragraph where I want it. However this creates another problem. Once the comment is entered, since it is indented it makes the paragraph above it a heading. It also removes the comment icon once a comment is entered.
However if I do this: ------------ This is a Heading
The paragraph following is created by indenting the entire paragraph / and having to enter CR's at the end of each line. Boy this makes it a pain to enter the text into word processor afterwards.
% the comment is indented again but doesn't turn the above paragraph into a heading -----------
This works. The paragraph above the comment doesn't become a heading and the comment icon remains meaning I can enter as many comments for one paragraph as I like. This really sucks when I want to paste it back into OO.
What am I doing wrong? Is our process wrong? i.e. "create doc in OO -> copy to stx -> comment with BackTalk --> copy back to OO for formatting and delivery to client as .doc"
Thanks.
- Asad
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I think this is an argument for you to not use BackTalk, unfortunately. For better or worse, it only knows about structured text. In practice STX is not really "compatible" with most word processors unless you work very hard to teach the user and/or word processor to constrain the input, which is of course impractical when you're dealing with nontechnical users and gargantuan office suites.
Has anybody looked att making an RTF to STX filter? I saw somebody had made a product that wrapped OO documents in a template.... http://www.zope.org/Members/longsleep/CMFOODocument Maybe that's the solution in this case?
participants (5)
-
Asad Quraishi -
Chris McDonough -
Fernando Martins -
Luciano Ramalho -
Steve Drees